Pam Munroe for Comox Valley MLA GREENBOOK 2001

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Green Book 2001--the platform of the Green Party of British Columbia is avaialble on-line at the Green Party of British Columbia web site: http://www.greenparty.bc.ca A MS Word 97 version of the platform is available for downloading here. Go to Green Book

Good Government *

Stimulating BC's Economy *

Improving Quality of Life *

Good Government *

Stimulating BC's Economy *

Improving Quality of Life *

Good Government

• Elect government by a system of mixed proportional representation (electing some Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in proportion to the province-wide vote for a party—i.e., 5 percent vote province-wide for a party translates into 5 percent of these seats in the Legislative Assembly while continuing to elect some MLAs by "the most votes cast" on a regional basis).
• Amend the Recall and Initiatives Act to make citizen-initiated referenda practical and fair. The Green Party of BC does not support referenda that expose minorities to unfair treatment by the majority or referenda on First Nations’ treaties, a woman’s right to abortion or other rights already enshrined in our constitution.
• Decentralize and devolve some powers of the Legislature to municipal and regional elected levels of government (particularly matters of governance for which municipal and regional governments already bear responsibility such as the supply of clean drinking water), in accordance with strict province-wide environmental and social standards.
• Strictly limit behind-closed-door decisions (e.g., "Order in Council" decisions by Cabinet). Require full debate of government decisions in the Legislature.
• Reform political party financing with the goal of eliminating influence peddling. Outlaw political party contributions from large domestic and multi-national corporations, trade unions and financial institutions and encourage more donations from individual citizens by increasing tax rebates at lower donation levels.
• Establish fixed dates for Legislative Assembly  sittings.

Unlike many other jurisdictions in Canada, BC has not negotiated Nation-to-Nation or Government-to-Government agreements that affirm aboriginal rights over First Nations’ traditional territories in much of BC. Current treaty negotiation processes have been ongoing for over a decade. First Nations and the people of British Columbia have borne huge costs in human resources and money in these lengthy negotiations. As long as the aboriginal land question remains unresolved, economic development is impaired and confrontation will increase.

The main recommendation of the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in Canada was the need for mutual recognition of title and rights: that BC and Canada must recognize aboriginal nationhood and the need to reconcile First Nations sovereignty with Canada and BC.  The Supreme Court of Canada, in the Delgamuukw decision, further emphasized the need for negotiation and reconciliation, establishing that First Nations’ rights are inalienable and cannot be unilaterally extinguished.

The Green Party of BC believes that just and fair settlement of the aboriginal land question will benefit everyone in BC. BC’s abundance of natural resources can be fairly shared, so we can all peacefully co-exist.

The Green Party of BC supports aboriginal self-government based on reconciliation of aboriginal title and rights, not assimilation.

The Green Party of BC:

• Places high priority on proceeding with fair and just processes to reconcile First Nation, BC and Canadian sovereignties. Fair negotiations mean that the Government of BC must stop demanding the extinguishment of First Nations’ title and rights as a precondition for any agreement.
• Recognizes that First Nations’ histories and self-governments are distinct according to each First Nation and therefore each process of reconciliation must be individually agreed to by the appropriate First Nation.
• Believes that the processes of reconciliation must establish the ultimate goal of First Nations having control over and access to enough resources to bring First Nations out of poverty and into self-sufficiency.

The Green Party of BC:

• Is opposed to a provincial referendum on First Nations’ treaties.
• Supports negotiating in good faith and with the utmost of haste with First Nations who wish to participate in the treaty process. The Government of BC must stop demanding the extinguishment of First Nations’ title and rights as a condition for any agreement.
• Supports negotiation of interim measures agreements that provide First Nations the right to review and approve or reject activities that would foreclose opportunities that might be obtained through treaty by irrevocably changing their land or their connection to it prior to the final signing of a treaty.

Government needs to be more accountable to the public, less management-top-heavy, and more focused on direct delivery of needed services.

The Green Party of BC supports:

• Establishing a highly independent agency responsible for determining the salaries and benefits of elected governmental officials, for ensuring that appointments to government tribunals, boards and senior civil service are done through a qualification-based process and are not politically motivated patronage appointments, and for dismissing appointees for just cause.
• Capping the time spent by government staff on paperwork and reports and the percentage of each department’s budget spent on senior management to decrease administration costs.
• Allowing departments to carry over budgetary surpluses and/or delaying project funds into the next fiscal year in order to support efficiency and encourage longer-term planning within government departments.
• Shifting from the current executive/top-down models of government administration to more collaborative, team-based systems of management.
• Strengthening the Freedom of Information Act to reduce the time it takes to get information, to eliminate the loopholes used by governments to deny access to public information and to greatly reduce the money currently charged citizens who are exercising their right to access government information.
• Requiring government to meet high environmental standards in its own operations (e.g., in procurements, recycling, healthy building construction and pesticide-free grounds maintenance).

It is important that the BC government lives within its financial means. This means that the BC government must forecast revenues prudently, encourage a healthy BC economy, spend within a balanced budget and expeditiously pay down the debt accumulated through past government over-spending and mismanagement. To achieve long-term fiscal health, the tax system and government policies must incorporate "triple bottom line" accounting, which takes into account economic, social and environmental costs and benefits. Triple bottom line accounting enables government to make wiser decisions about which types of development to encourage, and ensures that government is not left paying huge social, health and "clean-up" costs as a consequence of allowing economic development that only considers economic outcomes.

The Green Party of BC supports:

• Government budgets that include paydown of debt, are prudent in their forecast of revenues, stimulate sustainable sectors of the economy to generate revenue, reduce the fiscal dependency on revenues generated through the depletion of the province’s natural resources and solve budget shortfalls by decreasing spending rather than by incurring new debt.
• Phasing in a comprehensive tax-shifting program to reduce taxes on economic activities beneficial to society and increase taxes on harmful activities e.g. that create pollution or degrade the environment.
• Eliminating government subsidies that involve huge expenditures to maintain short-term jobs (e.g., Skeena Cellulose) at the expense of financial prudence and long-term economic and environmental health.
• Phasing out Provincial Sales Tax (PST) on necessities and products that benefit the environment or our society (such as solar panels, bicycles) and increasing the PST on luxury and non-essential items.
• Requiring triple bottom line accounting practices in all government departments, ministries, budgeting, and all reports to government.
• Switching to economic indicators that measure changes in environmental, economic, and social well being (such as the Genuine Progress Indicator), that value unpaid labour (such as parenting) and count the depletion of natural resources as negatives rather than positives.
• Ending corporate subsidies by ensuring resource users pay appropriate taxes for access to natural resources such as fish stocks, forest resources and minerals and that a portion of this money goes towards an insurance fund to support economic transition strategies, including worker retraining, when needed.

