The Greens and Elizabeth are now in the debates.

I just spent a little time at the Green Party's official site, including an admittedly superficial look at Green policy on selected issues. Unfortunately, a lot of the nitty-gritty on implementation is in pdf form, and that is a problem for me, as I've yet to get Adobe Reader's latest update to work consistently without freezing up the browser.

So what I'm seeing may be addressed in detail where I can't get at it.

I'm seeing figures on energy use by individual families that seem to be pulled out of a hat. I'm seeing a Green Shift carbon use taxation model that includes the potential for an alarming amount of administrative squirming around, because they aren't planning on exempting (say, seniors and low income families) but instead going the rebate route, which means people at risk end up paying for home heating fuel or rural transportation upfront, at the point where they can least afford increased costs, and have to be savvy enough to fill out a bunch of forms or figure out how to jig their income tax report and hope they can find all their receipts.

I'm seeing a vague health care policy with an emphasis on 'living healthy', not bad in itself, and a laudable intent to increase the use of nurse practitioners, but nothing to indicate substantive efforts to decrease waiting times for joint replacement and various surguries. Maybe that's in the damn pdf.

I'm seeing a careful nod to universal child care, without addressing the employment issues childcare workers have been bemoaning for over three decades.

I'm seeing a limp support for unions and indeed labour in general.

I'm seeing entrenchment on issues that will get their asses ejected from the Atlantic provinces, such as a continued refusal to understand the seal hunt and why it is such a stubborn issue here.

I'd much appreciate if someone interested enough and able to look at pdfs can correct me or further inform me regarding the above.


http://www.greenparty.ca/