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BIGGER THAN ME PODCAST
Get inspired by people who make a difference bigger than themselves with host Aaron Pete. From overcoming obstacles to finding motivation, these guests will inspire you to dream bigger and strive for greatness!
Popular guests include Premier David Eby, Vassy Kapelos, Brent Butt, Ariel Helwani, Rav Arora, Tara Henley and the Millennial Therapist.
BIGGER THAN ME PODCAST
171. Sonia Furstenau: What is the BC Green Party Platform?
Aaron Pete speaks with BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau to discuss key issues shaping British Columbia's future. Together, they explore the BC Green Party's platform, tackling urgent matters like climate change, healthcare, housing, the cost of living crisis and Indigenous reconciliation.
When We Die TalksWhen We Die Talks explores life’s biggest question: what happens when we die?
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To have a leader in 2024, say. I just don't think climate change is all that serious. I think that that's a concerning position to take in this era.
Aaron Pete:There have been a low amount of debates scheduled. Are party leaders scared to debate?
Sonia Furstenau:I'm not. I said yes to every debate. I think debates are so important because it's the opportunity for us, as leaders, to share our vision, to share our hopes, to share our solutions.
Aaron Pete:We are in this time where there is two parties that appear to be neck and neck. A similar circumstance could arise again, where you could influence one government or another. Would you just mind sharing your perspective on that, would you just?
Sonia Furstenau:mind sharing your perspective on that. We've seen again and again David Eby really following either Pierre Poyev or John Rustad, either in rhetoric or action, and this is the latest example.
Aaron Pete:Would you remove any form of taxes? Sonia, it's an honour to be with you this morning. Would you mind first introducing yourself for people who might not be acquainted?
Sonia Furstenau:Yeah, it's so nice to be here. I'm Sonia Firstenow. I'm the leader of the BC Green Party and for let's see seven more days, I'm the MLA for Cowichan Valley and I'm currently running as the candidate in Victoria, beacon Hill, where I've moved back to. After living in Cowichan for 13 years, I've come back home with my family to Fairfield and just delighted to be here with you today.
Aaron Pete:I'm hoping perhaps we can start with some current affairs. The BC NDP recently announced that they would scrap the consumer carbon tax if Ottawa drops the federal backstop. Can you respond to this?
Sonia Furstenau:You know, I was part of a group called Citizens Climate Lobby and it's connected to the same model that results Canada, another group that I was a part of this idea that citizens can contribute to political outcomes, and Citizens Climate Lobby in the 2000s was really focused on trying to convince governments, especially across Canada and North America, to put a price on carbon pollution as one way that we make headway on addressing climate change. And the way that you look at this is the same way that we put a tax, a high tax, on cigarettes, because it's a behavior that it causes harm, it costs our system a lot of money, and so we need to tax that activity, that behavior, that product very heavily to discourage people from using, but also to cover some of the costs that are incurred. A price on carbon has the same basic idea, which is you want to take this incentive away from industries that are heavy in carbon pollution and encourage them to move away from fossil fuels, as an example, and towards cleaner energy. But you also want to incentivize people to make choices that actually reduce their own carbon pollution. So EVs or use the bus, or have an energy efficient home or switch to a heat pump are all ways that people can have less carbon emissions in their own lives. And the other piece of what we were advocating for was, of course, the dividend that governments would collect this price on carbon pollution and then they would return it to people.
Sonia Furstenau:And BC was a leader 2008, the first jurisdiction in North America to introduce a price on carbon. And when we used to go to conferences for Citizens Climate Lobby, we were like so proud, we're like hey, we're from BC, we have a price on carbon. And it was a you know and effectively a conservative government. They were the BC liberals that introduced this price on carbon, and it was a demonstration that good policy can come from any part of the political spectrum. And we saw in BC a couple of things. We did see a lowering of emissions. We also saw BC weather the impacts of the 2008 crash better than any jurisdiction in North America, and part of that was attributed to the already diversification of the economy that was happening because of the carbon pricing.
Sonia Furstenau:And then in 2017, when the BCNDP came in, they started to kind of tinker with the system, kind of tinker with the system and instead of it um, you know, the idea was the whole dividend would go back to people. The bc liberals did a tax cut and had had tax credits, which I think was also not the best um, but the ndp uh kind of didn't make it as straightforward with the dividend. I really advocated for that back in 2017. Like, really make it clear to people that you're getting this money back and that it's a real benefit to you economically and financially. And then they made the deal with LNG Canada and that deal at the time locked in LNG Canada's carbon price at $30 a ton and so, while the rest of British Columbia and British Columbians would see their carbon price go up per ton, lng Canada got this deal and it was part of the, at the time, a more than $6 billion package of subsidies that went to LNG Canada, and we voted against that bill. The BC Liberals supported the NDP in 2018 or 19 to support that bill.
Sonia Furstenau:And then recently the NDP brought in the output-based pricing system, which again gave a lot of leeway to industry to find ways out of paying their full share of their carbon pricing. And while people were seeing the price the carbon tax go up, at the same time it was clear that big industry was getting these kinds of breaks and it started to feel more and more unfair, and so what we've been advocating for for the last several years is make it fair, make it transparent, make it clear that everybody pays the same cost but the benefits come back to people in communities and the benefits should be in the form of bigger dividends. And also, I think there's a real role to play with the revenues from the carbon tax to help with communities like Princeton or Merritt, kelowna, that have had huge impacts from climate events, to be able to rebuild their infrastructure and mitigate future droughts or flooding impacts or fire impacts. So there's a way that this tool can be really useful. But what we've seen is, on the one hand, the NDP have not, I'd say, handled it particularly well in the gifts they've given to big industry and especially to big oil and gas, and then, on the other hand, I don't think any governments have communicated effectively that this money is coming back.
Sonia Furstenau:In BC, if you make less than $41,000, which is the median income in this province then you're getting $500 back. As a couple, you're getting $750. And for each child that you have, you get another $128. I think those numbers should go up, but this is a way for that system to be really effective at actually helping with some of the problems of inequality that we have. So it's pretty disappointing to see David Eby say you know, we're going to scrap this, we're going to do something different. What I would have liked to have seen from him was we're absolutely going to stand by keeping a price on carbon, we're going to make it really fair, really transparent, and we're going to make sure that British Columbians and communities feel the benefit from this system I guess there's two pieces to follow up on.