Stimulating BC's Economy

The Green Party of BC believes that government has a role in nurturing a healthy economy and ensuring the sustainable economic use of public resources. Government should not otherwise unduly interfere in the free enterprise system. Green Party MLAs will work towards smart economic growth that does not compromise the health of workers, communities and the environment or the ability of British Columbians to meet our province’s future social and economic needs.

BC is still blessed with a wealth of resources and economic opportunities although they have been diminished and even squandered through government mismanagement and corporate greed. Allowing our renewable resources to be used at unsustainable rates has left fisheries, forestry and many of BC's rural communities in crisis.

The health of BC’s economy is not only hampered by unsustainable resource use but also by concentrating control of resources in too few corporate hands and failing to diversify and add value to products. Our economy has the profile of a third world country—too great a focus on the extraction and sale of primary resources; too little diversification into the more sustainable and higher value sectors of our economy. The BC Government—which allowed the takeover of MacMillan Bloedel by Weyerhaeuser—and the current Opposition Party both support increased corporate control over public resources. Both have advocated, for example, giving large forestry corporations increased subsidies, security and control over BC’s public forests. The Green Party of BC believes that concentrated corporate control of resources undermines economic diversification and the development of a healthy new economy.

The Green Party of BC believes that government has a role in nurturing a healthy economy and ensuring the sustainable economic use of public resources. Government should not otherwise unduly interfere in the free enterprise system. Green Party MLAs will work towards "smart" growth that does not compromise the health of workers, communities and the environment or the ability of British Columbians to meet future social and economic needs. Smart growth recognizes that small-scale business, diversity in activities, value-added products and more local control of resources are the basis of a healthy economy. The Green Party of BC recognizes the need to strengthen sectors of the economy that provide long-term security for British Columbians, especially organic agriculture, wild fisheries, ecoforestry and renewable energy, as well as diversify into "new economy" activities such as eco-certified value-added products, high-end ecotourism and advanced technologies.

Eventually we must achieve a steady state economy that emphasizes quality of life not merely consumption of material goods and we must measure the overall health of our economy through indicators such as the "Genuine Progress Indicator" that value not just economic transactions but the health of our environment, contribution of unpaid workers, and well-being of society as a whole.

• Oppose the privatization of public resources such as water, forests and health care; public utilities such as BC Hydro and municipal water delivery systems; and public services such as highway maintenance and provincial park programs.
• Assert control over British Columbia’s economic, ecological, and social destiny by developing and investing in legal and political strategies that work toward abrogating the North America Free Trade Agreements (FTA, NAFTA), opposing the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS), and dismantling the World Trade Organization (WTO).

• Develop programs and marketing assistance to promote the purchase of local or BC grown and BC manufactured goods, both within BC and internationally.
• Promote greater regional economic self-sufficiency by encouraging local barter systems and provide tax incentives to companies that start up or re-locate to rural communities.
• Create a loan guarantee program to enable credit unions to provide higher risk loans to assist small-scale businesses with capital startup costs. Require that these loans be given only for projects which meet criteria demonstrating that they are ecologically, socially and financially sound.
• Create a special education fund for job retraining that supports workers and communities in economic transition.

Large corporations have an excessive and unhealthy degree of influence and control over resources and the direction of BC’s economy today. The Green Party supports small-scale locally owned business as the basis of a healthy and stable economy because small business encourages employment, community responsibility, economic diversity and helps retain local control of the economy. Green Party MLAs will work to develop a more diverse business community with more small, locally owned business in more industries.

• Mandate the Ministry of Small Business to foster co-operation between all levels of government to provide "one stop shopping" for small businesses, thereby reducing bureaucratic red tape that currently impedes the start up and success of small business.
• Establish a clearing-house for information on economic transition opportunities and resources, as well as regional economic information and analysis that could be accessed by small businesses.
• Provide incentives to business to implement triple bottom line accounting practices and to report on social and environmental considerations in addition to financial considerations.

BC’s forest industry is in a state of crisis, yet the potential of this sector to provide jobs, a diverse range of products and contribute to the economic, social and environmental well being of BC is immense. Under current conditions, employment in this sector has steadily declined. Mills have closed. Raw log exports have increased. Expanding BC’s production of value-added wood products—to diversify out of a historic focus on low-value "commodities" such as pulp and minimally processed lumber—is hampered by many smaller manufacturers’ insufficient access to logs. The forest industry in BC has become increasingly concentrated under a handful of large tenure holders, many of which are foreign-owned. When market prices for pulp and lumber drop, forestry corporations argue for "breaks" in stumpage fees, which reduce government revenues and shortchange the public. In addition, early in 2001, BC citizens discovered they are losing hundreds millions of dollars in government revenues due to the evasion of fair stumpage payments by the big coastal  forestry corporations.

• Establish competitive log markets that sell all logs from public land through open auction and replace the stumpage system with the payment of a percentage tax on the logs sold.
• In the interim, eliminate government subsidies by raising stumpage fees to reflect fair market value. Setting stumpage rates at fair market value will increase government revenues from the cutting of public forests and help avoid U.S. countervailing duties on exports under a softwood lumber agreement.  Return the role of assessing the revenue payable to the BC taxpayer from logging on public land back to government personnel and remove it from company hands.
• Prohibit the export of raw logs.
• Support the highest standards of ecocertified wood products through providing assistance to companies seeking eco-certification and helping market ecocertified BC wood products internationally.
• Create economic incentives through low-interest start-up loans to encourage small, labour-intensive ecoforestry companies and value-added forest product firms. Promote value-added products internationally.
• Replace the Forest Practices Code and the current method of calculating Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) with watershed-by-watershed ecological management plans and cut calculations based on sustained-yield ecoforestry that enhances and protects all forest values, including cultural, fisheries, ecological, tourism and recreation values. This may mean a reduction in cut of 50% or more over the long term. In the interim, reduce the AAC by 30% to match government’s own calculation of a sustainable rate of cut, stop clearcutting, stop the logging of oldgrowth in critical ecosystems, in intact watersheds and where First Nations have not given their approval, and remove the discretionary powers of District Forest Managers to override environmental protection measures.
• Reform the tenure system over time by taking back 50% of the cut currently allocated to major licensees for reallocation to Community and First Nations’ Forest Licenses, woodlot operators and small business (as recommended in the 1991 Forest Resources Commission report). Utilize every opportunity to achieve this tenure reform, including all cases when licenses are sold or transferred at which time government is legally allowed to take back and re-allocate 5% of the license’s AAC.
• Replace Forest Renewal BC with community-based First Nations and locally elected boards (Ecosystem Management Boards) with the mandate to manage their local forests for all values using ecosystem-based principles—to sustain healthy ecosystems, healthy communities and a healthy, mixed local economy—and to manage forest and stream restoration programs. Funding would continue to come from a portion of the taxation on log sales.
• Establish a "funding reserve" to enable increased forest restoration activities (tree-planting and thinning to restore natural forests) under the local Ecosystem Management Boards during downturns in the forest economy (times when market prices for wood products drop).
• Ban the use of herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers in forestry. Encourage non-chemical alternatives. Require a transition to chlorine-free pulp production.
• Develop a licensing system for sustainable commercial harvest of non-timber forest products by local people.
• Develop and implement transition strategies and retraining programs to assist forest workers to adjust to the changes in the forest industry as it moves to sustainable ecoforestry.
• Designate logging as a mandatory certified trade under the Industry  Training and Apprenticeship Act in order to increase worker training, safety, security and quality of workmanship.
• Change the beachcombing (marine salvage) regulations to provide a financial incentive for beachcombers to sell wood on the open market and utilize wood that otherwise is damaging the environment and a hazard to marine navigation.

