The Green Party Can Be Any Color It Chooses

There's an election coming up in Canada too folks. Did you know that? Take a Coffee Crisp break from Obama and Palin and delve into the world of Canadian politicking.

We all know about the Conservatives and Liberals. They're the big players. Although the Liberals seem like a spent force to me. Loaded with wealthy people the party has taken a left-wing rhetorical angle and it just doesn't jive. Nor is it rubbing people the right way. The Liberals are about as left-wing as the Conservatives are right-wing. The Conservatives spend like a bored rich gal running free in Ogilvy's and aren't much for cutting income taxes. Harper's income trust blindside hit certainly upset many. Real "conservative."

So who the heck wants to cut income taxes?

Try the Green Party.

I visited their website to get a better understanding of the policies they advance. In large parts, it left me wondering "how will they achieve" so many lofty goals and objectives? More importantly and to the point who will pay for it?

One interesting thing I read is the GP is for cutting income taxes. This translates into more disposable income. More disposable income means more personal control of finances. With more in your pocket, so the theory goes, the Greens figure (and I'm just deducing this) building a sustainable economy will be less painless. For example, a carbon tax may hurt less.

Are the Greens advocating the role of the individual to change the environment? The government?Both? The word cooperation crept up a few times on their site so I would say, yes, both.

Well, at least they're thinking a little. Not like the Liberals who want to let taxes mount until we suffocate under it. Worse, the Liberals and their environmental plan seems a little, erm, complex. Will they subsidize classes for people who want to make sense of it?

Just a question. Relax.

I also took a moment to, gulp, go into the green/orange world of the NDP. Once in, I was disoriented but I was able to regain focus and began to read. What exactly I'm not sure. The NDP website is thin on issues, policies and ideas.

But they do have a big picture of Jack Layton. As far as I can tell, he's ready to speak for my family and not corporate boardrooms.

The Green Party's website contained more content. See a pdf of their policies and philosophies here. Once you get past the snickering and giggling, it becomes clear the Greens don't view themselves as one-hit wonders. This time they're banking that the environment will have permanent political legs.

Wisely, they went a little beyond environmental issues (isn't climate stabilizing without human intervention?) to avoid the "let's hug a tree" image. But they do have a leader who is, from what I've heard (and there's been little), a little bit of a loose cannon. For a party who's trying to make inroads with the mainstream, I presume, Elizabeth May is making this goal hard to reach.

She's someone to keep an eye on.

Where the NDP and Greens seem to converge (and agree) is on creating jobs through the new energy economy. They claim they will make big polluters pay and offer environmental solutions.

The conception is that both parties will tax us into oblivion. While this is true about the NDP, the Greens are harder to get a grip on - though it's difficult not to believe they wouldn't increase some taxes to fulfill some of their stated goals. What am I thinking? Of course taxes have to rise!

Along with the usual standard "eradicate poverty and illiteracy" lines that come with party proclamations, here are couple of GP policies that caught my eye. What do you get when you mix green, purple and blue? That's the color the Greens seem to be striving for. Is it a pretty color?:

- Support the abolition of World Bank and IMF unless reformed.

- Endorse the development of civic entrepreneurship to promote a community based economy as a way of combating social exclusion caused by economic globalization. (A little "broad" but this surprised me a little...pleasantly that is.)

- We declare that there is no social justice without environmental justice, and no environmental justice without social justice. (I'm not sure about this one.)

-Support the creation of a World Environment Organization by combining the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) into a single institution with funding and power to impose sanctions to promote global sustainable development. The World Trade Organization (WTO) should be subject to the decisions of this body. (What? Reduce the bureaucracy? If they keep this up we may have to call them the Blue Party.)

-Will campaign for greater power for countries of the South in the UN, by working to abolish the veto power in the Security Council, to remove the category of permanent membership of it, and to increase the number of states with membership.

-Seek to curtail the power of the military-industrial-financial complex in order to radically reduce the trade in armaments, ensure transparency of manufacturing and remove hidden subsidies that benefit the military industries. (This one I don't get. On the international stage? I would think it is since it would be news to me if Canada has a "military complex."

What? No let's "get to know" our terrorists suggestions a-la NDP?

Both the NDP and Greens were short on foreign policy philosophies. It may as well. Canada's skill in this has diminished substantially over the years. It has regained some measure of credibility under Harper but it still remains a weak spot.

Not enough talk about how the individual should regain some sovereignty and how we should rely less on government.

Then again, that shouldn't surprise most observers.