Aaron Pete:There's the, of course, the industrial carbon tax. He's not proposing ever removing that and then there's the consumer carbon tax. That I think is getting a lot of media attention right now, and the only way and I just like your thoughts on it that I don't see it like cigarettes or the tobacco companies, is that people don't currently have a choice, like you could choose not to smoke, but you can't choose in a lot of circumstances, particularly for people in poverty, to get an electric vehicle, or, like with my region, my community, chawathal, like they're out in hope. The bus system is not adequate for people to be able to travel, and so it's not like, oh, I'll just quit smoking. You can't quit carbon in the same sort of way, and so I think that's driving a lot of frustrations. And then to your point about transparency it doesn't feel clear what this is doing, and so I'm just curious as to your thoughts.
Sonia Furstenau:It's not perfectly like cigarettes, yeah, agreed, and that's why, for example, we're proposing fast, frequent and free transit. So people do have a choice. We have really underserved people in British Columbia when it comes to transit. And then the other idea with the carbon pricing system is it's supposed to drive innovation, and I think about Chase Barber and Edison Motors and the innovation that they are demonstrating with building electric logging trucks. But also they are creating the capacity to do retrofits of people's pickup trucks for a much, much lower cost than it would be to buy a new electric truck or an electric vehicle. Chase and his company have figured out how they can for I think it's between $20,000 and $30,000, how they can change a Ford F-150, for example, or a Dodge Ram from diesel or gas over to electric. And that's what we should be encouraging. And it's discouraging to know that companies like Edison Motors are running into barriers instead of support from the Clean BC program from the province of BC. But the goal should be that this is part of a system that's helping transform our economy and transform our energy, and that the government's role is actually not just to have the pricing on carbon but to be helping to drive that innovation, ensuring people have options like public transit, ensuring that there are ways to encourage and help and incentivize people to move to non-fossil, fuel-based forms of transportation, of energy, of home heating, home cooling, and some of those things are happening, but not at the pace that they should be. So I agree, and I think we still need that incentive in place that really encourages people to be able to make choices that move us collectively to where we need to be.
Sonia Furstenau:In Cowichan Valley, transportation accounts for 70% of the emissions in that region, and it's a region that is deeply underserved by public transit. I would have loved to have been able to catch a bus from Shawnigan to the legislature every day. I would have loved to have not been in my car, but that wasn't a possibility, and so we need to see those investments on the side that help people be able to make those choices and also to save so much money. If we're talking about cost of living, public transit is one of the most effective ways to help people find an immediate way to reduce their cost of living.
Aaron Pete:I don't know if you've heard Andrew Weaver, former BC Green Party leaders, comments recently, but what he said about Premier Eby is that he's coming across as he knows what's best for you. And then, on Conservative leader John Rustad, he said he views him as a listener and somebody who's open, like John Horgan. And I'm wondering if you can just reflect what are your perspectives on Premier Eby and Conservative leader John Rustad?
Sonia Furstenau:A couple of things. I mean. I think the leadership we need right now is one that envisions a future that is so much brighter and better for everybody in BC. And I think about what we are putting together, our platform I call it the book of hope and joy and every piece of our platform. Part of it is an assessment of where we are, define the problem, define the challenge. And then part of it is about who we have connected with, who we have listened to the range of both experts and members of the public, people who are impacted by decisions, what are their experiences, and then we propose a vision of what we would like to have. So for healthcare, for example, the vision is everybody has primary care, everybody knows that wherever they are in BC, they can get their healthcare needs met. And from that vision you start putting out the solutions, and the solutions you measure by whether or not they're getting us to that vision, and so on every aspect of our platform. This is the approach that we've taken, what I see from John Rustad and the Conservatives.
Sonia Furstenau:And, in particular, let's start with climate change. It's you know, it is a serious issue. We are seeing significant impacts to our economy, to communities, if you just look at 2021 alone, with the heat dome, the wildfires and the atmospheric river, the estimate of what that cost BC's economy was between 11 and 17 billion dollars. And to have a leader in 2024 say I just don't think climate change is all that serious, it's not much of a crisis. If you can't see the impact of $11 to $17 billion on the provincial economy and don't think that that's serious, then you're not assessing the problem and the challenge effectively and realistically and it also means that you're not going to be applying solutions that are really rooted in where we are and where we want to get to. Communities and I met with the president of the Union BC Municipalities last week communities are struggling with enormous infrastructure deficits and that's even before they have to get to addressing things like improving dike systems or improving water storage systems or addressing the very real threats of wildfire risk to their communities. So we need leadership that says here's where we are, and some of it's pretty challenging. Here's where we want to get to and here's the roadmap to get there, and I don't see this very much from John Rustad.
Sonia Furstenau:I see a fair bit of you know. Let's point at this group of people or that group of people. Let's be afraid of reconciliation and DRIPA. Let's be afraid of people who are homeless or marginalized, who are experiencing mental health issues, let's shrug our shoulders at the seriousness and reality of climate change, and I think that that's a concerning position to take in this era. And then when I see with David Eby and the NDP and I've been, of course, you know, very up close for the last seven years to this government and it's forsaking good policy for bad politics, and this latest example of EB walking back on carbon pricing, which is good policy because he's concerned about trying to appeal to people and I think the job is to communicate and demonstrate the way that your policy is good and how you're measuring the outcomes and how you're going to fix it if it's not working the way you want. That's where transparency and accountability come into good governance, which is being really open with the public. Here's what we're trying to achieve. Here's what we're trying to achieve together. Here's how we're going to approach it, and if we need to adjust, we're going to approach it. And if we need to adjust, we're going to. We're going to communicate with you about that. We're also.
Sonia Furstenau:We also need a government that brings people in that that ensures that there's greater participation in our democracy.
Sonia Furstenau:And when we see the ndp, in the last four years in particular, be willing to shut down debate in the legislature, be willing to push through really significant legislative changes, whether it's to the FOI, the freedom of information, whether it's to some very significant changes to forestry, some of which I think we really support and some of which we have some questions about, changes to the Health Act, changes to housing policy, and that in all of these cases the debate was shut down on these bills and the members of the legislature. Our job is to really engage in that debate and to have the public be able to look at that debate to understand what the government stands and what their position is. To shut down those debates is to shut down even the most basic form of democratic process in this province. And I would argue that that's a symptom of a greater problem that the NDP have had, which is, yes, they have big ideas, but to move along towards those you need to be bringing in the public, it needs to be participatory, people need to be a part of that.
Sonia Furstenau:And then, on the other side, when we've had a couple of substantial all-party committees the one on policing and public safety that gave its report in 2022, and then the report or in 2021 and then the report on on the toxic drug poisoning crisis again an all-party committee, informed by both of these, informed by experts, informed by public important, informed by people who would live to experience important informed by researchers, informed by health professionals, police professionals, everything across the board. These two committees really did the work of bringing the public in and bringing consensus and providing a roadmap to the government on how to go forward and in both cases, the government really just let these reports sit on the shelf, and this is again disappointing. When you have that good work that happens, that's across party lines and that involves public, those are marching orders. That's the direction from the public and from the legislature to government, and government should take that seriously.