Wild fisheries in BC have continued to decline due to federal government mismanagement and environmental degradation of the resources and their natural ecosystems. The government has continued with a policy of corporate concentration of this industry through their licensing systems and the encouragement of fish farms and aquaculture to supplant wild fisheries

• Replace the current fishery and aquaculture licensing system with a commercial licensing system that offers first priority to small-scale local fishers and emphasizes selective and terminal fisheries.
• Give First Nations and locally-elected Ecosystem Management Boards a mandate to cooperatively manage their local marine ecosystems for all values, sustainable uses and the long term health of the ecosystems, including managing the local commercial fishery and aquaculture licensing system.
• Promote shellfish mariculture such as oyster farms, where it does not interfere with traditional wild shellfish fisheries and where it does not conflict with other resource users including ecotourism operators.
• Rapidly phase out existing open ocean salmon fish farms and ban any new ones.
• Phase out existing hydro-electricity dams in areas where fisheries and forestry stand to contribute more to the economy than electrical generation does from these dams.
• Legislate the designation of wild fish sanctuaries to protect wild salmon, bull trout and other native species by increasing riparian setbacks, reducing the rate of forest harvesting and by increasing funding for fish stream restoration and natural enhancement initiatives where needed.

Work with the Federal government towards implementing a comprehensive fish conservation policy that includes:

• Re-allocating fisheries back to small owner-operators through the elimination of license-stacking and license-leasing.
• Implementing stream-by-stream plans to rejuvenate wild salmon resources.
• Phasing out less selective seine and gillnet fishing and replacing them with terminal and more selective methods of fishing.
• Designating no-take marine protected areas, aiming at ecologically sound and sustainable marine protected area system, including closing key "nursery areas" to all sport, troll and net fishing.
• Permanently closing bottom trawl fisheries, with a transition plan for affected workers
• Closing all herring fisheries in BC for a minimum of five years to enable resident herring stocks to rebuild.
• Instituting transition plans to help affected workers and First Nation communities cope with fisheries closures that are needed to rebuild wild stocks.

BC has a diverse agriculture industry. Agricultural lands have been protected as an Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) since 1974. However, pressures have increased throughout the province and especially in the Lower Mainland and Okanagan to remove lands from the ALR for development purposes.

The prices paid by consumers in BC for agricultural products are artificially low because BC imports large amounts of subsidized food from other jurisdictions rather than supporting BC farmers. Most of BC’s current farming is not done under organic methods, which has led to large-scale contamination of ground water aquifers and surface water systems with nitrates, bacterial pathogens and other contaminants from agricultural run-off.

The viability of BC agriculture is made more difficult by the loss of traditional genetic biodiversity in crops as multi-national seed companies buy up heritage seed stocks and irrevocably modify their genetic structure. Farmers are faced with increasingly severe crop-damaging weather which accompanies global warming and climate change.

The Green Party believes that people have a right to healthy, uncontaminated food and that BC should strive for domestic food self-sufficiency. Government agricultural policy should follow the principle "Feed BC first" and BC should encourage and expand local organic agriculture and promote genetic diversity in all crops and foods. Green Party MLAs will work to extract BC out of trade agreements that negatively impact our farmers’ ability to compete domestically and internationally.

• Create regulatory and financial incentives for the domestic purchase of local BC grown produce.
• Interim to abrogating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and dismantling the World Trade Organization (WTO), urge the federal government to press for changes to WTO rules in favour of sustainable organic agriculture and domestic food security. Challenge the provisions of NAFTA that stop BC trade barriers which would limit imports of cheap foreign food products in order to give our farmers greater competitiveness.
• Ban the import of animals, plants, seeds, and food products that are genetically modified or contain Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

• Freeze further withdrawals from the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) for commercial, industrial or residential development or for assertions that the "land is idle" and therefore merits withdrawal.
• Develop mechanisms to allow groups of growers or grower co-ops to own and organically farm Agricultural Land Reserve lands.

• Begin phasing out chemical agriculture in favour of organic and GMO-free (Genetically Modified Organism free) agriculture in BC. Provide incentives to farmers (including no-interest loans and tax incentives) to move to organic agriculture, to use soil and water conservation techniques, and to use permaculture approaches that integrate food growing with landscape and habitat protection.
• Increase taxes on chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides to encourage a phase-out of their use and switch to organic agriculture.
• Set up a province-wide heritage seed bank and seed exchange program
• Encourage, through interest-free loans, local community-owned processing facilities.
• Provide support to municipalities that wish to maintain and expand community garden projects
• Expand animal cruelty laws to cover all farming practices, including industrial caged-raised chicken and feedlot farming operations.

• Pass a Food Information Act that requires all food sold in British Columbia, whether packaged or fresh, to have labels listing ingredients with proportions, processing methods (including irradiation, if used), and for animal food products, information as to whether the product was intensively-farmed, free-run, free-range or wild livestock.
• Support direct farm-to-consumer marketing associations (Community Supported Agriculture), local farmers’ markets, farm tours and other initiatives that support family farms and connect local farmers with local consumers.
• Develop tax incentives and marketing support to help farmers internationally market their BC grown organic, non-genetically modified produce and products.

