Green Party Looks to community based future
Green Party Leader David Coon says in New Brunswick, we must, among other things, look for more cooperation among levels of government and abandon outdated ideas of how to generate growth in the economy. Above is the fertile farmland so common along the beautiful St. John River Valley. Photo: Images NB
The Green Party is the party of community, and it is in our communities where we can move our economy forward.
There is much that can be done, but it will take time, it will take leadership and it will take a coherent vision of what kind of New Brunswick we want.
The Green Party has no illusions about the challenges we face. We have entered a period of slow economic growth which will persist for the foreseeable future, something the other parties refuse to acknowledge.
We cannot magically return to the remarkable growth of the post-war period of the last century, despite the rhetoric we hear. The combination of factors that made that possible will not be seen again.
The current obsession to relive the glory days of growth by massively expanding our production of oil and gas with pipelines and fracking is an exercise in self-injury in the face of the climate crisis. While we may feel better in the short-run, it’s self-mutilating and fails to resolve the underlying problems.
We need a critical mass of new ideas and approaches to move our economy forward through this transition period. We must accept responsibility, and take control of our lives and communities, because the new economy will be built from the bottom up, drawing on the perseverance and ingenuity of our people.
We can strengthen our local economies by producing more of what we consume here. Producing and buying local creates jobs for New Brunswickers. Importing what we need does not.More of what we earn must be invested in New Brunswick rather than outside the province to fuel the development of new businesses and cooperatives here.
Steps have to be taken to keep the wealth we create with our hard work, circulating within New Brunswick, rather than flooding out of the province to other places.
A diversity of business,cooperative and social enterprises can create new green sustainable jobs across all of our sectors if we resolve to move our society and our economy toward sustainability. There are a growing number of New Brunswick enterprises that are creating these jobs now.
I visited a number of them during my new economy tour of the province, from long-standing cooperatives such as Northumberland Dairy in Miramichi to manufacturers such as Maritime Geothermal in Petitcodiac.
There is an important role for the public sector as well.
The development of a smart and greener electrical grid by NB Power is an excellent example. Just the other day I met someone who has moved to Fredericton to work on this green infrastructure project, a nice complement to the growing ITC sector in the capital city.
And it’s time that job sharing and four-day work weeks be made available as options. Let’s offer this in the public service, and encourage the private sector to follow suit. In the face of slow growth, four-day work weeks and job sharing will help ensure more people have jobs.
We New Brunswickers are a resourceful people — always have been. We will rise to the challenge, but it can’t be based on living in the past, chasing out-of-date dreams, looking for jobs in all the wrong places.
Business, cooperatives and social enterprises will step up to be part of the transition if we have local leaders, local governments and a provincial government working together to provide the vision and leadership we need to move toward sustainability.
This necessarily means the premier, cabinet and individual MLAs must be willing to cede power to local communities. They need to be allies,not overlords.
Our community colleges and universities are filled with enthusiastic and creative young people, eager to engage in building toward a greener future. Adopting sustainability as our overarching goal will give more a reason to stay, or return with their young families to be part of this historic transition.
Someday, I can hear young people across Canada saying,“it’s happening in New Brunswick — it’s really happening!” At the moment, we are like the caterpillar crawling along the ground who has no idea what awaits if she only climbs up a milkweed plant and spins a cocoon.
It will take time, leadership, perseverance and all the resourcefulness we can muster, but we can transform N.B. into the community we want it to be.
DAVID COON is the leader of the Green Party of New Brunswick.
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