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Green Party Condemns McNeil Government for Ignoring Evidence and Jeopardizing Ocean Health

June 28, 2017 By gpnsadmin Leave a Comment

For Immediate Release – June 28, 2017

(HALIFAX) – The Green Party of Nova Scotia rejects the position taken by the McNeil government on marine protected areas and calls for the government to support expanding ocean protection in marine waters surrounding Nova Scotia.

“The McNeil government is ignoring scientific evidence and jeopardizing the health of our oceans,” says Green Party Marine Affairs expert Martin Willison. In 1995, Willison co-edited Marine Protected Areas and Sustainable Fisheries: Proceedings of the Symposium on Marine Protected Areas.

“Even in 1995, the science was clear. Establishing marine protected areas is a necessary component of an overall ocean health strategy. Furthermore, scientific studies have repeatedly shown that setting aside marine areas does not diminish fisheries but enhances them by increasing fish stocks.”

Although the province has no jurisdiction in this regard, the federal government’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans is influenced by calls from provincial governments. Written statements opposing the expansion of marine protected areas in marine waters have been issued by three provincial ministers in Nova Scotia’s Liberal government: Energy ministers Samson in 2016 and MacLellan in 2017, and Fisheries minister Colwell in 2017.

Canada has committed to protecting 5% of Canadian marine waters by the end of 2017, with a goal of reaching 10% by 2020. Currently about 2.5% of Nova Scotian marine waters are recognized as protected.

Dr. WIllison says, “Protecting only 2.5% is woefully inadequate. The government cannot claim to take an evidence-based approach to environmental management while ignoring evidence.”

Willison notes that while marine protected areas may exclude petroleum exploration and development, this has not been the case in practice. Nevertheless, he says, sensitive marine areas (such as those rich in corals or whales) should not be put at risk by industrial development.

The Green Party of Nova Scotia supports the efforts of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to expand ocean protection in marine waters around Nova Scotia and supports the goal of doubling the total area protected under legislation by end of 2017.

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Thank you, Nova Scotia!

June 7, 2017 By gpnsadmin Leave a Comment

Election day has passed, and the Green Party of Nova Scotia has a lot to be proud of at the moment! We may not have taken a seat, thanks to our first past the post system, but we’ve smashed some records this time around:

GPNS ran 32 candidates and received 11,128 votes. This is more than the number of votes we received with a full slate in 2009 (9,636) or 2006 (9,411).
For the first time, we received 5% of the vote in a riding. And we did it thirteen times. In a proportional electoral system, 5% is a common threshold for recognition as it prevents splinter groups from forming.
Our percentage of the vote across the 32 ridings in which we ran was 4.5%. Our previous high was 2.78%.
In a proportionally representative electoral system, we would have two seats to represent these 11,128 voters. Of course, in a proportionally representative system, many more voters could have cast their ballots our way.

A major party focus of this past election was to forge a sustainable team of people willing to work or to train as organizers and campaigners for a positive future. We intend to continue to build our capacity, and we will remain active between elections.

We have been building our reputation through personal contact, social media presence, and broadcast media. We hope that one day, some of the leader debates will be open to the leaders of all officially registered parties who already have seats in the house.

Following are some inspiring words from Tyler Colbourne, our candidate for Dartmouth North. We couldn’t agree more.

“11000 out of 396500 votes in this election were for Green candidates. That is 11,000 votes for a more sustainable and fair government. That is 11,000 votes for better representation towards justice, sustainability, and evidence-based approaches to policy. That is 11,000 votes for Green values.

A small village voted for Greens in this election and a small village can do a lot. Over the next four years we can do more and our small village can grow, because our small village is part of a larger international community of Greens who want fairer representation, action towards non-violent policies, sustainable action and planning, and justice.

A global movement of Greens is what separates us from other parties and ideologies in Canada. We are more than just a one party issue. We are a collection of people worldwide who believe in a better today and expect a better tomorrow. I look forward to doing more for our province, country, and international Green community.” – Tyler Colbourne, Green Party of NS Candidate for Dartmouth North

Thank you, Nova Scotia.

Thomas Trappenberg, Leader
Jessica Alexander, Deputy Leader

Green Party Takes Stand Against Election Platform Costing

May 26, 2017 By gpnsadmin Leave a Comment

May 26, 2017
For Immediate Release

(Halifax) The Green Party of Nova Scotia takes a principled stand against including costing in their platform.

“Big numbers sound impressive, that’s true,” says Green Party leader Thomas Trappenberg. “We’ve heard a lot from the old parties. A few million for this, a couple of thousand for that. Does anyone actually believe that these will end up being the actual numbers? Where is the accountability?”

He points out that the Liberals promised to end the monopoly on electricity rates in 2013, a promise that “hasn’t come up since.”

“One of the things we believe in is full cost accounting,” adds deputy leader Jessica Alexander. “For too long, we have heard these glossy promises at election time, and not only are the numbers almost never accurate, they don’t include what they consider externalities. So they don’t include the cost of the waste produced in the extraction of materials, the processing and manufacturing of products, nor the end of life disposal costs.” Calculating those costs is challenging, says Alexander, but essential for transparent governance.

