Voting Green: An Environmentalist’s Critique of our Provincial Party Platforms 
by Zabrina Yaremko
As I write this, less than three weeks before our provincial election, it is difficult to find any focus on the environment in most of the provincial parties’ policies, as listed on their websites. Despite current key issues, such as the Energy East pipeline, most parties are prioritizing reducing taxes and privatization over sustaining the environment, with only the Green Party promoting any commitment to environmental issues.
No mention of the environment or sustainable initiatives could be found on the Progressive Conservatives Priorities webpage, and their March 1st statement PCs make energy efficiency an important pillar of green strategy focused more on hydro costs than on sustainability. No other mention of their green strategy could be easily found. The party did not send a representative to the environment-based debate hosted by the Manitoba Eco-Network on March 8, although they did send their new candidate, Jeanette Montufar, to the All Candidates Debate hosted by the Youth Parliament of Manitoba on March 10. This debate began with a question about the COP21 agreement (from the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris), to which Montufar responded with a pledge to collaborate with other governments on addressing climate change, and a claim that the party was looking into carbon pricing. Considering the Progressive Conservatives’ stance on cutting taxes, it seems unlikely that they would apply an additional fee on carbon-releasing commodities if elected.
The incumbent New Democratic Party did not highlight any specific environmental priorities or policies on their website, offering instead a typical collection of statements and articles to search through. On the site they do address carbon budgets and energy East via their Response - Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition Survey Questionnaire. During the environment-based debate, the NDP’s representative, James Allum, focussed primarily on the energy sector in his responses. The party’s key environmental plank appears to be that Manitoba’s hydroelectricity provides renewable energy to Manitobans and elsewhere. To the COP21 question in the All Candidates Debate, candidate Wab Kinew also focussed on “low carbon-intensive” hydroelectricity. However at the environmental debate, cleaner forms of energy, such as wind and solar power, were only abstractly mentioned by Allum in response to a question about the use of natural gas by Manitoba Hydro.
The Liberal party representative for Manitoba Eco-Network’s debate, David Van Wilgenburg, answered a startling “No” and many “Maybes” to questions about voting for proposed green initiatives, compared to the rest of the parties’ positive responses. Despite the Liberal theme of referring to the necessity of science-based analyses on developments impacting the environment, one question with the response of “No” from the Liberal representative pertained to increasing funding for research in social science and the environment. He claimed that enough research is already ongoing at the federal level and that the money should go towards actions instead, such as active transportation initiatives and retrofitting houses to conserve energy. While such steps towards sustainability should not be discredited, larger leaps fueled by researched innovations are needed to minimize the larger environmental issues we have in this province.
The Green Party offers potential action on many environmental issues in a long list of policies on their website. Many of the proposed programs and initiatives depend on the revenue from a proposed carbon tax, including such things as increased funding for existing subsidies for sustainable renovations, and new endeavours such as fare-free transit to increase bus ridership. During both debates, party leader James Beddome reiterated these policies with a passion that is to be expected of the Green Party. While they have little chance of taking power, their role as a political voice focused on the environment is key to ensuring that these issues are at least part of the discussion.