In 1999, the mining industry of BC, including minerals, coal, oil and gas, had a combined production value of over $ 4.5 billion (6% of the Gross Domestic Product). Royalties for coal and gas accounted for over $1 billion in provincial revenue. However, employment in the mining, oil and gas sector has declined for the last 20 years, mainly due to mechanization, and now accounts for only 2% of the total number of jobs in BC. Instability in this industrial sector is also linked to the volatile prices in international markets and the fact that mineral resources are non-renewable. The history of mining in BC is one of boom and bust rural economies and the creation of ghost towns. Pollution is also a major problem. Many areas mined decades ago are still toxic waste sites, requiring enormous cleanup expenditures.

Coal, oil and gas production and consumption are the major cause of global warming. In addition, oil and gas exploration has severely disrupted the ecology of northeastern BC. These industries must gradually be replaced by sources of renewable energy such as solar, wind and tidal ("blue") energy that will not contribute to climate change nor have devastating local negative environmental impacts.

This sector is increasingly being developed to supply foreign markets. The Green Party’s policy on mining and energy is aimed at reducing negative environmental and social impacts and at conserving these resources for domestic use, now and in the future. Programs to recycle metals must be expanded as the costs of recycling are far less than the full economic, social and environmental costs of mineral exploration, extraction, refining and burying "waste" metals in garbage dumps (landfilling).

• Oppose deregulation and privatization of BC Hydro or BC Gas. BC citizens have paid a high price over many years to build dams, gas pipelines and energy transfer systems and they should receive the benefits. Deregulation would allow prices for energy, like natural gas and electricity, to be set by the market place, resulting in higher prices and more profits for private companies—rather than the current system of government regulation of prices for "the public good" and requirement for public hearings on price changes.
• Direct BC Hydro to become an energy transfer system that accepts and pays for energy inputs from all sources.
• Require that 100% of all new energy demand in BC be met through the development of alternative renewable energy sources (e.g., solar, wind, tidal) and by decreasing overall demand through conservation. Encourage BC businesses and residents to decrease consumption by providing tax rebates for energy conservation measures such as installation of solar hot water panels and retro-fitting buildings for conservation.
• Encourage small-scale alternative, renewable energy production through tax incentives or low cost or no-interest loans.
• Prohibit the construction of more new dams, both large and small, because of their detrimental effects on other resources.

• Expand the "mine reclamation fund" by earmarking funds for the clean up and reclamation of old mine sites, including neutralizing acid mine drainage and secure deposits for new mining claims - deposits that will be used for reclamation if the company closes or files for bankruptcy.
• Require that mining proposals incorporate triple bottom line accounting (calculating environmental, social and environmental costs and benefits) and full environmental assessments, including public hearings, regardless of the scale of the mine. Require that all necessary provincial & federal permits and approvals be granted before mine construction begins.
• Require mines to initiate reclamation activity at start-up and to meet specific requirements for successful reclamation as mining proceeds.
• Eliminate all subsidies for mining and mineral developments, including the Mining Exploration BC tax credit and the New Mine Allowance exception to the Taxation Act.
• Deny approval of new mines that would have acid generation from their tailings.
• Phase out coal mining and the use of coal as an energy source.
• Establish cost-based compensation regulations for the expropriation of mineral claims when the property is needed for other land use purposes.

• Recognize that our international commitments under the Kyoto Accord supersede our international trade agreements, and cap the amount of fossil fuels extracted from BC at year 2000 levels.
• Replace environmental and social aspects of the Oil and Gas Commission’s regulatory powers, including reclamation, with an independent non-industry and non-government Monitoring Agency to which the oil and gas industry must report. Mandate this agency to project and make public the long-term domestic demand for oil and gas and estimate the longevity of known reserves at the current rate of extraction.
• Regulate forest clearing for seismic lines and access roads under the same rules as other forestry operations in the province (eg. requirements for the submission of five year plans, payment of stumpage fees, and the imposition of rules regarding forest restoration).
• Maintain the moratorium on offshore drilling and petroleum exploration in Hecate Strait and extend it to cover the entire BC coast.
• Ban the construction of any new major pipelines, including the proposed Georgia Straight Crossing.
• Create mandatory oil spill clean up and remediation legislation.
• Outlaw sour gas flaring.

The experience of the U.S. Pacific Northwest, in its recent transition from a resource based economy to a mixed economy, has shown that the knowledge, communications and innovative (advanced) technologies sector holds tremendous potential for new jobs and economic growth. BC companies have already shown leadership in a number of areas including the Ballard fuel cell, the Racal radio, and "Blue" (tidal) Energy.

There are shortages of trained professionals in BC to meet current and projected employment opportunities in the advanced technology ("high-tech") sector. BC’s high quality natural environment makes it an especially attractive place to live, and provides an incentive for high-tech firms to locate in BC. In order to maximize the potential for the growth of this sector, the government must provide needed infrastructure, tax incentives and assurances of a high quality environment in which to live. It is imperative that we work to develop new sources of alternative renewable energy, as the energy demands of the high-tech sector are very large.

• Work with other levels of government and provide capital to speed up the construction of a province-wide, high-volume fiber optic cable system linking all communities through a public access communications network.
• Reduce taxes on advanced technology businesses that are environmentally and socially sound to attract the investment and location of advanced technology firms in BC.
• Increase funding for student seats in high-tech programs at post-secondary institutions.
• Expand the province’s protected area system, including in the Greater Vancouver area, to attract high-tech firms seeking a high quality living environment.

• Aim to make BC a world leader in "eco-technologies" by providing increased funding at BC universities and post-secondary institutes for advanced technologies research and development, and by providing government support for on-the-ground "pilot projects" in ecoforestry, blue (tidal) and other alternative energies, organic permaculture (multi-product integrated agriculture) and other leading edge sustainable practices.
• Assist BC’s sustainable technology firms in international marketing and sales.

Tourism is the fastest-growing sector of the British Columbia economy and the largest employer in the province. British Columbia is well positioned to capitalize on its inherent natural beauty and dynamic cultural diversity of its cities, towns and rural villages. Tourism is an important element of rural economies and community economic diversification. Wilderness tourism operations in the province alone generated about $1 billion in economic activity and employed 15,000 people in the year 2000.

Tourism can be strengthened with a well-defined land use plan that protects BC’s unique natural resources — resources that have become increasingly rare as the world community has lost much of its wilderness. The Green Party supports small-scale ecotourism that preserves public resources rather than large-scale industrial tourism that often degrades local communities and environments.

