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Moderator:
Good evening everyone, and welcome to our first Virtual Town Hall With Eric Walton. My name is Nancy Salay, campaign
manager , and I'll be your moderator for the evening. Kingston Green Party candidate Eric Walton is here, ready and eager
to field your questions and comments.
While the floor is open, and we welcome questions and comments on any topics that interest you, I would like to remind all
participants that no submissions containing obscenities, personal attacks, hateful or discriminatory language will be
permitted. Feel free to ask follow-up questions if you regard the answer posted as insufficient.
Of course, depending on time constraints, we may not be able to address every question that gets posted. So, without
further ado, let the questioning begin....
From: Anthony, Toronto
This is a comment. I'd like to say that I think this is a GREAT idea and I wish that they would do this at all the green party websites. I would also like to make a recommendation. I think that the chat should be realtime and that you wouldn't have to always update the feild
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| Eric Walton responds: |
Hi Anthony,
Thanks for the feedback. We can try a chatroom next time.
This is our inaugural attempt at a virtual town hall, so if it works out, we'll definitely recommend it to other Green Party ridings.
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From: Anthony
I think it would also make it easier to see who's online and we wouldn't have to open up a new window each time to write. But none the less... an Amazing idea
I guess a I do have a question for you. I was wondering about their stance on health care. I read a great idea about sending people a return check for a portion of their money if they only go to their Dr. 2 times a year. This would encourage people not to tie up offices with needless visits. Do you have any more information on this? or is it still only a working idea?
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| Eric Walton responds: |
Yeah, this ties in with the concept of people receiving an account of their annual health expenses. From this kind of accounting different programs to reduce unnecessary utilization could be constructed. The Green Party does not currently have a developed position on this type of program. Our focus at this point is on reducing use of health care through what we call "deep prevention". This would address structural causes of illness such as homelessness, unemployment, pollution, stress, etc..
We will definitely be looking further into ways of improving utilization to reduce unnecessary expenditures.
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From: Graham Lodge, 675 Millbrook Cres., Kingston
I have concerns about policy to assess just the land for property tax purposes; i.e., exclude assessment on the buildings. Would this not create distortions in what basically is a reasonable and fair method of taxation?
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| Eric Walton responds: |
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This is provincial policy, but I can comment on it. The Provincial greens propose to shift municipal taxes more onto land than building structures but this would only be partial so there would continue to be some portion of assessment on the structures. The advantage of shifting the tax more to land value would be to reduce land speculation and increase density.
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From: davey collins, kingston
What is the status of wind power on Wolfe Island? Would having wind mills on the island provide enough power for Kingston and the islands to be self-sufficient all year round? Also, what is the Green's policy to keep our water supply safe.
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| Eric Walton responds: |
To the best of my knowledge it would appear that the plan to produce wind power on Wolfe Island is proceeding. Reports would indicate that sufficient power will be produced for up to 75 000 homes, which is certainly more than enough for Kingston. Obviously, this is not continuous but surplus power that is not used in Kingston can be fed into the grid. And higher cost, higher polluting plants can be scaled down. When there is insufficient wind Kingston will have to import power. So at the end of the year we'll have to see whether we have an energy balance.
The key to safe water is watershed protection. Limits to run-off from pesticides and other toxics. And finally, moving towards alternatives to primarily chlorination-based treatment systems.
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From: Pete Bowers, Kingston
Hey Eric,
Just got on here.
I'm curious to know if the Green Party has been pushing the idea of "preferential voting". I'm not sure if that's the term. I mean the voting system where you can vote in order of preference, so that I could vote Green, NDP, Liberal if I wanted, and not have to think about stratgic voting. Is that big on the Green Party platform? It strikes me as one of the cleanest arguments. I can't see how it could be seen as anything but an increase in Democracy.
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| Eric Walton responds: |
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We would establish a federal peoples assembly on electoral reform to look at different systems of electing representatives. And the model you suggest I'm sure would be considered. The problem we found with the BC electoral reform process was that if a model proposed is too complicated it's difficult to win enough support. A model used in several countries and one that is relatively easy to understand is mixed member proportional. In mixed member proportional a portion of the seats are elected under the current "first past the post" system and the rest from a list that is determined from your percentage of the popular vote. This has the advantage of maintaining a local constituency representative as well as incorporating proportional representation.
