L-R Moderator Mario Levesque, Libertarian Donna Allen, Green Megan Mitton, Liberal John Higham, New Democrat Evelyne Godfrey. [Click on photo to enlarge it]
Donna Allen was responding to a question about how candidates would address climate change if they’re elected to represent Tantramar in the October 21st provincial election.
“I have no idea because I think it’s a scam,” Allen replied.
“You don’t believe in climate change?” someone called out from the audience.
“There’s climate change alright, but Irving is spraying the skies all the time,” Allen responded.
“It’s not from cows farting,” she added.
“The stuff that the government is telling us is off the charts,” she continued.
“We’ve had cows for thousands of years and in the 70s, they said there’s going to be an ice age by the 80s [and] in the 80s, they said there’s going to be a shortage in the 90s and in the 90s, they said something else was going to happen,” Allen added.
“Climate change to me is a hoax.”
NDP response
The all-candidates forum was sponsored by the Mount Allison Students Union [MASU] and moderated by Politics Professor Mario Levesque who called on NDP candidate Evelyne Godfrey to respond to the climate change question next.
“There is definitely climate change,” Godfrey answered.
She said she remembers the harsh, snowy winters as she was growing up in the 1970s and 80s, but when she returned to the Port Elgin area in 2017-18, she couldn’t believe the changes.
“I couldn’t get over it. I was saying this to everybody, this is what proved to me there is definitely climate change,” she said. “You’re just not seeing those winters anymore.”
Godfrey said the NDP is basing its economic plan for New Brunswick on creating green jobs in clean energy.
“We’re looking at a rural transit system that would be based around electric buses,” she added as well as a farmers’ marketing board to promote local food.
She also said the NDP would axe the consumer carbon tax on fossil fuels and make Irving pay instead.
Liberal answer
“Man you picked some tough questions here,” Liberal candidate John Higham responded.
“Student questions here, not mine,” Levesque said with a chuckle.
“How do you fix climate change? That’s a huge question obviously and getting everybody to understand it and getting the data so that people are willing to participate is required as you can see,” Higham said.
He added that there’s general agreement climate change exists, adding that although most people are prepared to do something about it, we’ve seen a strong push-back against the revenue-neutral federal carbon tax which aimed to get people to change their ways.
“We will soon lose it [the carbon tax] because Trudeau and the Liberals will be out soon and there’ll be something else going in there,” Higham said.
“So, I am really struggling with how do you deal with a populace that many people don’t believe it does exist, and how do you prove that and then, how do you get buy-in on what can work and do we repeat some of the things we’ve been trying, or do we have to do something completely different?” Higham asked.
“I don’t have those answers. I just know this is a really difficult time for this,” he concluded.
Green response
Green candidate Megan Mitton said it’s important to weigh the scientific evidence.
“We know that the climate has changed and that humans have caused it through greenhouse gas emissions,” she added.
She referred to a bill the Greens introduced in the provincial legislature to ban exploration for and extraction of fossil fuels including shale gas.
“We need to move towards renewable energy and energy efficiency,” she said, adding that investing in energy-efficient homes and businesses is a cost-effective way to fight climate change.
Mitton also mentioned getting rid of the red tape that hinders installation of community-based and rooftop solar panels while setting a goal of generating 80% of electricity using renewable sources by 2035 with the help of storage and smart-grid technologies.
“This is a huge, complex problem, we have to address it on all fronts,” she said.
“So, we also need to look at things like public transit,” she added, “becoming self-sufficient with our food system, protecting our forests, stopping spraying glyphosate and herbicides and stopping clear-cutting because our forests are part of the answer to prevent flooding.
“So there’s a lot we can do,” Mitton said.
NOTE: Tantramar Progressive Conservative candidate and town councillor Bruce Phinney did not attend the MASU all-candidates’ forum because it was held at the same time as council’s regular October meeting.
There will be another all-candidates forum beginning at 7 p.m tonight at the Tantramar Veterans Memorial Civic Centre, 182 Main Street in Sackville. (See poster below.)
One of the main reasons I attended last evening’s Candidates’ Forum was to hear some sort of accountability from Higgs’ PC candidate as to how poorly our Tantramar/Sackville/Dorchester area has been treated by our provincial government over the past six years.
Needless to say I was disappointed that the ‘double booking’ resulted in a no-show.
Oh well, we shall see first-hand what tonight’s forum will bring.
I agree with the NDP Canadidate on the proof being there whether Climate Change is real or not. I myself have used the change of climate in the years since I was a kid to now as the example of that proof. I think more people need to think on it and realize that the proof is literally right in our back yard.
I did like the response of both the NDP and Green Candidates to the question.
We all know that the solution(s) for working against Climate Change is hard, but not hearing anything of any sort of idea or plan or even “wishlist” from the Libs did not help.
The Libertarian was just… yeah… out to lunch.
I’m looking forward to the next gathering to be honest.. I missed this one.. but last night was a good coming together and felt very cozy. . . super impressed by the media attending Bruce Wark, Erica Butler, et al and their cooperative and collaborative efforts with organizer Carol Cooke –it just shows how much people around here care to try to work together on the hard issues facing society with a congenial atmosphere of talking it out. Well done everyone involved – it was a fun night to meet Donna Allen – she is already a legend now with the Libertarian family that is growing quickly in N.B. with 18 candidates already in place for this election in 2024. Quite an achievement to see this development and as I told Bruce Wark and his wife Laura – its just nice to see there are more diverse voices than people might have thought coming forward and I voted for Bruce Phinney because I really just want to see the end of Megan Mitton’s time in office and lean libertarian in a lot of ways when it comes to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and lower taxation and shrinking government. I was the lone voice cheering loudly when Donna Allen talked about the Libertarians wanting the abolishment of property taxes – the rest of the room were probably in a state of shock about that comment. Think about all the ways the government already robs you and clawing back that one tax alone would make a huge difference for so many people… it could free up a lot of secondary homes for people to use for rentals because their margins would be more manageable cost wise – we need more housing and this is a very creative solution.
Thanks again Bruce for covering the events – and yes you should put a “donate” button on your website because you work very hard to publish here.
” I was the lone voice cheering loudly when Donna Allen talked about the Libertarians wanting the abolishment of property taxes”
Okay.
Except that removing property taxes would be a huge detriment to the needed cashflow of town.
Should taxes be as high as they are? No, absolutely not.
But unless you Libertarians are all for paying services out of wishes and dreams of fantasy, taxes are a reality. And if you think nixing taxes would solve the housing issues that we have, you really live in a fantasy world.