Besides, the numbers often change after the election, Trappenberg notes.

“Sure, the party takes power and then blames the last guys for leaving a mess, so they can’t use the numbers they promised. It happens almost every election, unless the same party is voted back in, and then, they will say, ‘the currency fluctuated, the feds didn’t give us enough’, the excuses come out,” Alexander says.

The Green Party is hoping that Nova Scotia will follow the lead of PEI and New Brunswick, by electing its first Green member on May 30th.

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For additional information, please contact:

Thomas Trappenberg
Leader, Green Party of Nova Scotia
leader@greenpartyns.ca

Charlene Boyce, Communications
Green Party of Nova Scotia
media@greenpartyns.ca

Why doesn’t the Green Party cost their platform?

May 26, 2017 By gpnsadmin Leave a Comment

by Charlene Boyce, GPNS candidate for Fairview-Clayton Park

These are both scenarios that are happening right now in a coffee shop somewhere in Nova Scotia:

Scenario 1
Betty – Did you see Steve Murphy the other night? He had that Green Party fella on.
Mahmoud – I saw! Steve really stuck it to him. Imagine proposing a thing like a guaranteed livable income and not having a number on it!
Betty – How can you run for office if you don’t have any numbers worked out?

Scenario 2
Lloyd – There’s another couple million dollars promised by the Liberals. And there come the Tories, racing to match or beat it!
Chen – What’s it for this time?
Lloyd – Does it matter? And that Burrill. He says he’ll put us billions of dollars into debt.
Chen – Why do they bother? We all know they will get into office, express shock at the ‘real state of things’, toss all those numbers out the window and start again.

What’s that saying about ‘darned if you do…”?

The Green Party of Nova Scotia has a vision of how Nova Scotia can be a healthy, prosperous, green province. We know that there will be investment and cuts both required to get there. We equally know the futility of trying to wrestle with those numbers in the short vacuum of time leading to an election. Costs require context.

So, how can the other teams produce these numbers? Well, of course they have paid party staff that have time to play with spreadsheets, so that’s an indisputable factor. But there’s a larger reason – they are not proposing fundamental change. They are playing a shell game. “If we took $10M from here and shifted it to there…” We have all played these games with our personal budgets. Stop buying coffee out so you can save enough for a new video game system. Get rid of cable and get Netflix – cost savings.

The Green Party proposes fundamental changes. Not where are we spending, but how are we spending. Will the rickety, much-modified and sprawling structure of our health and education systems serve us in the future? This is a bigger question than whether we should put $100k into textbooks or educational aides.

We are approaching things with a longer term, holistic vision. That’s one reason.

Another is that we support full cost accounting. Again, this is a fundamental shift and there is no existing information in context to work from. So, when the Liberal party commits a million dollars to twinning highways, that’s simple cost accounting. Materials + labour = that amount. Full cost considers the environmental impact, the cost of extraction, the full life cost.

Plus, we consider the other items that could be accomplished with that money, and whether there is a lower impact way to achieve the desired outcome (safer roads).

All of which is not to say we COULDN’T produce numbers, just that it would be disingenuous to present them as a guarantee. And that matters to us.

Unfortunately, we have far more pollsters and predictors contributing to the public discourse than we have people dissecting the accuracy of the numbers, and what they ultimately might mean. Time will tell how accurate or useful they turn out to be. What they will not be is anything new, and that is disappointing.

Expect better.

Charlene Boyce is the Communications Chair for the Green Party of Nova Scotia, and the 2017 candidate for Fairview-Clayton Park. Read more about Charlene here.

Four Party Leaders Visit Competitive Waverley-Fall River-Beaver Bank Riding

May 24, 2017 By gpnsadmin Leave a Comment

(FALL RIVER) – This Thursday, Thomas Trappenberg, Leader of the Green Party of Nova Scotia, will be hitting the street in Waverley – Fall River – Beaver Bank to support the campaign of local Green Party candidate Anthony Edmonds. The duo will be greeting voters in Fall River at the corner of Fall River Road and Highway #2 at 5:00 pm on Thursday .

Over the course of the month-long writ, the leaders of the Liberal, Progressive Conservative, NDP and Green Party will all have visited this competitive riding, which could become a four-way race when ballots are counted on election day if the strong Green response being heard at the door turns into votes.

A wide range of provincial issues have been discussed at the door, but it is local issues that are really resonating according to Anthony Edmonds, Green Party candidate in Waverley – Fall River – Beaver Bank: “People know the Greens are strong on environment, so I’ve been asked plenty about the Fall River quarry. There have also been worries expressed about the recent oil spill and its impact on drinking water. However, I’ve found that most voters are concerned, like me, about employment prospects for their kids, and they feel that the establishment politics of the Liberals, NDP and PCs are not working well in that regard.”

Edmonds added, “If everyone who was afraid they might be wasting their vote on me decided to take that chance, then I’m confident we could see our first Green MLA in Nova Scotia, just like in PEI, New Brunswick and BC.”