Aaron Pete:I heard former Premier, bc Premier Christy Clark, talk about in CTV Power Play was just that, seeing this from both the provincial NDP and the federal NDP starting to talk about how they feel. She credited the NDP for historically having some pretty tough positions that they hold that are perhaps not widely held by Canadians or British Columbians but that so often they're considered principled that you might disagree with some of their policies but often they come across as pretty principled so you might say I don't love that policy, but their heart's in the right place or their philosophies, like you know, they're grounded in something and she said they're really seeding ground on this now because they're moving positions that are significant and kind of based on what the politics of the day is and we haven't historically, from her perspective, seen that. Are you seeing that in a similar vein?
Sonia Furstenau:yeah, I I talked about this the last couple days that we've seen again and again david eby really following, uh, either pierre polyev or John Rustad, either in rhetoric or action, and this is the latest example. I think about the again, I'll come back to the all-party committee on the drug poisoning crisis. There's a lot of evidence that that gives really good guidance on how we should be approaching this, and the top line recommendation of that was to look at a continuum of care. We need access. People need access to health care and mental health care across the whole spectrum. We do not have a mental health care system in this province, of a mental health care system in this province. The only time that people are able to access mental health care in the public system is really when they're in an emergency. And I, you know, I look at all these stories about people, and especially young people, and the parents and I've heard this over and over again in my constituency parents saying I tried so hard to get help for my child. My child was struggling with mental health, my child was struggling with their own wellness and I could not get access to any help for my child. Let's start there. Let's make sure, and this is something we proposed in our education announcement last week or two weeks ago, which was let's ensure there are enough school counselors and psychologists available to kids where they're spending most of their days, which is in school. Let's make sure that we are proactively addressing the impacts of this world that we're in, which is pretty stressful, and we know the impact of social media is really having a long-term effects on children and youth mental health. Let's have the expertise in schools available to these kids. Let's make sure that they have the tools that are available to them to be mentally healthy. Just like we know that physical education is good for kids to stay physically healthy, let's have that mental education.
Sonia Furstenau:And what I often don't see from either the NDP at this point or the conservatives is that upstream piece that government should really be focused on. How are we preventing people from becoming sick? How are we preventing people from ending up in a mental health crisis? How are we preventing homelessness? How are we preventing, you know, misuse of substances? And instead, what we hear is generally only the downstream response, more policing. You know we're hearing a lot about involuntary care. I listened to an interview just the other day with Gloria Makarenko, with a researcher from health justice. There are 20,000 people in BC currently in involuntary care. That exists, and so this idea that is being sold, that like, oh, this will solve everything, it won't.
Sonia Furstenau:We need to make sure that in British Columbia, people's basic needs are met and housing having a home that is secure, that is safe, a place that you can sleep and close the door and know that you're safe. Can you imagine and I think it's really important for all of us to imagine what the impact of not being able to sleep has on people, of that inability to get that? I went home last night and I went to bed at 8.15. I was so tired and I slept so soundly and I'm a different person. This morning I'm back, but without that.
Sonia Furstenau:And when we think of what people are being deprived of, we have to start there. We have to stop depriving people of basic human rights. In Canada, in the Constitution, people have the right to security. Right, there is no security for somebody who is sleeping outside. There's very little security for a lot of people that sleep in shelters because they are not safe places for a lot of people.
Sonia Furstenau:And so you know again, when we look at these crises and, yes, it's distressing for everybody to see the numbers of people in our communities who are homeless. But let's start with solving that. We know that it is a better investment to take a housing first model. We know that it's less expensive to the health care system and to our social services and policing systems when people are housed, and we know it's better for people. So I don't understand. We're going to talk about triple bottom line here. Let's look at that triple bottom line and have politicians present their solutions to how we're going to get out of these crises, not how we're going to respond to the absolute emergency at the very end when people are so deep into crises that we are out of choices.
Aaron Pete:I agree with you. I'm on council for my First Nation community and one topic that I've regularly brought up is that one piece I really recognize former Premier John Horgan for is that they chose to invest in housing on reserve and that was the first time in Canada a province had chosen to do that. And right now we've recently been approved to continue our work to look at having BC Housing come into our community and address the housing crisis within our community that we're seeing lack of investments from the federal government on. But we've also been able to invest in improving the quality of homes that exist on reserve because they've never been required to meet the standards of a province, because they're on federal land, so the provincial laws around how they're developed and how they're built was never required. And so we go into these homes and we go. This was never up to any sort of code when they were built 40 years ago and everything's deteriorated since then. So we've repaired 35 of 89 homes within our community and seen that sense of hope, seen that sense of pride start to rise and I imagine that the quality of sleep is improving, the sense of safety and security is starting to increase and that's so important when we're talking about the downstream effects of those issues.
Aaron Pete:Just one more question on the kind of current affairs and then we'll get into your background is I've spoken with Mr Rustad and he said there's no question, the climate is changing, absolutely no question whatsoever. I get accused all the time of being a climate denier and now look, the climate is changing and man is contributing to that change. There's no question. The issue is what we do about it. Taxing people into poverty is not the answer. You were once the national administrator for Results, canada. Can you give feedback on this idea that the consumer carbon tax is putting people into poverty?
Sonia Furstenau:Oh, for goodness sake, one third one third of inflation can be directly tied to the fossil fuel industry. We are not taxing people into poverty. We are allowing corporations and big industry to profiteer people into poverty. So when we look at the profits of the oil and gas industry just the five companies that make up LNG Canada Shell, petronas, petrochina, kogas they alone took in more than $60 billion in profits in 2022. Globally, the oil and gas industry has been raking in massive amounts of profits and when you look at where the costs are really coming from and you look at the cost of transportation, well, it's directly tied to the cost of fuel and if the companies are managing to take in that much profit, that is a significant part of the inflation and the impacts to cost of living that we're seeing. It's the same in the grocery industry. We've seen real evidence of profiteering. One of the suggestions that we've been putting forward for a couple years now, and that the UK did this, was a windfall profit tax. That's a signal that governments can send to big industries that are profiteering and say if you're going to take in these windfall profit tax, guess what? We're going to tax those profits back and we're going to return them to the people. We're going to make sure that people aren't struggling to the extent that they are, and I think this is really important when it comes to housing For the last 40 years, with the lack of investments and the housing, the investments that you're talking about this is exactly what's needed.
