Green MLA Megan Mitton (L) and federal candidate Laura Reinsborough pose together outside the Sackville Fall Fair tent on Friday
Federal Green Party candidate Laura Reinsborough says she feels her chances of winning in the local New Brunswick riding of Beauséjour on October 21 are much stronger because provincial voters elected two Greens here in last year’s provincial election.
“The ice has been broken,” Reinsborough said during an interview Friday in her Sackville campaign office.
“It’s huge really to have two Green MLAs,” she added, “within a federal riding. That doesn’t exist in too many places across the country and I really feel like that has made a huge difference.”
Reinsborough says that both MLAs Megan Mitton and Kevin Arseneau are helping in her campaign, which began when she started knocking on doors three months ago.
“I go door to door and there is so much Green support; there is such an exciting momentum for the Green Party which continues to grow as we see the Green numbers grow across the country.”
Latest averages from the CBC Poll Tracker show the Green Party at 9.8% nationally, but also in double digits in both B.C. at 15.6% and Atlantic Canada at 12.7% with a minority government headed by either the Conservative or Liberal parties most likely at this point in the campaign.
Reinsborough says that if Canadians do elect a minority government, it would make a huge difference to have more Green MPs.
“Not only might we hold the balance of power, but in a minority government things can move a lot faster,” she adds. “Instead of having the two old-line parties bickering about this and that, we can really see that we will work together to advance important action.”
‘Climate emergency’
Reinsborough with electric car she acquired in July. She says she has driven it nearly 12,000 km at a cost of about $80 for electricity
Reinsborough, who is the director of Food For All NB — a provincially funded network for groups working on making sure everyone has enough to eat — says she decided to run for the Green Party because she sees this as a crucial election, especially when it comes to adopting policies that would avoid the worst effects of climate change.
“We know what the numbers look like. We don’t have very long to make dramatic changes,” she says.
She refers to a section of the 2019 Green Party Platform called Mission Possible, a climate action plan that outlines extensive measures for dealing with what the platform calls the climate emergency.
It includes such steps as a 60% cut in carbon emissions over the next decade partly by switching away from burning fossil fuels and relying on renewable energy sources; banning the sale of fossil-fuel powered passenger vehicles by 2030 and making electric cars more affordable; investing in passenger rail transportation networks, and launching a massive program to make buildings more energy efficient.
“We know that the transition to a green economy is not going to happen overnight,” Reinsborough says, referring to another section of the party platform. “We need it to be done with good jobs, with our health care needs taken care of and making sure everybody is part of what that future can look like.”
To read the entire 82-page Green Party Platform, click here.
Reinsborough’s mobile campaign office will soon be touring the riding
‘Conserver society values’
Reinsborough also refers to the Green Party promise to embed what it calls “conserver society values rather than consumer society values” in the transition to a green economy.
“That’s a bit of a mentality shift which I think is already happening,” she says.
“We see that people are trying to reduce their plastic consumption, they’re trying to repair their appliances rather than toss them and get a new one, we see that people are making those changes in their individual lives, in their households, in their communities,” she says.
“There are so many young people who are making those changes. This is the new way of thinking,” she adds, “and yet we need to see that our government keeps up with that.”
Reinsborough says, for example, that the federal government could require manufacturers and retailers to cut down on excessive packaging.
“That’s a role that the federal government can play to be able to move towards that conserver society which is culturally where we’re heading anyways, but we need our government to keep up,” she adds.
“This is part of why I’ve decided to run in this election.”
To read Laura Reinsborough’s Green Party biography, click here.
Carbon tax is theft… that would be the only problem I can see for voters — any candidates promoting more taxation and wealth redistribution to ‘save the planet’ have a problem understanding how the economy actually works. Canadians cannot afford to have politicians attacking their oil and gas industries.. its a huge part of our economy – whether people like Laura like that or not it doesn’t change the reality that oil and gas are not going away and that pipelines and infrastructure must be built in the company years to ensure our domestic energy sector’s security and advancement–that’s real conservation Laura. A party that promotes United Nations Agenda 2030 for Canadians is not a party for the people.. its a party for the technocracy. My only advice for Laura’s campaign for this region would be to become an industrial hemp ambassador for this region — those are true green jobs.