• Expand the protected area system, both land and marine, to sustain BC’s tourism industry.
• Undertake comprehensive land use plans to identify existing backcountry and tourism tenures, to define areas of BC appropriate for further tourism activities, and to identify and protect BC’s sensitive wildlife areas from over-use and negative impacts.
• License backcountry and marine tourism tenures through locally elected Ecosystem Management Boards.
• Increase funding to educational institutions to upgrade and expand interpretation, guiding, hospitality and management programs.
• Increase investment in the ‘Super, Natural BC’ advertising campaign, support the marketing and coordinated packaging of BC tourism products, and develop more targeted marketing opportunities for BC’s ecotourism operators.
• Work with BC tourism operators to develop and adopt codes of conduct for ecologically and socially sustainable tourism practices.
• Initiate a "Historic BC" program, in cooperation with local governments and local residents, to revitalize historic communities in BC and to attract tourists to these destinations.

Improving Quality of Life

Canadians treasure the universal health care system.  However, we are facing a crisis in BC’s health care system that has been a decade in the making. It started with decreases in federal government transfer payments and was exacerbated by the BC Government reducing the number of health care professionals trained in BC and reducing home support for seniors. We’ve steadily moved towards a two-tiered health care system because of the inadequacy of service in our public system.

A deteriorating natural environment, a growing number of people living in poverty, an aging population, and an increasing emphasis on and capability of medical intervention place increasing burdens on an already overloaded health care system. Our society will not be able to bear the costs of public health care if we continue down the current path.

The Green Party of BC is committed to strengthening the public health care system by changing the model of health care in order to deliver services in more diverse, more effective and less expensive ways. The Green Party opposes public policies that enable privatizing health care. The Green Party health care platform focuses on: (1) easing the short term crisis stemming from inadequate facilities, equipment and staffing levels; (2) implementing a long term solution focused on wellness; (3) attacking the root causes of health problems including poverty, environmental degradation, and lifestyle choices; and (4) educating the public about end of life issues regarding the limits to life support extension, surgical operations and chemical therapies to overcome life limiting diseases and accidents, and options for the transition from life that include acceptance and death with dignity.

• Review the Ministry of Health budget and re-allocate funds to increase direct delivery of health care service.
• Insist that a portion of the current Federal Government budget "surplus" (equivalent to the amount of "surplus" federal taxes paid by British Columbians) be transferred back to BC and allocate a portion of these funds to fix the health care crisis in BC.
• Replace inadequate equipment and purchase sufficient supplies and diagnostic equipment to allow staff to do their jobs.
• Ensure adequate funds are allocated to upgrade or replace rural hospitals in danger of being condemned.
• Hire sufficient nurses, doctors and other health care professionals to ensure that patients in critical need are not turned away from hospitals because of staffing shortages. Quickly establish qualification standards in order to facilitate the hiring of foreign-trained doctors, nurses and health care professionals.
• Pay the level of salaries needed to retain health care professionals in both rural and urban BC. Negotiate with doctors, nurses, and other health care unions on a province-wide, not region-to-region basis.
• Expand home care programs to support seniors who wish to remain in their own residences.

Our health care system is currently focused on medical intervention to treat acute and chronic sickness rather than encouraging wellness. The long term viability of universal public health care can only be ensured by moving to a new model of community-based, holistic health care that places as much emphasis on preventative and wellness programs as on treatment of illness and accepts the process of death being as natural as birth.

• Establish a commission on health care, with province-wide public hearings, to allow the BC public to determine priorities in health care services, alternative treatments and acceptable levels of intervention.
• Create a new model for delivery of health care that is holistic in its approach, includes alternative and preventative care, and ensures that responsibilities for diagnosis and treatment are shared across a broad range of certified health care professionals in more democratic, flexible, team-based workplace environments.
• Provide greater responsibility, training and support for front line health care workers.
• Expand the funding for and number of multi-disciplinary, 24-hour-a-day community-based health care centres to eventually include all regions of the province to alleviate pressures on emergency room services.
• Increase education funding in post-secondary institutes to upgrade the qualifications of current health care professionals and train more doctors, nurses, ambulance paramedics and alternative health care professionals to meet BC’s long term needs. Expand training programs outside of the Lower Mainland.
• Expand funding for home care, supported housing, assisted living, long-term care facilities and palliative care hospices to provide better, less costly and more patient-friendly alternatives to hospital care.
• Move away from the fee-for-service Medical Service Plan billing towards salaries for doctors, beginning with community health care centres.
• Expand the Medical Service Plan coverage to include expenditures on prevention including lifestyle counseling (e.g., addiction, weight and stress counseling), wellness, and alternative health care.
• Address the primary causes of poor health by: (1) adopting a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy, including a guaranteed annual income for all British Columbians, (2) eliminating toxics from our environment and (3) ensuring access to healthy, affordable housing.

• Immediately increase the number of rehabilitation and treatment beds and allocate a large portion of revenues from the sale of addictive substances to the funding of services that address the negative consequences of addiction.
• Establish an Alcohol and Drug Commission agency under the Ministry of Health for administering drug prevention, harm reduction and adult addiction and rehabilitation programs
• Provide funding to support the City of Vancouver’s efforts to establish a comprehensive "four-pillar" solution for the drug problem in the Downtown Eastside, including safe injection sites, medically-administered drug programs, alternative treatment programs and prevention counseling.

A free, high quality meaningful primary and secondary education is a right of all British Columbians. However, we do not have sufficient healthy, safe and convenient school facilities to meet the needs of our children.  Social changes, including more parents working and moving, higher poverty levels, more English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) students, increased student access to drugs, and increases in child health problems such as asthma, allergies and attention deficit disorder, have placed extra stresses and responsibilities on teachers that hamper their ability to teach effectively. In addition, although the BC education system and curricula have been modified on an almost continuous basis, they have not been fundamentally restructured to ensure that they meet the needs of our society and economy in the 21st century. There are inadequate post-secondary education opportunities to satisfy demand or societal needs. Although there has been a post-secondary tuition freeze for the past five years, there has also been a decline in government post-secondary spending per capita, resulting in over-crowded and under-staffed post-secondary institutions.

The Green Party places a priority on adequately funding and strengthening our public education system, from pre-school to post-secondary institutions, as an investment in our children, our economy and our future.

• Provide universally accessible and affordable pre-school education
• Move towards qualification-based pay parity between pre-school and other teachers in the school system.