Sonia Furstenau:This is what changes. Everything is starting to invest in real housing solutions on reserve and in communities, but we have allowed a for-profit housing industry to basically be completely in charge of housing for the last 40 years in Canada because the federal government stopped investing what it was investing in co-op housing, in social housing, non-profit housing. So now we are downstream from those upstream losses of investments and our housing world is a financialized housing world. And we have now a whole new model of ownership which is called real estate investment trusts. These are essentially hedge funds. They're investment funds and shareholders are now the owners of a significant amount of especially rental housing across Canada. In the last two years we've seen an increase in rents across Canada of 22%. We see what these REITs do is they buy up often older properties and then they work to get people out, to either encourage them to move out or to evict them, and then, when they're in between tenants, they can raise the rates enormously, and then they are operating on a model of how to give the biggest dividend to their shareholders, and so houses have not stayed as a. We're going to get worse and worse outcomes for people. This is why we're calling for, like a historic investment in non-market, co-op, not-for-profit housing. We need the kind of check and balance that places like Vienna and places like Paris Paris has taken a huge step invested billions of dollars to make sure that there is a Department of Justice investigation into these real estate investment trusts price fixing rents by leaving units empty so that they can drive up the demand and put a higher price on the supply.
Sonia Furstenau:We cannot leave housing or health care or education in the hands of a for-profit industry, because that industry does not exist to take care of people. It does not exist to ensure that there's equity and stability and fairness in our society. That's the job of government, and government is meant to be, in my view, a protective force between, a protective layer between these forces that are driven by profit, that are driven by self-interest, that are driven by shareholders' interests. Government is the protective layer between that and the public. And, yes, you can have industry and business and all these commercial enterprises. But government's job is to say industry and business and all these commercial enterprises. But government's job is to say and we're here to make sure that the people, the public, as well as the land and the things that we depend on for our lives the water, food, the air that we are protecting those on behalf of the people that we represent. Governments represent people and I think that it's really important to look closely at the vision that John Rustad is offering. He's saying oh no, no, we're going to go all in on the LNG industry, we're going to go all in on making the conditions great for the timber industry.
Sonia Furstenau:And what we see from these kinds of industries historically in BC, over and over and over again, is a boom and bust economy. They come in, there's a boom, the resources are extracted, the profits are extracted and then bust Canfor just left and shut down another handful of mills up in Prince George. Once those profits aren't flowing the way that those companies and those shareholders and that bottom line says we want them to flow, then the company leaves town and it leaves the bust for the people behind. We need to transform how we think about our economy. We need to orient that economy to long-term thinking that says in our communities, a boom and bust economy harms it harms in the boom and it harms in the bust. We need long-term, sustainable economy. How do we get there? Not by inviting multinational oil and gas companies to come in and to extract our resources and to have subsidized water and subsidized electricity and subsidized pipelines all of the things that government has done to pave the way for this.
Sonia Furstenau:Instead, we say we want local, regional clean energy, we want innovation, we want projects that are based in our communities, that are creating the clean energy for our communities, that are long-term, long-term jobs, long-term energy resiliency and benefits that flow back to the communities.
Sonia Furstenau:When we look at the benefits that come back to the communities in the Kootenays from the Columbia River treaties and I know that there's a lot that needs to be addressed there but things flow. The wealth flows back to communities and so it funds things like non-market housing or childcare or electric bicycle rebates for people or good transit, like we have to find a way that the economic activity, the benefits of that yes, they can flow to companies, but when you're talking about the resource of British Columbia and the people of British Columbia. We have to make sure that those resources are benefiting the people in the communities of BC and when you look at places like Norway and what Alberta used to do with its oil revenues and resources, the focus is on this. Wealth belongs to everybody here and so we're going to make sure that this wealth benefits people here. I do not hear that vision from John Rustad. I have not seen that vision from the BCNDP, but that vision is possible and it's essential if we want a healthy, sustainable province.
Aaron Pete:The carbon tax has become a political football and it feels like people perhaps are hungry for a new idea, for a different approach. I feel like many people want to address climate issues, but this is clearly becoming a topic where the public is starting to kind of make their position known. Would you and the BC Greens remove the consumer carbon tax?
Sonia Furstenau:No, but we would make it fair, and it has to be fair. And if it's fair and if industry is paying their fair share, the benefits are actually going to be greater to the public than they are to industry. So let's look at it this way If industry was paying its fair share on carbon pricing right now, the dividends that would be going back to people would be greater than the cost of carbon tax that they're paying. In most cases right now. That is already the case that people are getting a greater dividend, they're getting a bigger rebate than what they're paying in carbon tax, and I think it's really important to recognize that.
Sonia Furstenau:The tax, the carbon tax, is one piece of what the cost of energy is, and let's not forget that part I was talking about earlier, about the profiteering from oil and gas, and, believe me, they take advantage of this. They knew that on the day that the higher rate of carbon tax was coming in, they also jacked up the gas prices. I mean, that's just their standard operating practice, right? But the goal being how are we decarbonizing our economy if we are putting that cost on carbon pollution? That's a disincentive to to industry and a disincentive to people, and then we actually make the alternative more affordable and when people move off of gas heating of their house and move to an electric heat pump, they can see their energy bills go down. When they have availability of transit and they don't have to rely on their own vehicle, and they're actually getting to work faster and they get a cappuccino on the way which is my vision for public transit for free, you know suddenly quality of life goes up. I'm getting to read a novel on my way to work or listen to a podcast or even just do a meditation, and I'm getting to work not frazzled from a really congested drive. I'm getting to work in that speedy bus lane in half the time and I've got a self-driving car, which is called a bus, with a bus driver, and we are ensuring that our communities have the benefits that make communities so much more wonderful to live in Good walking paths, good recreation facilities, lots of green space, lots of third spaces, lots of places where we can gather and be in community, where we're not working, we're not shopping. We're in a third space in our communities. And I think again, if we can like, I've spent the last seven years imagining what this province could be.
Sonia Furstenau:It could be the best place to live on earth. It's so beautiful here. We have such an incredible climate, except for the atmospheric rivers and the heat domes and the floods and all of that. But you know we have. We have so much here in BC and we have extraordinary people.
Sonia Furstenau:I you know my the amount I've learned in the last 13 years living in the Cowichan Valley from the people of Cowichan tribes, from the elders, from the chiefs, from the youth in Cowichan tribes. It has been an extraordinary journey for me. I feel like I was living in a place in Victoria. It's a wonderful city but there's not a lot of interaction with Indigenous and First Nations people in a day-to-day way here in Victoria as there is in Cowichan. The Cowichan tribes land is right in Duncan. You're interacting and some of my best friends in the last few years are people that I've learned so much from from Cowichan tribes.
Sonia Furstenau:We have this extraordinary opportunity, with DRIPA and with reconciliation, to actually weave together a future for this province that is so much more wonderful than where we are right now and that weaving together is Indigenous knowledge and wisdom and expertise and culture, alongside of the culture of people from British Columbia who come from all over the world If you're not Indigenous.
