Time for generational change in B.C. politics

Editor: This provincial election is more than about who will govern the next four years, but a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect the trajectory of our future. This has to be a change election.

The BC Liberals claim to be champions of balanced budgets, jobs, and low taxes, but instead we have an unbalanced B.C. full of growing economic, environmental and social debt.

Proof is in the Liberals’ convenient spreadsheet exercise that neglects the hard truths:

1. Frozen social programs that are already underfunded, including mental health and addiction, creating greater costs on emergency services and hundreds of lives.

2. Continuing to take money from BC Hydro — $2 billion over two years as Hydro’s debt mounts toward $20 billion and rates increase.

3. Siphoning $150 million a year from ICBC, another supposedly nonprofit organization

4. Ballooning revenues from property transfer tax, which resulted in the blatant neglect of speculation in the runaway housing market

5. Further debt taken on for the underutilized Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges and make-work projects with no business case or need, such as Site C, and the Massey Tunnel replacement.

6. Continuing to log old-growth forests to collect higher stumpage fees.

7. Further cuts to already underfunded wildlife protection that is putting iconic animals we rely on for tourism and hunting to the brink.

This is not a balanced budget. While the Liberals were making bad deals to create LNG jobs, they are now making worse deals with the unnecessary $9-billion Site C dam and unwanted $3.5-billion Massey bridge.

This is their record, a great misallocation of taxpayer money.

I am a father and millennial. I’m on the front lines with a generation that can’t afford another four years of neglect of rising housing prices and childcare, and job promises based on volatile, carbon-fueled pipe dreams.

We want to work to creating the low-carbon economy to create future we want to live in out of necessity for our existence.

But it’s not just about my generation. One generation falling behind affects all generations from doing well. We need our communities to do well for B.C. and that means focusing on local economic development for this century, not shiny pet projects of the past.

This election, there is something different. We are seeing hard social issues and rational discourse on the direction of our economy taking front stage. We also finally have a viable alternative to vote for, not against — Andrew Weaver and the Green Party.

Weaver has shown us what good politics looks like. He was the hardest-working MLA by being a voice of rational policy over the past four years — calling out the bad and working to make the good great regardless of where the idea came from.

In raising his voice, he was speaking on behalf of many of us who have restlessly watched the BC Liberals making policies that reward their donors at the expense of our future, and an equally hijacked NDP fail to raise their voice on difficult issues.

As a result, the Green Party has inspired a slate of quality candidates, and supporters from all political stripes including myself with evidence-based policy that takes care of the economy, people and the planet. This is what happens when you’re a party for good public policy, not corporate or union donors.

That’s how the Green Party platform finally addresses elephants in the room with a direction we know is right:

Healthcare should include wellness and prevention

The real estate market should not be inflated by speculation, but be about housing people and providing reasonable equity

Homelessness should include housing, mental health and addiction and collaboration

Investment in infrastructure should actually solve issues, help us transition to a low-carbon future in collaboration with communities, not lock us in to make-work projects that kill innovation and based on 1950s approaches we can’t afford.

We need a comprehensive approach to addictions and mental health;

Education and childcare should be attainable for everyone ; and

Our economy needs to create local jobs for our communities to thrive, focus on value-added and sustainable resource management, and seize the opportunities in the 21stcentury economy

We know continuing with the status quo is only more costly and has a priceless human toll.

The Green Party platform compared to the other parties has been praised by economists as the most comprehensive and credible.

Weaver and local candidates have inspired us with their exceptional performance in debates and forums. Now is the time for us to turn the inspiration into change. That’s why I’m voting Green.

Robert Stupka, Kelowna