• Increase funding to our public school system by 10% as a long-term social and economic investment.
• Retain the recently negotiated small class sizes in the primary grades.
• Reduce intermediate class sizes.
• Restructure the curriculum and delivery of K-12 education to ensure students learn the skills to cope with increasing social, economic and environmental change and are well prepared to become environmentally and socially responsible citizens. Nurture interest and involvement in BC’s and Canada’s democratic systems.
• Ban corporate funding, advertising and the privatization of services such as cafeterias in our public schools.
• Support and encourage diverse public use of school facilities. Establish more community schools and provide supplemental funding to community schools that provide licensed after-school childcare.
• Require energy-efficient, safe and healthy buildings and organic food cafeterias. Ban the use of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers on school grounds.
• Eliminate user fees for enhanced learning programs (e.g., art, outdoor education and music programs).
• Increase resources and opportunities for gifted students.
• Support and encourage more alternative education choices within the public school system, including integrating home-schooled children into some classes such as physical education.

• Increase the base level of funding for post-secondary institutions. Increase student spaces for ESL, adult basic education and high opportunity occupations such as teachers, health care professionals, sustainable technologies and industry-based job training and apprenticeship programs
• Provide free tuition for post-secondary education, as they do in many European countries, contingent on performance and continuing residence and employment in BC for a minimum of 5 years after graduation.
• Increase funding for needs-based grants (bursaries) and scholarships and reinstitute the system of providing 50% of every student loan as a grant.

Over the past ten years BC’s NDP government has introduced legislation and policies to strengthen the position of organized labour in the province. Recently some of these measures have been eroded by back-to-work legislation, by the elimination of linkages between corporate forest tenure and mills, and by the increased export of raw logs that should be processed in BC.

Support for organized labour must be balanced with support for workers as a whole, including non-union, part-time, casual and contract workers. The Green Party of BC believes in the equal treatment of all workers, organized or non-organized, and the right of all to fair wages, equal pay for equal work, fair and healthy work conditions, and hours compatible to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. All companies should be offered tax incentives to provide employees with healthy working conditions and with wages and benefits that contribute to a high quality of life.

• Index the minimum wage to the rate of inflation, subject to periodic independent review. Extend the definition of minimum wage to commission and piecework payment structures. Require that companies pay wages for mandatory training.
• Enact pay equity legislation that would require all employers—over a phased-in time period of no more than 5 years and in both the public & private sectors—to pay women and men equally for work of equal value.

• Enact workplace democracy legislation. Provide tax and regulatory incentives for the establishment of worker-owned businesses (e.g., through employee stock ownership plans and cooperative ownership). Provide tax incentives for firms that institute management structures that encourage democratic rights in the workplace.

• Enact Whistle Blower legislation that protects the right of public servants and private citizens to voice their concerns when they believe that the actions of the employer they work for are illegal, threaten public health or endanger the public good.
• Extend the protections of the BC Labour Code and Employment Standards Act for part time, contract and casual workers.
• Enact successor rights legislation to transfer government service contracts to any new contractors with employees’ collective agreement, wages, benefits and seniority attached.
• Simplify the Worker’s Compensation Board appeal process and make it accessible to all applicants by removing the need for legal research and legal representation on the part of the applicant.
• Establish a uniform grievance appeal process for the resolution of conflicts between workers and union representatives.
• Allow sectoral bargaining in the private service sector.  Adapt the BC Labour Code to accommodate  labour conditions specific to the service sector.
• Require binding arbitration in the 13th month after a successful union certification vote in a workplace of 25 workers or more if a collective agreement is not negotiated within the first 12 months. Disallow decertification until the completion of at least one collective agreement.

The Green Party considers adequate, safe and affordable housing to be a basic human right. However, the number of homeless people is increasing in BC and the supply of housing units, especially in urban areas, is inadequate. This has resulted in inflated rental pricing and unsafe, illegal rental units. In general, renters will spend more money on housing over the course of their lives than homeowners will spend, although renters on average have a much lower income than homeowners have. An increase in the number of social housing units would decrease the market price of private rental units.

Green Party MLAs will advocate for an increase in spending on social housing, including small-scale mixed-income co-op or non-profit housing, equal to one percent of the total provincial budget (the "1% solution"). Green Party MLAs will also advocate changes in the building code to encourage housing be built to last beyond the current generation. To achieve "livable cities", Green Party MLAs will advocate for the protection of natural urban green spaces and "smart growth" land use models. Smart growth strategies strive for integrated land use in which shops, public services and homes are developed within walking distance of each other and urban sprawl is stemmed by concentrating development at liveable levels.

• Support the development of new, affordable non-profit and co-op housing units to the maximum possible under the 1% funding program.
• Support the provision of financing or underwriting mortgages to enable tenants to own their buildings.
• Provide tax incentives for the provision of rental housing and to encourage municipalities to legalize secondary suites. Require landlords to bring suites up to code.
• Encourage and enable community-owned Land Trusts to secure sites for non-profit housing.
• Allocate publicly owned land for affordable housing where appropriate. Provide grants in lieu of forgone tax revenue to encourage municipalities to retain public land for non-profit housing rather than sell or develop it.
• Support a stronger new building warrantee program for multiple family dwellings that buyers, architects, and builders pay into to provide insurance against future problems.

• Revise the provincial building code to ensure standards and materials are suitable for BC’s climate and to allow the use of recycled and reclaimed materials in building.
• Provide no-interest loans for energy efficient and alternative energy retrofits of existing homes, commercial buildings and for new homes. Make monthly payments on these loans equal to the energy saved per month.

• The Green Party believes that builders should pay the costs associated with repairing housing that, through shoddy workmanship or faulty design, is rapidly deteriorating and unfit for people to live in. Because of the difficulty in individual owners collecting the money for repairs from the builders directly, the Green Party supports the payment of security deposits by builders and, in the interim, a government-subsidized payback program to provide people up-front with the funds to repair their homes while government collects from builders previously at fault.

• Encourage the building of recreational complexes, community theaters, etc. through direct matching grants.
• Encourage neighbourhood organic gardens.

The diversity of geography and size of BC create regionally distinct transportation needs. The role of government should be to ensure that people can get where they need to go in BC efficiently and with minimum impact on the environment. Unfortunately, the provincial government has spent too much money on transportation mega-projects such as the "fast ferries" and the extension of the Greater Vancouver’s Skytrain system, which have incurred huge debt and are failing to solve existing transportation problems.

Throughout BC there has been an over-reliance on private automobiles and public highways and inadequate investment in small-scale public transit systems. Many parts of rural BC do not have public transportation and are dependent on automobile travel.  Solutions lie in reducing our reliance on cars, providing more flexible and smaller scale forms of mass transit, and implementing smart growth policies that reduce sprawl and the need to move around so much. Ultimately, our transportation systems should enhance quality of life and not stimulate endless growth.