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From: Anonymous
can I just submit a question without giving my name and address?
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From: Anonymous
Has the Green party a position with respect to research and development for industrial innovation?
What about testing drugs on animals.
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| Eric Walton responds: |
Yes. We would strongly support research and development that helps move our society towards environmental sustainability.
In cases where there are no alternative means for essential, life-saving drugs, we would accept the need for such drug testing; but, the vast majority of animal testing is unnecessary and would be discouraged.
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From: Anonymous
The Conservatives have just announced a $1200 per child tax benefit. What is the Green Party position on childcare?
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| Eric Walton responds: |
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The Green Party believes parents should have real choice in their childcare planning, so we support a dual system; direct financial support AND a robust and extensive registered daycare system.
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Moderator:
Hello everyone -- the moderator here. I just wanted to let you know that we have one question pending and then we'll give it another 15 minutes or so.
From: Anonymous
1. Please explain fully your position on Haiti, with particular attention to the illegal ouster of its democratically elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide and its jailing without substantive charges of the democratically elected Prime Minister Yvon Neptune as well as several thousand Aristide supporters.
Is your personal view the official view of the Green Party?
George Hamilton
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| Eric Walton responds: |
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I'm the Green Party of Canada Foreign Affairs critic and helped draft our press release and position on Haiti. We consider what is happening in Haiti to be a Canadian foreign policy fiasco. We should not be legitimating an unconstitutional removal of President Aristide and his administration by directly supporting the current election process and training of police who purposefully do not respect the rule of law. We are calling for the immediate release of Father Jean-Juste, Prime Minister Neptune and all other political prisoners. We believe a better alternative to a sham election would be to offer to host in Montreal a peace and reconciliation conference with all parties including President Aristide who is currently in exile. Only after this has been successfully completed should Canada be involved in Haiti.
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From: Jacquie
I've got asthma. There were so many smog days last summer, I think 50 or so, that I spent half of it indoors! What is the Green Party going to do about our polluted air?
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| Eric Walton responds: |
You are right, this is really serious. This problem needs to be addressed on multiple fronts.
First, we need to get serious about energy conservation to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we emit. This also has the benefit of addressing climate change, which exacerbates air pollution problems.
Second, we need to change our transportation mix in Ontario, and the rest of Canad,a and significantly increase public transit and pedestrian/bicycle-friendly land development.
Third, we need to create incentives for the production and purchase of cleaner fuelled vehicles.
Fourth, we need to develop a much broader distributed alternative energy production using renewables such wind, solar, micro-hydro, geothermal, and so on.
Fifth, we need to address the fact that half of air pollution comes from the U.S. and use a combination of lobbying and energy sale incentives to generate change from south of the border.
Sixth, and not last but I'll end with this one, we need to elect people who understand the long-term health implications and costs of a deteriorating ecosystem.
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From: George Hamilton, 54 Centre, Odessaa
Please explain what "deep integration" means in Paul Martin's hands if he's reelected and its implications for Canada's future. What to your knowledge are the other party's stands on the issue?
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| Eric Walton responds: |
Deep integration is the most serious issue of this election. It has been purposefuly downplayed in order to reduce mobilisation against it. The Agreement signed this past spring between Paul Martin, George Bush, and Vincente Fox of Mexico, is significant because it is directed at beginning a 'process' of continuing integration along economic and security dimensions. This is how the European community began, as a 'process' beginning with commercial integration. Unlike in Europe where there was a greated number of countries to balance power, Canada and Mexico would be overwhelmed by the colossus to the south. Ironically, even Canadian commercial interests appear not to be protected by trade agreements such as NAFTA, as evidenced by the softwood lumber issue. This shows that a dominant player has dominant powers. Something as significant as this should, at the very least, have been decided by referendum, or by a clear election mandate.
In terms of the positions of other parties, the Conservatives would want even more integration, the NDP are opposed, but strangely silent, and the Bloc see this as a way of more easily separating from Canada and joining a larger economic union.
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Moderator:
Well, I think we'll end it there. Thanks to everyone who participated! We'll have questions and answers from tonight archived on our website for the duration of the election. And we will certainly be having more of these virtual town halls in the near future -- look for one early in January.
FYI, the time discrepancy is because of time-zone issues and will be fixed in January.
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