Sonia Furstenau:I always remind people you are an immigrant or a descendant of an immigrant, as I am, and that weaving together could actually get us to a place that is so extraordinary and strong and resilient and wonderful. And that's the work ahead of us right now Not to divide people, not to make people afraid of other people, not to suggest that we can't have a future that's different than the world we're in right now. It's to start imagining the best possible future and understanding that we have all of the capacity and all of the conditions here to create that future and then get to work to building it. And I've been part of that in Cowichan for the last 13 years and it has been remarkable what we've been able to achieve by coming together, sitting at tables with people who have different political perspectives, who have different backgrounds, indigenous and non-Indigenous, but all of us collectively focused on how do we best work on behalf of our communities.
Aaron Pete:Beautiful. That was very well said. I'm wondering, from your perspective, what does it mean to be a Green Party member?
Sonia Furstenau:So Green Parties are different from other political parties. Green parties started to emerge and the Green Party in BC was first in North America in 1983. It was formed and the party is based on principles like ecological reconciliation or ecological wisdom and social justice and, you know, participatory democracy. We have these fundamental principles that really guide our view and our work and our policies. And I look at materials from the 1980s from the Green Party of BC, when it first became a political party, and it sounds exactly like what I'm saying to you right now.
Sonia Furstenau:The original impetus for BC Greens was to have a party that was standing up for protecting old growth for us in BC. It was a party that stood up for greater equality and justice for people in BC. It was a party that stood up for greater equality and justice for people in BC. It was a party that stood up for taking action on climate change. I mean, this is we are. One thing we are is consistent, and I look at the seven years of my speeches in the legislature and I sometimes go back and I'm like I sound exactly the same then as I sound now. I've learned more. My depth is definitely deeper than it was and I've chosen as my role as an MLA to dive deep, to try to understand deeply everything from how our public service works and how it could work better to what is the legislation underpinning the Ministry of Children and Families and how do we change that to. You know, our energy and how we're not succeeding at harnessing the extraordinary clean energy capacity that we have in BC. I dive deep and I've treated this, my role as an MLA, like an ongoing graduate university course in all things public policy, but I still stand for and still believe in the same things that got me here. I want to trust government. I want government to be making me feel happy and supported health care, a thriving public education system, you know, addressing the fact that our social safety net needs to be rebuilt, ensuring that everybody's basic needs are met, and then looking to that future and shaping that future with every decision we make. Not about, I think, the other parties. Historically, political parties really operate in a framework of how to get power and how to hold power and I always say if power is what interests you, bc Greens are probably not your best choice. That's not the avenue an easy avenue to power, easy avenue to power, but it is an avenue to being able to have a significant impact on public policy by raising issues that no other political parties will raise or talk about, by putting forward solutions, by putting things on the political agenda that wouldn't be there and the work that we've done.
Sonia Furstenau:I'm so, I, I. I was just at a launch in in Saanich for Rob Botterill, the, the, the candidate who's running in Saanich North in the islands, and Adam was there and and we were reflecting on our seven years together, side by side, joined at the, joined at the shoulder, really, adam and I for seven years, and an example of that weaving that I'm talking about, like, I feel like Adam and I as a caucus, indigenous and non-Indigenous, our families have been connected for a long time. We have a lot of strange coincidences we have matching kids, we have matching dogs, but Adam has. I've learned so much from Adam and how Adam sees the world and the knowledge and wisdom that he has from his elders, from his community, from his culture, and that has enriched and enlivened me, and Adam's learned from me my background in history, my background in understanding Western democracies and societies and how we got to this place. This is the example, and we look back on the last seven years and we are fiercely proud of what we've done and what we've accomplished and the things that we've put on the agenda for the government and things that have moved forward and happened because we were there.
Sonia Furstenau:I do not regret a moment of the work that I've put in because I can see real outcomes, and that's investments in Cowichan infrastructure, investments that we work together as a Cowichan leadership group and as a community to achieve the hospital, the high school, the hospice, the funding for the WEAR, the youth emergency shelter, the funding for addictions and treatment, the housing project, the village site that is really successful, the list goes on.
Sonia Furstenau:And we worked on that in a good way. We worked on that as a united community, as a united leadership, with the chief of Cowichan tribes, along with the MP and the MLA and the mayors, and really focused on how do we bring community together, bring community along, how do we put solutions in front of the province and the federal government that they can see we're working with a united voice and then we make them happen. And this is why I'm so rooted in that hopefulness, because I've seen again and again how much can be accomplished when government focuses its energy and its investments in the right ways, so much can be done. We can solve everything. All of these challenges, we can solve them. It's a matter of focusing that energy not on political rhetoric and scapegoating and finding out who's to blame, but on saying here's the vision. Let's define the problem, let's be honest about what's causing these problems and then let's just start solving them.
Aaron Pete:Do you think that one MLA can make a difference?
Sonia Furstenau:A hundred percent. Of course one MLA can make a difference. The MLA is a representative of the people, of their community and we can make a difference on so many levels. We make a difference because we've had thousands of case files in our constituency office where we've helped people who have been underserved or not served properly by provincial agencies and we've gotten the outcomes that those people need and deserve to have, whether it's everything from, you know, an ICBC case or a WorkSafeBC case to addressing a land use issue that is really needing to be addressed. So we help people on an individual basis in our constituency offices and that's been such a huge part of the satisfaction of this work is to know that we've made a difference in so many people's lives. And then we help our communities by working on things at a more systemic and structural level and all those things that I just listed for Cowichan. Those are substantive improvements in the day-to-day lives of people in Cowichan.
Sonia Furstenau:For kids that are going to go to school in that high school, that is a huge difference from the experience they've had in a very run-down, very old building that they've been going to school in, building that they've been going to school in. But then we can make a difference at the level of what government's paying attention to, at that structural level. How we do things, how government does things, really matters, and we have to take seriously the importance of investing in both demonstrating the capacity of government to do things and then demonstrating that government can be trustworthy, and that that comes from being very open, very honest, very transparent, and then being very accountable and measuring the right things, measuring the outcomes how many people have access to primary care? How many kids have classrooms that are not oversized, that have enough EAs, that have access to school counselors, that teachers aren't feeling frazzled? How many people are riding the bus? How many people can rely on public transit as a way to get around? How many people can rely on public transit as a way to get around? How many people feel supported by the ministries that are meant to be there to support them? Social development and poverty reduction which I would change to poverty elimination, by the way. Why would we not just want to eliminate poverty? I don't know.