• Develop transportation projects according to least-cost planning. Least cost planning is based on triple bottom line accounting and means that programs to reduce demand and increase non-vehicular demand are considered as valuable as programs to increase capacity.
• Implement tax-shifting measures aimed at increasing the use of green transportation alternatives (e.g. public transit, bicycles, hybrid vehicles, car sharing).
• Use tax-shift revenues to provide more flexible, convenient, and smaller scale forms of mass transit (e.g. passenger only ferries, mini buses).
• Initiate a program to build one proven "old style" double-ended medium-sized ferry every two years to replace BC’s aging ferry fleet.
• To encourage wiser use of BC Ferries, establish daily and weekly variable fare rates (reducing fares on currently low-volume mid-day and mid-week times).  Provide resident commuter priority boarding and advertise the commuter runs on schedules to enable tourists to make wise choices. Reduce fares for foot passengers, bicycles and carpools. Provide foot-passenger only ferries on heavy commuter routes such as Bowen Island and Langdale.
• Develop public education program to encourage use of public transit.

• Reduce dependency on single occupancy vehicles through demand management (i.e. tolls and increased parking fees) and user-pay models (i.e. distance-based automobile insurance)
• Improve linkages for passengers connecting between different public transit alternatives by ensuring frequent, reliable connections and interconnecting ticketing systems.
• Democratize regional district transportation governance through the direct election of the regional transit boards.
• Create separated bicycle paths parallel to major transportation routes and improve public transit support for bicyclists, by increasing access to options such as bike racks.
• Create more high-occupancy vehicle lanes on high-traffic inter-urban highways by reallocating existing lanes rather than building new lanes.
• Initiate a mini-bus public transportation system in rural BC that will provide residents with cheap and affordable public transportation.

The environment is the primary source of BC’s wealth. Maintenance of a healthy environment is the only way to maintain a high quality of all life. All economic activities should be rooted in ecological principles that respect environmental limits to growth. The Green Party advocates changing the BC Human Rights Code so clean drinking water, clean air and safe food—all part of a healthy environment—are fundamental rights guaranteed to all British Columbians. The quality of our environment has deteriorated significantly in recent years.  The social and economic consequences of a degraded environment are mounting. It is completely wrong and inappropriate for governments to continue to ask citizens to trade off long term environmental health for short-term jobs and economic gain.

Clean and safe drinking water is a major concern of British Columbians. Green Party MLAs will advocate for a Clean Drinking Water Act. The Act would create a designated lead agency under the Ministry of Environment with responsibility for province-wide standards, monitoring and enforcement.

The Clean Drinking Water Act will:

• Legislate watershed reserves for domestic consumptive watersheds and ban logging, roadbuilding, spraying of herbicides and pesticides, grazing and industrial development in domestic consumptive watersheds.
• Ban the privatization of municipal water and wastewater management
• Ban bulk water exports
• Ban the dumping of untreated waste & untreated sewage into waterways
• Require the phase-out of chlorination systems, replacing them with ozoneation, ultra violet sterilization, sand filtration and other safer water purification systems.
• Create incentives for water conservation, such as providing assistance for municipalities to modernize their water delivery systems to metered user-pay systems.
• Conduct an inventory of all polluted groundwater and water bodies, and develop and implement strategies for cleaning them up.
• Use available federal infrastructure money to improve municipal sewage treatment facilities.
• Eliminate all subsidies and regulatory abatements that allow pulp, paper and lumber mills to increase their pollution of air and water.

• Ban the use of all persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in BC.
• Eliminate the use of persistent pesticides and herbicides on public, private, and agricultural lands, and require alternatives to the chemical eradication of pests and invasive weeds. Give municipalities the power to ban pesticide and herbicide use within their jurisdiction.
• Ban chlorine and the use of all chlorine compounds in pulp bleaching production.
• Legislate dry land sorts and ban marine transportation of log booms to prevent logs from soaking up saltwater which results in release of dioxins when wood waste is burned.
• Substantially increase the number of drop off and collection depots for toxic household products; clearly label toxic products sold in BC as to the proper method of disposal and include a 1-800 number for information on the location of recycling depots and specific information about specific toxic substances.

• Legislate BC as a nuclear free province.
• Ban visits by war ships and aircraft that have not declared themselves nuclear-free.
• Work to overturn the federal government’s expropriation of Nanoose Bay and parts of Georgia Strait for U.S. military use.
• Ban all mining of uranium and other radioactive elements.

• Pass provincial legislation binding British Columbia to meet and exceed the objectives of the Kyoto Accord which is aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 6 percent below the 1990 level by the year 2010 to slow global warming.
• Phase in carbon taxes as a disincentive for wasteful fossil fuel use and eliminate subsidies that encourage fossil fuel use
• Oppose the Georgia Strait natural gas pipeline Crossing.
• Immediately close all Tier 1 beehive burners; phase out Tier 2 burners.
• Oppose the proposed Sumas 2 power plant or any other such fossil fuel consuming facility in the Fraser Valley basin by refusing to sell gas and forbidding use of BC pipelines for the transfer of gas to such projects.
• Impose strict emission regulations on existing and  proposed co-generation facilities.
• Phase out the Burrard Thermal Generating Plant.
• Close all "beehive burners" to reduce air pollution and associated health problems.

• Impose a moratorium on any further sales of public land because we will never be able to afford to buy it back.
• Exercise the right of expropriation (currently used only for the creation of dams, airports, roads, etc.) for conservation and environmental purposes such as park creation for areas including Burns Bog and to protect endangered species habitat on private lands where landowners refuse to do so and refuse to sell the land to the government.
• Rehabilitate sites with contaminated soils and vigorously pursue legal claims against the owners and/or shareholders of companies originally responsible for the contamination.

• Increase the amount of protected areas in British Columbia with the goal of creating an interconnected system of protected areas, wildlife corridors and buffer zones adequate to protect and sustain over the long-term BC’s full range of natural biodiversity.
• Enact a BC Species at Risk Protection Act that includes identification of such species by an independent scientific body, includes genetically distinct sub-populations of a species (e.g. salmon populations), requires protection of the habitats of these species and the drafting and implementation of mandatory plans to ensure their survival and recovery.
• Ban the use of leg-hold traps.
• Continue the current ban all sport and trophy hunting of Grizzly Bears in BC indefinitely.
• Increase funding of the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks to ensure increased monitoring of sources of pollution, the state of species at risk, the enforcement of fish and wildlife regulations and the management of the new parks in BC.
• Allow private prosecutions against companies or individuals who allegedly have damaged the environment.