Great news. I’d pose the same question to this person as I did to Megan Mitton. As a business owner selling the evil fossil fuels they both wish to rid the world of, how do they plan on replacing small businesses as ours? We provide steady employment for 8 employees and all these folks want to do is put these people out of work. Megan Mitton’s answer to how to help keep our doors open was to ask me what ideas I have to replace the lost revenue?!! Well since she’s one who wishes to make changes to not help businesses like ours stay in business she best come up with those answers. Because it will be tough to keep all the social programs her kind are pushing funded without the revenues that businesses like ours currently are collecting for the government are funding!!
is there a face behind the tantramar landowners association? would be nice to see it.
wealth is theft. the few who own so much are the thieves. the few have been depriving the many for a long time. It’s called colonialism, it’s called capitalism. Many faces, many ways. The Green Party is attempting to make some corrections to this state of affairs.
Marilyn Lerch
Sackville
At one time I attended Green party rallies and meetings, to learn more about how they planned to implement their ideas. While I agreed in principle (and still do) with the concerns they were expressing, I stopped attending when it became obvious that their entire focus is on eliminating the use of fossil fuels, with no real plans or ideas on how to replace that major source of energy and manufacturing materials.
We live in a world of plastics – produced from petroleum – and I’m not just talking water bottles & drinking straws & shopping bags. The laptop I’m typing on, and the computers or devices you are all reading this on – are largely made of plastic – in the device’s body and also in circuit boards, wiring insulation, fans and other components. Then there are printers and scanners, and ink cartridges and the inks they contain – all made from or contain plastic components.
The cell phones we depend on to stay connected while we go about our daily lives – all depend on varying amounts of petroleum products in their manufacture. The roads we drive on are paved with asphalt – the main ingredient of which is Bitumen. Even ‘good old Vaseline’, which is used in a multitude of other products as well, is a by-product of oil drilling. And electric cars, which use no petroleum fuels, are not so innocent – they use a lot of plastics in their manufacture, including the tires.
We are virtually surrounded by petroleum products – detergents, aviation fuel, naptha, grease, wax, chewing gum, tea bags, produce stickers … to name just a few more examples.
Those who are bent on ‘removing’ petroleum products do not seem to grasp the widespread dependence on this substance which has infiltrated our entire society, our very way of life.
What would a totally petroleum-free world look like?
For one thing there would be no man-made fabrics (nylon, acrylic, polyester, etc), so we’d go back to the basics – cotton, linen, wool, leather, natural rubber, hemp, silk, and some types of rayon. For footwear – back to real leather and natural rubber. That would mean more animals would have to be raised to provide hides to tan, wool to shear, and silk cocoons to unravel. We would need large plantations for cotton, flax, rubber trees, and hemp. We would need to devise a different method of producing computers, cell phones, televisions, entertainment systems, and so many other articles we use on a daily basis – or else make do without them.
In short, while the ‘ideal’ situation may be to go back to the way people lived prior to the introduction of petroleum based products, it is not something which can happen in a short time. It would require a MAJOR overhaul of our whole existence as we know it. So much of what makes our modern world ‘work’ is based on the petro-chemical industry.
We do need to work toward REDUCING our dependency on it, but it doesn’t seem realistic to be talking about ELIMINATING oil production completely – at least not until we have some viable alternatives in place.
Bio-based plastics are produced from plants, which capture atmospheric CO2 as they grow. If they are composted, carbonaceous materials in bio-plastics are released back to the atmosphere as CO2. This makes the material itself carbon-neutral, although manufacturing still generates a small amount of greenhouse gasses.