Re: meeting with the Green’s Jane Sterk (leader) to explore future in politics. 

I thought I’d best be upfront about what I wanted to talk about when we met.  So, I wrote her about what I was going to say at our meeting.  I told her the Greens had to have an economic platform or else they were going to be relegated to the fantasy fringe.  She urged me to read the new Green book.  I did.

It seemed to have come from the minds of babbling fools.

I said, “While I support the ideas proposed in the Green book (kinda), they are not my priorities and, with respect, I don’t think the average citizen feels any differently than do I.”

“Of course, you are welcome to join the party and contribute like everyone else to the policies and platform.”

“Well, I’d love to.  But I am too old and impatient for that.  If you can’t – as leader – change the platform to a more realistic one, I may as well thank you now for your kind reception and bid you and the party adieu.”

And that is where we left it.

But I thought I’d share with you what they are thinking.  The Greens now feel that these are their top ten issues (my comments to Jane attached in italics):
The Greens would:

1. Re-establish a provincial police force.  Definitely not priority #1 in the mind of the public.  More like #20.  Still, good idea but not really necessary.  We just need to ride herd on the police a lot more.  They are just suffering from an in-bred, old boy, militaristic-type culture.  We should NOT make their job more difficult, just have an independent board of inquiry made up of real people other than all lawyers or judges to investigate their mistakes and set better policy.  This is a topic that has some real possibilities but not the way it is stated.    

2. Raise the carbon tax to $50 per tonne of emissions, and “Tax all GHG emitting industries”. (The Liberals, who introduced the tax, would triple it over time. The NDP would scrap the tax.)  Stupid.  Totally alienating.  Joe average doesn’t ‘get it’.  This just sounds like more taxes.  And, in a way, JAv is right.  This is not the way to go about greening anything.  It is punitive and makes people ‘wrong’.  They are not.  They are just people trying to get by and they need incentives, not punishments, to get better. This is just another BIG Brother act that means nothing but negativity to the average person.  Dump it.  But enforce the existing pollution laws to the hilt. 

3. Cancel the Gateway highway-expansion program. (The Liberals are pushing Gateway, and the NDP is not opposed to it.)  Wrong again.  Cars are not the problem- it is pollution that is the problem.  Individual cars mean individual freedoms.  People want ém.  And they need ém.  Public transit is a myth.  We just have to make it so that roads and cars don’t pollute.  Once again BIG Brother (all the planners and academics) has missed the point.  Real people, real workers, real life requires individual transport.  The professors and the planners can take transit, the loggers, fishers, store owners and soccer moms need wheels.  We need to give them ‘clean and green’ wheels.  Yes, I know that isn’t easy. But it is the only way. 

4. End drug prohibition.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It is not as simple as that.  Not as simple as they imply.  Trust me.  I worked on skid row.  I worked with juveniles.  On the street.  Ten years.  It is not that simple.  Regardless, it is not priority #1.  More like #21.  All we are saying as a party is that we don’t have our focus in the right place.  Stupid. 

5. Take tasers away from all law-enforcement agencies in the province.  I hate the damn things.  That RCMP murder at the airport (Robt. D) sickened me.  But it is not the taser.  It is the doofus using it.  Once again, focusing in the wrong place. 

6. Move the province toward a “steady-state economy” that would avoid the shocks of economic highs and lows, and allow for better environmental protection than unfettered economic growth.  Agreed.  100%.  And it ain’t hard to do. We have the product.  We have the people.  We just don’t lead them in the right direction is all.  This one is #1. 

7. Create “green-collar jobs”. These have been largely undefined to date, but they emphasize job creation that does not diminish natural resources to the extent that unfettered economic growth does. (Both the NDP and the Liberals tout increased growth, though the one of the Liberals’ six pillars concerns making do with less.)   Agreed.  100%.  Same as 6 above. 

8. Seek a moratorium on gambling licences and a “gradual phase-out of the most addictive forms of gambling such as slot machines and on-line gambling”. (The Liberals have seen this sector grow exponentially under their tenure.)   What is it with our people?  Televangelists are less judgmental.  The Pope is more liberal.  You are acting like a Seinfeld character – obsessed with the minutae.  I hate govt. sponsored gambling.  It is wrong.  It is immoral and an evil way to fund pork barrelers.  And we should ‘curb it’ significantly.  But it is not priority #1, 2 or 3.  The Greens need political savvy.  This ain’t it. 

9. Repeal Bill 30, which removed local-government decision making on some zoning issues.  Absolutely.  100%.

10. Return B.C. Ferries to the status of Crown corporation. (The Liberals want business as usual, and the NDP promises only to return “accountability” to B.C. Ferries.)  Absolutely.  100%.  And that goes for all the Crown corps.  ICBC, BCH, BCR (if we could) and so on.  But especially BC Systems. 

Maybe I am not green at all.  Maybe I am a liberal or something…………….sheesh.