The Green Party will switch from a waste management/pollution reduction approach to a pollution prevention approach that converts all waste streams to recycling streams. To achieve this goal we will:

• Phase in recycling deposits to be paid when purchasing all manufactured goods, including daily newspapers.
• Increase the variety and prevalence of recyclable food containers and increase the amount of the deposits on existing recyclable containers.
• Target full reclamation of all metals and plastics before incineration or landfilling of garbage.
• Phase out unnecessary secondary packaging.
• Provide neighborhood compost drop off centers
• Work with municipalities to implement "demand-reduction projects" where users pay for garbage collection based upon the amount of garbage they put out as a way to reduce waste disposal.
• Significantly increase taxes and levies on construction waste.
• Mandate a minimum of 50% recycled paper content for all newspapers.

The gap between the rich and the poor in our province is widening. The number of children and women living in poverty, "working poor" and homeless people—especially young people—has increased. The causes of poverty in our society are for the most part systemic—based less on poor personal decisions and more on lack of choices in society including lack of job opportunities and social welfare systems that provide disincentives for people to pursue gainful employment.

The Green Party believes we must address social equity and poverty issues at the source of the problem and that solving these problems is fundamental to building a healthy and sustainable society.  Adopting a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy makes economic as well as social good sense. Estimates are that every dollar spent in early support and preventative social services results in $7 of savings in later remedial social services.

The Green Party supports working with the federal government to convert all the income support programs into one comprehensive Guaranteed Annual Income program. The guaranteed income level will be determined by an independent standing commission and be high enough to allow people and families to live a life of health and dignity in the mainstream of society. The Green Party believes that the cost of the Guaranteed Annual Income program will be less than the cost of administering and delivering all the current different income support programs.

• Index welfare rates to inflation. End the current provincial clawback of the federal Child Tax Benefit for people on welfare. Provide free transit passes for those on social assistance.
• Provide incentives for people to get off welfare and become employed by allowing welfare recipients to keep 100% of the wages they earn, up to the "poverty line" as determined by Statistics Canada.
• Eliminate the requirement that older welfare recipients apply for Canadian Pension Plan early, a measure that can lead to a 30% reduction in benefits for them over the long term.
• Secure the rights of disabled persons to ongoing access to extended medical benefits.
• Collaborate with non-profit societies and commit adequate funding for emergency residences to ensure that all children and victims of violence have a decent bed to sleep in and good food to eat. Ensure women fleeing violent situations are provided with sufficient time and support, including increased stays in transition houses to re-establish themselves and not face a future life of poverty.

• Support working families by encouraging flexible work conditions (e.g., by providing tax benefits to companies that provide on-site childcare, flex-hours and job sharing) and by working with the federal government to change tax exemptions so that they do not discriminate against parents who both work part time.
• Support universally accessible and affordable childcare & after school care.
• Revitalize the Ministry of Children and Families to better enable staff to overcome morale problems and meet the Ministry’s goal of providing a safe and comprehensive system of care for children and families in need. Decrease childworker caseloads if necessary.
• Insist that the federal government broaden its definition of acceptable charitable activities to allow lobbying of government on social justice and environmental issues and grant charitable status to non-profit societies in good standing that serve minority groups and women.
• Provide social services for the disabled based on a social model of disability rather than a medical model (eg. consider disability as a factor of social barriers instead of a physical or mental condition).
• Provide non-institutionalized mental health patients with adequate housing, incomes and support, and provide ongoing adequate outpatient care by mental health practitioners.
• Restrict further gambling licenses in BC. Reduce the number of slot machines and VLT machines.
• Earmark a large share of the tax revenues generated from gambling for the rehabilitation of gambling addicts and for harm reduction and educational programs aimed at reducing gambling.

• Encourage and support, through increased funding for community projects and school programs, music, art, theatre, dance, sculpture, reading-writing and other arts and cultural activities as an essential enrichment of life and integral part of BC’s communities and cultural diversity

The Green Party believes that the greatest measure of a just society is found in how fairly minorities and disadvantaged groups are treated and whether or not women and minorities are equitably involved in decision-making. We believe differences in our society should not just be tolerated, but honoured. The Green Party actively supports and promotes women’s involvement in politics. We support a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body, including the right to medically safe abortions, and we support the right of all consenting adults to marry and raise a family regardless of gender.

• Amend the BC Human Rights Act to enshrine the right of British Columbians to clean air, clean water, safe food, safe and affordable housing, universal health care, and due legal process.
• Create privacy protections for consumers and employees, including regulations governing the use of video surveillance equipment on public and private land (e.g., requiring warnings to be posted).
• Increase funding for Legal Aid and reduce the eligibility requirements to include members of the working poor (needed prior to the institution of a decent Guaranteed Annual Income.)
• Amend the Police Act to establish an independent investigatory agency for the purpose of reviewing complaints against the police and private security companies and administering disciplinary action. The primary priorities of this agency would be the protection of human rights, the promotion of accountability and human rights awareness in the police force and ensuring transparent and open police processes.
• Legalize same sex marriages.
• Create a regulatory framework for the production of marijuana by small independent growers and its sale through licensed distribution outlets to adults for medical or personal use. Assert provincial jurisdiction over the regulation and taxation of marijuana in the province.
• Enact living will legislation that gives people the right to limit and refuse medical intervention and treatment when they have life limiting diseases, major strokes, heart attacks or accidents so as to provide people with the choice to die with dignity.

• Enact anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) legislation to counter the growing use of SLAPPs by corporations to thwart criticism and democratic dissent.
• Amend the BC Corporations Act to allow directors of companies to make management decisions based upon ethical, environmental and social considerations and to allow for easier findings of personal liability against directors of companies in cases of illegal corporate activity.
• Assert provincial jurisdiction over the regulation of the sex trade in BC, because of the danger to public health and safety of all involved. Develop a non-coercive program of support and rehabilitation to enable minors to quickly and safely leave the sex trade. Work with representatives from the sex trade to develop and establish government programs to protect the health and safety of sex trade workers and provide transition support to enable sex trade workers to pursue other work alternatives.
• Abolish the use of court injunctions by companies such as forestry corporations against people participating in acts of peaceful civil disobedience when such acts are already punishable under the existing Criminal Code (e.g., mischief, trespass).

Allow private prosecutions against companies or individuals who allegedly have damaged the environment.

Last update: April 13, 2001
Dave Ferguson