Sonia Furstenau:Ministry of Children and families, I mean it. I know for a fact that that people are afraid of ministry of children and families, and that's the opposite. It should be a feeling of this. This agency is here to help me. They're going to support me. They're going to help me be the best parent I can be. Um, they're going to make sure that I have the resources and that I can meet the needs of my kids. That should be the goal, and we can achieve all of this. It's all possible. We have to put our energies in the right direction.
Aaron Pete:Well said. I'm wondering if you can reflect on the leadership of Andrew Weaver at the time. I think that's when the BC Green Party really came to prominence for so many people was during that time where there was a coalition government, where they were working together, and I think that's just a moment that stands out. Is it the same party that it was back then? I'm just thinking we are in this time where there is two parties that appear to be neck and neck. A similar circumstance could arise again, where you could influence one government or another. Would you just mind sharing your perspective on that?
Sonia Furstenau:Here's what I want to say to everybody who's listening I have a vision for the best possible outcome for this election in the BC legislature Number one. There are a number of independent candidates, many of them MLAs right now, who are running in this election. I look at Adam Walker, I look at Tom Shapitka, I look at Dan Davies, I look at Mike Bernier. In a riding where you have a strong independent running, especially someone who has demonstrated that they are a strong and effective MLA, elect that independent In a riding where there are strong greens running who can win. So we have, you know, victoria Beacon Hill. That's me. We have West Van Cetus Guy, where Jeremy Valerio came within 60 votes of winning in 2020. We have Nicole Charlewood, out in Nelson Creston, who also was a close second in the 2020 election. Camille Curry, who was the architect of Everyone Deserves a Family Doctor running in Esquimalt. Chris Hergesheimer in the Sunshine Coast. And, wow, arzina Hamir and the movement that she is building in Courtney Comox, a movement of community building, of love, of connection. These writings and others where BC Greens can win, elect BC Greens. And then the rest of the writings. Let the two big parties kind of duke it out in those writings.
Sonia Furstenau:But the outcome ideally is we have a see the outcomes where people feel disaffected, where people don't feel included, where governments are able to use that power to ram through whatever they want and we lose that piece of really strong legislative parliamentary democracy and in that case we are going to have the most representative legislature we've ever had in BC. It's going to have the greatest diversity of voices it's going to have. It's going to insist that we work collaborative very strongly, that we will get more good things done in a parliament where no party has all of the democracy in their legislature, in their, in people, in knowing that if I'm sitting across a table with somebody that doesn't have the same opinion of me, I'm going to learn from that person my leadership is rooted in. We can find so much common ground and it's that common ground that gives us the ability to do so much good on behalf of the people of BC. That's what I'm oriented to and I've always been this person.
Sonia Furstenau:I run into students that I taught 15 years ago a group of grade eight students, group of grade eight students and they tell me they still look back to that year, to that grade eight year, because for me the philosophy was. I'm going to empower these students to know that they can do anything they set their minds to and they did. They were extraordinary and they remember that. And I think the kind of leadership we need is not leadership that says I know everything, I'm the smartest person in the room. It's leadership that says together we are extraordinary. When we can listen to each other and learn from each other and move forward. Together, we can accomplish anything.
Aaron Pete:There have been a low amount of debates scheduled. Are party leaders scared to debate?
Sonia Furstenau:I'm not. I so want to have debates. We did just find out there is one, a new one that's been scheduled, a CKNW debate on October 2nd, and then there's the consortium debate on the 8th and there's a Czech TV debate on the ninth. So I think those are right now the three televised or broadcast leaders debates. But I said yes to every debate. Every debate that we got invited to and I think there were 12 originally I said yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Sonia Furstenau:And I think debates are so important because it's the opportunity for us, as leaders, to share our vision, to share our hopes, to share our solutions. But it's so importantly, it's an opportunity for the people of BC to get to know us, and I invite people to get to know me. Invite people to get to know me. I'm the only returning leader in this election and I'm the only elected leader in this election. Both of the other two were appointed. They won by acclamation and I had to really convince the members of the BC Green Party that I would be a good leader for them. And I won that leadership in September of 2020. And I've worked every day since to demonstrate that I take that role of leader very seriously, but that my job is not to be a single voice in power. My job is to empower and strengthen our party and the people that form it, and to listen and to be informed by all of the wisdom that we have.
Aaron Pete:On LNG, you're quoted as saying there's also scientific evidence that methane emitted from LNG has 84 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. What would you do if you were able to sway this in regards to LNG projects?
Sonia Furstenau:We should not have any more LNG projects, and there's two reasons for this. One, exactly what you said the emissions from methane, but also the impacts of fracking fracking we have 36,000 fracking wells in Northeast BC, 36,000 wells where freshwater billions of liters of freshwater that the fracking industry gets to buy for only $2.25 for a million liters, which is astonishingly terrible. Freshwater is rammed down with a mixture of very toxic chemicals and that is what gets the methane gas to be released. In that process. Methane gas is released in the transportation, the methane is released in through the pipelines and then that methane is liquefied using an enormous amount of energy and then it's shipped using an enormous amount of energy. In terms of climate, do not be fooled by the greenwashing that suggests that somehow LNG is a gift to the global climate. It's not and it's very, very hard on the environment. In BC those fracking wells are often left abandoned. The federal government had to come in with yet another subsidy to get going with cleanup of those wells, and then the impacts of putting the coastal gasoline pipeline through Wet'suwet'en territory and the conflicts that that has created just really counter to the work we're supposed to be doing under the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act and reconciliation Plus.
Sonia Furstenau:The economic argument does not exist. The International Energy Agency, again and again, is stating that the demand for LNG is going to peak by the end of this decade and that there is already an oversupply of LNG in terms of what's available and what's coming online. There are countries that can produce LNG far, far, far more cheaply than we can, so we can't compete. This is fiscally irresponsible. And when you add the fact that we are subsidizing just LNG Canada to the tune of 5.4 billion, that we are subsidizing all of this industry with cheap water $2.25 for a million liters. We're subsidizing them with cheaper electricity. We're subsidizing them with paying for the power hookups for that electricity so that they can then say they're somehow greener, and that comes at a cost to the people of BC. When you look at the jurisdictions that are exporting LNG in the United States, in every case the cost of domestic power rates goes up because you put your power on a global commodity and, just like we have housing as a global commodity now and the impact that that has had, putting our energy out as a global commodity is only going to cause further harm and suffering to the people of BC.
