It’s 20 days into the Nova Scotia election campaign and on Friday, the Green Party joined the Liberal, Progressive Conservatives and NDP in releasing its platform to the general public.
The platform lays out the goals and ideals of the Green Party; participatory democracy, sustainability, respect for diversity, ecological wisdom, social justice and nonviolence. Cost estimates were not included in their platform.
READ MORE: All our Nova Scotia Election 2017 coverage
The Green’s platform promises a move to ensure fixed election dates as well as an end to the province’s first-past-the-post voting system. They’d lower the voting age to 16 and increase funding to the Freedom of Information Commissioner to ensure that information is accessible in a “timely and efficient manner.”
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Bill 75, which imposed a contract on the province’s 9,300 public school teachers, would be repealed under a Green Party government which views the bill as unconstitutional.
The platform promises the implementation of a living wage as well as a guaranteed livable income for everyone in the province. They’d establish a commission within 12 months to conduct public consultations in an attempt to identify what style of guaranteed livable income is viable in Nova Scotia.
They’d make Nova Scotia Community College tuition free for Nova Scotian students and develop a program wherein university or college graduates would have their student loans forgiven if they worked a set period in a community service job.
READ MORE: Nova Scotia Election: Liberals release platform with $1.08 billion in spending and tax cuts
The Greens also want to move to a community-based system of health care — one of their methods would be to develop multi-level long-term care facilities and ensure access to potable water throughout the province.
If they form a government, Green MLAs would establish a Local Food Security Act that sets provincial targets for production and consumption of local food. Included in that would be the establishment of a labelling system that would clearly identify Nova Scotian-produced products.
The Greens have promised a shift to full-cost accounting when setting and evaluating policy. Essentially, when calculating cost, the Greens say they would assess the social and environmental costs alongside the economic benefits of any project or policy.
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