Excperts from the Greely Debate

Here is my 5 minute intro from the Greely Debate today, just in case you were not there....

Hello, I’m Gord Kubanek, happily married and the proud father to 3 lovely daughters living in Kars. I’ve been a Chemical Engineer, a HS physics teacher and now I’m a beekeeper on the board of the Canadian branch of the Club of Rome, an environmental think tank.  I’d like to highlight two issues in crises: our unsustainable provincial debt and a changed climate that is already hurting people. They are linked in this way - both exist because we have put off making tough choices today by having a party at our children’s expense.

This has us brought us to the point where we now owe over 311 billion $, the largest sub-sovereign debt in the world. As for the environment, in Ontario a record 70% of the bees died this past winter.

the green party knows that only creating policies that create long term solutions to our problems is sustainable or makes sense. For example, the liberals cut your hydro bill by 25% - but did you know that they did this with borrowed money? that you will have to pay back at least an extra 21 billion in interest charges because of these ‘savings’? instead the greens will create a Green Building Program. I was talking yesterday with a neighbour about this and she told me that when she reinsulated her home’s roof and walls and put in new windows her winter heating bills went from $1200 to $300 per month – now that’s the way to really save you money!

our friends the NDP, who many of you confuse the Greens with when you think we are ideologically left, when we are in fact more like the red tories of old – socially progressive but fiscally conservative, they have not seen a government program they don’t love, whether it is almost free day care or free drugs for everyone,  hike hospital spending by 5.3 per cent annually and buy back the majority stake of Hydro One that Wynne sold off. While I laud their sincerity and well meaning intentions, the fact is that nothing in life is free. If they want these new programs, something else has to go. In Ontario we must learn to live within both our environmental and economic limits.  the sad fact is that Ontario ,because we already have the world’s largest sub sovereign debt – at $25,000 for every man, woman and child, has had Moodies rating agency downgrade our provincial debt to ‘negative” from “stable” this past march. Interest payments on our debt are already the 4^th largest line item in our budget at almost 9% - imagine what is going to happen when interest rates rise – which they inevitably will. On the other hand We greens, looking at the economy just like any environment in which disasters happen, employ the latest  methods from cognitive science called a ‘pre-mortem’ –  in which a project team imagines that a project has failed, and then works backward to determine what potentially could lead to the failure of the project. We Greens take our debt to future generations  seriously enough that we will refocus our health care system to be preventative and more home care based because these approaches are a more economical way to improve the lives all people in Ontario

as for our MPP in waiting, Goldie, I want to congratulate her on speaking her mind when she said this on twitter and something similar on Reddit:

Goldie, thank you, as you said on Reddit: ‘The myth that conservatism and the environment don’t’ mix is just that – a myth”. I couldn’t agree more.

I also congratulate you on your statement of march 31 of this year when you said to Ottawa Life magazine: “I am opposed to government giving handouts.”.I am sure that means that you will have to then have to bravely disagree with your leader who wants to keep the Pickering Nuclear plant open, although it is slated for closure this year, because he wants to save government jobs – this is clearly not a true conservative approach because Pickering is the oldest and least efficient plant in North American whose power is 50% more expensive to produce than down the road at Darlington. you also been quoted as saying that you are a strong believer in the free market – and once again I agree with your statement  – so I am sure that once again you will have to respectfully disagree with your leader who clearly does not share your belief in the free market when he promises to reduce the provincial sales tax on gas by 4.3 cents because the world price for oil is too high. Instead of subsidy the Greens will use money from a carbon tax to make all homes, business and transportation more efficient and thus less costly. this not only creates a cleaner environment, but creates many good jobs and saves everybody money into the future, not just today.

let’s be honest folks, all 3 main parties are trying to buy your votes –the Liberals promise free child care, the NDP free pharmacare, the PCs a subsided cut at the gas pumps of almost4.3 cents while balancing the budget at the same time – we all know that’s impossible, so who is kidding who? Quite frankly, the only party who has a credible platform that is achievable without creating debt that our children and grand children will have pay off is the Green Party.