Sonia Furstenau:We need to reimagine why and how we're producing energy and electricity in this province and, like I said, we could have this extraordinary network of clean energy hubs all around BC that are producing long-term jobs, long-term economic benefits and lower cost energy for the people of BC. I shudder, I shudder to imagine what is going to happen when Site C comes online, the energy of which is supposed to go to the LNG industry, of which is supposed to go to the LNG industry. The cost to rate payers of a $16 billion or more project is going to be enormous, and I think we're going to find ourselves having to ask the federal government to step in the way they stepped in in Muskrat Falls in Newfoundland, which was another boondoggle of a project the same as Site C. We can do so much better than this, but we have to stop listening to the lobbyists from the big industry, whose interests and profits we are protecting with these decisions, and we have to start listening to the people that are invested in the well-being both environmental and health, and also the fiscal and economic well-being of British Columbia, and stop thinking of ourselves as a resource colony whose job it is to get resources out the door as fast as possible and start thinking of ourselves as a secondary and tertiary economy, where we're doing manufacturing value-added goods, and also at a tertiary, where we are a knowledge-based economy.
Sonia Furstenau:If we had an institute for clean energy in Northwest BC and we were harnessing the capacity of geothermal but also doing the innovation and the technological developments that we need to do to figure out how better to capture, how better to store and how better to transmit clean energy, then we would be in a world global leadership. If we want to do something for global emissions, that's what we do, Not more fossil fuel infrastructure. It makes no sense, and it's not just me saying this. This is, you know, again, the International Energy Agency. This is Forbes, this is the World Bank, this is the United Nations. The consensus on where we need to be going is away from fossil fuel infrastructure and towards the infrastructure that will deliver a truly clean energy economy in future.
Aaron Pete:So do you disagree with the Haisla Nation's approach to LNG?
Sonia Furstenau:So I mean, this is the challenge, and Adam and I have talked about this a lot, about the conflict between sovereignty and the precepts of DRIPA. Of course, nations are going to be inclined to make that choice, whether it's, you know, ongoing extraction of timber or ongoing extraction of oil and gas. But what's needed is conservation financing on the one hand, and then economic opportunities that are about the present and the future economics, not the past. We are globally moving away from oil and gas, and investing right now in oil and gas is an investment in an economy of the past. We need to have opportunities for First Nations, for communities and for people in BC to invest in the economy of the future Fantastic.
Aaron Pete:You've also spoken about air quality concerns around schools, major infrastructure and the air purification process, and it's admirable because I've thought about this for my community when we had that heat dome and that long period of smoke over the october season in the fall season, I was shocked at how long it stuck around. But I also thought about people who didn't have proper air purification processes within my first nation community and how we go about kind of supporting them, because you're going to bed, you're breathing that in, you're basically becoming a smoker for a week, two weeks, three weeks and it's incredibly hard on your lungs. For our elders they were very vulnerable and so you see people develop these health issues. I'm wondering if you could just elaborate on this, because I don't hear anybody else talking about the air purification process during these long heated summers where we get a lot of smoke.
Sonia Furstenau:Yeah, we have to take this really seriously we started talking about this back in 2020, that we should think of, first and foremost, public buildings, and especially schools, as havens for clean air. Let's get filtered, purified air into those buildings so that in these extended wildfire events, extended events with serious air pollution and we know no level of wildfire air pollution is acceptable. It all poses a risk to health, and especially for young people and for seniors. So let's make schools these havens of clean air, and not only does that benefit the physical health of kids and teachers who are in those environments, but it actually helps kids learn better. We know that when kids have clean air to breathe, that their brains are going to work better, they're going to feel healthier, they're going to be healthier. Then let's extend that to public buildings Any kind of public building a library, a recreation center and make those clean air havens so that people have a place to go, and then extend that. Make sure that any residence for seniors, any healthcare facility, has really good air purification.
Sonia Furstenau:We need to make sure that in these events where we have extended periods of serious air pollution, that people have places to go, that where they're guaranteed to have clean, safe air to breathe. It's fundamental. I mean, we need three things. Well, we need more than three, but in order to live, in order to exist, we need air, and we can only go three minutes without that. We need water we can only go a few days without that and we need food.
Sonia Furstenau:And when I talk about government being a protective layer of the people, you have to consider the role that government needs to play in ensuring that people have clean air, clean water and healthy food, and that is creating a form of security that is real for people, and we've put legislation forward about this. We've included it as part of our platform. It is a public health investment. It saves healthcare dollars by keeping people healthy rather than have more and more people suffering from the impacts the respiratory impacts, the hard impacts of air pollution and having to rely more heavily on our health care system. So, first and foremost, let's ensure we're keeping people healthy.
Aaron Pete:I only have a couple of minutes left and I'd love to jump on a few other topics. You've talked about this idea of community health centres, again, something that First Nations are doing in many of the communities. Fnha supports us building health buildings that serve our community members, where they get wraparound supports. Would you mind sharing your perspective on that?
Sonia Furstenau:Yeah, and I want to start by saying it's not like we've made this up. This is a proven model. We have currently my understanding is about 30 community health centers in BC. Community health centers were a foundational piece of Ontario's healthcare system of the Maritimes. We had a 2017 all party report on healthcare. Its recommendation was community health centers. Jane Philpott's just written a book Health for All where she says this is the answer.
Sonia Furstenau:I did a lot of deep diving into healthcare in 2022. And on the other end of that dive, it was so clear to me that community health centers where you have doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, you can have physician assistants, social workers, psychologists, physiotherapists, dietitians all the needs that you would have for your health care would be in one place. And so you go to a community health center and you know that you're going to get the care you need. But you also know that if you live in a community, you have access to that community health center. So it addresses this problem of nearly a million people in BC not having a family doctor, and it also addresses the fact that for a lot of family doctors, they don't want to run a small business. They don't want to operate a business where they deliver a service and then they have to fill in all the paperwork and do all the work to charge the government for that service. So this actually starts to create a truly public primary health care system, and having that in place means that people aren't having to rely on hospitals for access to basic primary care. It means that we're keeping people healthier rather than waiting until people are in a health crisis before they're accessing healthcare, and we're also creating the relationships that we know are so essential relationships between healthcare providers and patients that really contribute to that better healthcare.
Sonia Furstenau:I think of my family doctor for 25 years. That relationship was so essential and when he retired I felt so lost without that essential relationship that had seen me through three pregnancies and babies and my first marriage and then being a single parent and then finding my. You know where I am as a teacher, but my doctor was a part of that journey for me and I knew that I could count on him to be there. I want everyone in BC to have the benefits of that kind of relationship, and the way that we make that happen is a community health center. Jane Philpott calls hers the periwinkle model. We've adapted that for BC and we call it the dogwood model, but the idea that you know that a community health center and the health professionals are there when you need them and you have that long-term relationship.
Aaron Pete:On that topic. Some BC health board members are making up to $1,400 per day. You've called this out. Does this erode public trust in our healthcare system?
