Green party ‘five years ahead’ of Liberals, NDP

Other plans ‘too late,’ Gibson says as Peterborough-Kawartha provincial election candidates debate environmental issues

Never mind any other political party’s plan to get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, said Peterborough-Kawartha Green Party candidate Robert Gibson at a debate on the environment and climate change on Thursday night: “This is too late.”

Gibson said the Green Party is committed to getting to net zero now, through the immediate retrofit of homes and businesses, the electrification of public transit and better protections to natural spaces.

“Our plan is five years ahead of what the NDP and the Liberals are proposing,” he said.

Gibson debated before a limited audience in the student centre at Trent University with NDP candidate Jen Deck and Liberal candidate Greg Dempsey.

Dave Smith, who’s running for reelection for the Progressive Conservatives, was expected but sent regrets due to a family emergency, and organizers said only candidates from parties that had at least one elected MPP had been invited. Two Peterborough-Kawartha candidates were left out: Tom

Marazzo (Ontario Party) and Rebecca Quinnell (New Blue Party).

The event was organized by local youth activists in conjunction with For Our Grandchildren, GreenUp, Kawartha World Issues Centre and the Federation of Ontario Cottagers Association and was broadcast live on YouTube.

Dempsey said that if elected the Liberal party would review “every single environmental decision made by the Doug Ford Conservatives — because (those policies) are the greatest threat to environmental justice in our province.”

Decisions like firing the province’s environment commissioner for speaking up about how climate change is an emergency, for example, was “absolutely unconscionable,” Dempsey said.

“We know that here in Peterborough-Kawartha, environmental advocates can’t even get an appointment to talk with their MPP about environmental issues,” he also said, adding that he’d listen any young climate activist if he were elected and they wanted to speak with him.

“My door will be open,” he said.

When asked about environmental education for children and young people, Deck — a teacher with 20 years’ experience — said it could be improved.

Public education has been decimated over the years, she said, and now teachers are subjected to physical abuse from some troubled students.

She said all this leaves little for investment into developing lessons on emerging topics in climate science.

“Education has been underfunded for decades,” she said. “They (teachers) need some help.”

Dempsey at one point noted that at a previous debate earlier this week Deck had demurred when asked her stance on climate change, saying she’d not yet been told by the NDP what that stance should be.

“I don’t think that’s good enough,” Dempsey told Deck, saying Peterborough-Kawartha needs an MPP who will care about the climate crisis.

Deck said she didn’t think Dempsey’s characterization of what she’d said, at the earlier debate, was fair. “What I said was that the NDP platform hadn’t been released,” she said.

Once the party releases a platform, she said, she’ll be happy to speak about it..

“The fact that I have a commitment (to environmentalism) that goes back 30 years — that also speaks for itself.”

Candidates set

Thursday was the deadline for candidates to register with Elections Ontario. Here are the confirmed candidates for the three Peterborough area ridings:

Peterborough-Kawartha: Progressive Conservative incumbent Dave Smith, Liberal Greg Dempsey, New Democrat Jen Deck, Robert Gibson of the Green Party, Tom Marazzo of the Ontario Party and Rebecca Quinnell of the New Blue Party.

Northumberland-Peterborough South (includes Otonabee-South Monaghan and Asphodel-Norwood townships): Progressive Conservative incumbent David Piccini, Liberal Jeff Kawzenuk, New Democrat Kim McArthur-Jackson, Lisa Francis of the Green Party, Vanessa Head of the Ontario Party and Joshua Chalhoub of the New Blue Party.

Haliburton-Kawartha LakesBrock (includes Cavan Monaghan Township): Progressive Conservative incumbent Laurie Scott, Liberal Don McBey, New Democrat Barbara Doyle, Tom Regina of the Green Party, Libertarian Gene Balfour, Kerstin Kelly of the Ontario Party and Ben Prentice of the New Blue Party.