Candidate profile: Green Party candidate Iain Currie

Currie was born and raised in Kamloops and cares deeply about the community. He wants to protect the environment and was attracted to the Green Party platform to reduce the country’s carbon footprint.

“The big one is, we need to transition to a green economy, so we need to move away from fossil fuels, and rely on some fossil fuels and renewable energy. We need to consider sustainability,” noted Currie.

However, more than sustainability and the environment, Currie wants to ensure the country’s economy is sustainable as well. With mill closures throughout the B.C. Interior, Currie says the solution lies in retraining workers in a more green economy.

“Not even necessarily retraining them into a new industry, because forestry, trees are renewable, they’re a renewable resource if they’re treated that way,” said Currie. “If instead of looking at a tree and seeing ‘how many board feet of two by fours can we ship overseas,’ we look at it as an economic resource for a community. Then we have jobs potentially in reforestation, so planting trees, in the stewardship of our forests.”

During his campaign, Currie has focused on being positive and focusing on the issues. He says a vote for Iain Currie and the Greens is a vote for hope.

“That we can actually get something done. It represents a signal to Ottawa to the way politics are done, that we care about Green Party values. So Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo cares about sustainability, cares about action on the climate crisis, cares about changing the way politics work.”

CANDIDATE Q&A

Ahead of the 2019 federal election vote, CFJC Today reached out to each candidate in the Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo riding for their positions on local issues. Here is Green Party candidate Iain Currie’s responses.

In your view, what is an MP’s most important responsibility?

“An MP should first and foremost represent the people in his or her riding, not the MP’s party or its leader.”

What are the biggest issues people in our riding have? How would you address those?

“I believe that the biggest issues affecting the people of this riding closely mirror the biggest issues affecting Canada – climate change and a changing economy. Here, we can see the effects of climate change in the form of, for example, increasingly common and severe forest fires that affect the safety of our communities, the quality of the air we breathe, animal habitat and the resource base upon which so many communities and people depend. The Green Party is the only party with a plan to do what science says we MUST in order to avoid making the effects of climate change even more serious – and irreversible. We call our plan Mission: Possible, and it includes steps including shifting subsidies currently going to the oil & gas sectors to the renewable energy sector, putting hundreds of thousands of people to work on making our homes and buildings more energy-efficient, and ensuring no worker is left behind in the transition by investing in job retraining programs to help workers in sunset industries such as oil and gas take advantage of new opportunities in the clean energy economy.

The mill closures that have struck at the heart of so many communities in BC this past year are symptomatic not only of the effects of climate change, but of a boom and bust economy that prioritizes quick corporate profits ahead of long-term, sustainable jobs for communities. The Green Party is calling for a National Forest Strategy that would, among other things, support the regeneration of climate-resilient, carbon-sequestering forests that can be sustainably harvested by local communities. As the MP for Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo, I would like to see the federal government use some of the money it is currently gifting to foreign-owned fossil fuel companies like LNG Canada to instead help local communities, including First Nation communities, acquire timber licenses and manage their own community forests.”

If you were to be elected and then appointed as a federal minister, which department do you believe you would excel in and why?

“Having practiced as a lawyer for 25 years, 18 of those as a Crown prosecutor, I believe I would be an excellent Minister of Justice and Attorney General. I am deeply committed to the Rule of Law and prosecutorial independence.”

How would your party address the family doctor shortage in our region?

“The Green Party is proposing changes to make Canadians healthier overall and improve health care across the country, and to improve access to medical school (and all post-secondary education), by eliminating tuition, but this question asks about our specific local issue. I believe that as your MP I can play a role in attracting family doctors to our region.

My wife is a specialist physician at Royal Inland Hospital, and I am proud of her involvement in the successful efforts to recruit and retain doctors at the hospital. I have seen that attracting professionals to this area involves the active involvement of the community in selling the many positive features of living here — including recreational opportunities, a welcoming community spirit, an active arts community, our diversity, and the physical beauty of our surroundings.

The Green Party will expand federal funding for the arts, and has the most comprehensive plan for preserving our environment. Locally, I would stand against anything — I am thinking of the Ajax Mine proposal which is threatening to re-emerge — which would detract from the livability of our region. I also believe that our MP should be a leader in championing our communities and engaging with our municipalities, regional districts and Indigenous governments to specifically recruit young family doctors — starting in medical school — to come here to live.”

How would your party address the opioid crisis?

“I saw in my years as a prosecutor that treating addiction as a criminal problem leads to unnecessary suffering, the growth of organized crime, and less attention paid to the investigation and prosecution of crimes of violence and exploitation. Addiction is a health issue, and it should be treated like one.

My party and I are fully aligned on this, and we are calling for Canada to follow in the footsteps of Portugal’s successful model of decriminalizing drugs use and putting more resources into rehabilitation programs that will actually help people get off and stay off drugs, including opioids.”

How would your party address climate change?

“The Green Party has a detailed, ambitious 20-part plan for transitioning Canada off of our fossil fuel addiction and towards a post-carbon economy, in line with what science tells us is necessary to avoid catastrophic and irreversible climate change. We call is Mission: Possible, and it is a call for “all hands on deck.” Greens are committed to working together with other parties to make this happen.

Mission: Possible incorporates all the requirements for economic justice, just transition, and the guarantee of meaningful work, while also respecting the United Nations Declaration on the

Rights of Indigenous People. It recognizes that we cannot achieve climate security in the absence of equity.

Mission: Possible calls for a 60% reduction in Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and for Canada to be carbon neutral by 2050. Moreover, we have a credible plan for reaching those targets. Read the full plan at https://www.greenparty.ca/en/mission-possible.”

How would your party address affordability for young families?

“The Green Party has a number of proposals to help make life more affordable for young families and indeed all young Canadians, including:

* A Universal Child Care plan, working with the provinces to fund affordable, quality and inclusive access to child care throughout Canada;

* Helping young people start their lives (and families, for those who choose to start one) without crushing student debt loads by eliminating post-secondary tuition and instituting debt forgiveness on existing Canada student loans;

* Making housing more accessible and affordable by getting the federal government back involved as a major partner in affordable housing as it was in the 1970s and 80s, by making patient, low-interest loans available to start new housing cooperatives, and by bringing back tax incentives for purpose-built rentals that resulted in substantial amounts of rental housing being built in the past;

* Introducing a Universal Pharmacare plan, so that no one needs to go broke to afford needed medications for themselves or their families;

* Moving towards a Universal Basic Income, which would ensure that no child need grow up in poverty in a wealthy country like Canada.”

by Ashley Legassic

Candidate profile: Green Party candidate Iain Currie

CANDIDATE Q&A

Our Community