Sonia Furstenau:It really does. And I think when we see the kind of challenges that we're having to deliver healthcare and then we look at the increases in executive spending, in administrative spending. We look at the increases in executive spending, in administrative spending, we look at the size of the health authorities and the fact that we have 64 vice presidents across the health authorities, and then we see these kinds of numbers about the board members charging this much, that does erode because people feel like, well, hold on a minute, I don't even have a doctor, I can't even find a clinic to go to when I need to get healthcare, and yet people are getting paid so much money at the top of this system. And it's something I think again, I always try to look at at, at the whole system and when, when we've shifted in the last few decades of thinking of public services and public bodies more in a corporate way where we have CEOs and vice presidents and highly paid board members, adopting that corporate model, I would argue has actually eroded both the public service delivery part of our public bodies and it's left behind the public.
Sonia Furstenau:And so I think we have to get back to understanding public bodies as being just that you're in public service. If you want to have a salary of, you know, 400 or 800 or $2 million off, you go to the private sector. But public service should have a ceiling and a floor and we should be ensuring that we are the model for how to avoid too much income inequality, for how to avoid too much income inequality. So if you have somebody at the lowest paid place in public service, at $45,000 for a full-time role, and you have somebody at the top earning over a million, there's a real disconnect between those two places and I really think we need to pull down that ceiling and make sure that we are really valuing the part of our public service bodies that are delivering the care, the services that are on the front lines, that are making sure that people are okay, and this corporatized model that's been applied over public bodies I think is failing us and we have to move away from it.
Aaron Pete:I only have like a couple minutes left, but I want to touch base on some of the work you're doing on affordability and some of the topics you've covered. The BC NDP brought forward 72 new shelters in an area where there were 1,600 people living in homelessness. You've also raised the issue of people with disabilities not receiving increases to the financial support of their government. They've been relying on the same amount despite the fact that inflation continues to rise. How would you address the cost of living?
Sonia Furstenau:Yeah, I think again I'm going to. You know, as a teacher and as a politician, I look at where do we want to be, and for me, this province should be a province where nobody's living in poverty. And we've seen, unfortunately, more and more people falling into deeper and deeper poverty. And it's much, much harder to get people out of deep poverty than it is to prevent people from going into poverty. And this is why, you know, canada had a very effective social safety net. That was a way to prevent deep poverty. We have eroded that social safety net. I often call it a high wire. Now People fall off of it far too easily.
Sonia Furstenau:So people with disabilities should not be expected to live so far below the poverty line. I spoke to somebody the other day who has recently moved into a tent outside in Victoria. He is a person with a disability and it is so shameful to me that we as a society are saying to people with disabilities we're okay with you having to live outside, we're okay with you having no home. I'm not okay with that. That's not the Canada that I grew up in. That's not the society that I want to be a part of.
Sonia Furstenau:We should not be punishing people with disabilities if they take work. And I heard David Eby respond to an advocate on the radio, where the advocate said look, we're living so far below the poverty line and Eby said well, you should consider getting a job. Well, that would be great if you weren't having your supports and your disability payments clawed back if you get the job. The way that we can ensure that there's fairness in the system is if people are earning. We have a progressive taxation system, a progressive income taxation system. If somebody on a disability income is also earning enough that they have to pay money back in taxes, that's a good thing.
Aaron Pete:To clarify, though he did say that he was raising the amount so that that person could go work, and the problem with that, I think, is that he missed the punchline, which is some people on disabilities can't work because they're disabled yeah, although I would argue that that that baseline is way too low, like it is very low.
Sonia Furstenau:Um, just just take away the baseline and just say if you work and you earn more than this, then you're, you're gonna contribute to income tax. That's a great thing.
Aaron Pete:And, yes, for people who can, would you remove any form of taxes?
Sonia Furstenau:Would I remove any form of taxes?
Aaron Pete:Yes, other political leaders right now are talking about where they might remove taxes, reduce the carbon tax or something. Is there any taxes you would remove?
Sonia Furstenau:Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm not going to do a spoiler just yet, but we have a whole plank on taxation where we are proposing a much fairer approach to taxation that does take the burden off of people who are at the lower end of our taxation system, and I'm excited to be releasing that. But I'm not going to put out a spoiler just yet, stay tuned. But I think for people with disabilities, I just want to say, like we should not be expecting people to live in dire poverty, like that's just not, that is not okay. For people on income assistance, we should approach and this is something we proposed in 2020. If you qualify for income assistance, then let's make that a qualification for 12 months or 24 months and if you go and get a full-time job again, the income tax system is very good at ensuring that you're contributing back. But people need certainty, they need predictability, they need to be able to plan, and the current levels of disability support and income support are so low that they are not keeping people out of dire poverty and dire homelessness.
Aaron Pete:Would you mind telling people how they can follow your work? Keep up to date with your candidates.
Sonia Furstenau:Yeah, so we are well over 50 announced candidates right now. We have up to I think we are down to just about six or seven ridings where we're still working on getting candidates, so we're well into the 80s of a number of candidates that we have Very excited about that, very excited about our candidates. You can go to bcgreensca and find out about all of our work, all of our candidates. We will be putting our platform up there once we release it and I really encourage people to connect with your BC Green candidate in your riding and get to know them, find out who they are, find out what kind of representative they will be, because this is the most important thing in the election is you're not voting for a party or a leader In the ballot box. You're putting your checkmark beside the name of the person who you want to represent you in the BC legislature, and it's really important to understand who the people are on that ballot and whether or not you think they're going to be the best representative.
Aaron Pete:It's been an honour to speak with you.
Aaron Pete:I truly believe that the best way for everybody to vote is to look at those local individuals, to consider the issues that matter to them and then to proceed based on that.
Aaron Pete:As much of an honour as it's been to interview party leaders, I do believe we think we need to remember to zoom in on our local communities. Who's going to be advocating for us locally? And I think the work you're doing is a huge reminder of that role in our democracy to consider that if you are passionate about a candidate, you can start to work with them locally. You can start door knocking with them and you can be a part of the change you want to see for your community. And I think that's really come through in this conversation is that we all get to participate in this thing called a democracy. We all get to share our voice, support the people we believe in, and that's how we bring out the best in our culture and our community, increase that social fabric. So we all have confidence. I really appreciate you being willing to take the time and share your perspectives.
Sonia Furstenau:Oh, it's been such a pleasure to to talk with you, aaron and I. I appreciate the opportunity and I, I you know, I hope one thing your listeners can go away with is there can be joy in politics. Politics should be joyful. It should be about an inspiring and hopeful vision for the future, and that's where I've existed for seven years as an MLA, three years before that as an area director and, frankly, for my whole life. But I really do believe that we can be joyful when we think about our future.
Aaron Pete:What a beautiful way to end this. Thank you, Sonia.
Sonia Furstenau:Thank you, Aaron.
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