Candidate profile - Valerie Brooks - Green Party - Yorkton-Melville

In the first of our federal candidate profiles, meet Valerie Brooks, Green Party Candidate for Yorkton-Melville. 

We asked each candidate to respond to four questions. The following article represents the candidate's responses, edited for space.  

1. Agriculture is dependent on numerous factors including weather patterns, market conditions, and input costs, among others. If elected, what does your party intend to pursue in terms of programming to protect and support the agriculture industry in the province?    

First and foremost, Greens believe we can create an agricultural powerhouse industry that supports small and medium sized producers who truly want to grow good food in a good way. So, our sustainable agriculture policy outlines several initiatives that would help producers transition from synthetic chemical farming to organic and sustainable methods of production that not only require less input costs but also produce healthier food products for consumers. We want to build more localized food processing plants and storage facilities, making it easier for local producers to sell to local retailers who then can provide healthy food to their local communities efficiently and more affordably, 

We would support a Canada first purchasing policy for all Canadian government departments that purchase food, with an emphasis on purchasing within the whole province.  

We also call for the separation of agriculture and fisheries, as distinct departments in the federal government to better address the separate and the state needs of prairie producers and coastal fishermen. 

One of the things we would like to see the federal government do is work more collaboratively with provincial governments to provide sufficient fiscal incentives to municipalities to preserve farmlands and incentivize farmers who achieve greater biodiversity by preserving natural habitats, improving grasslands and tree growth, and increasing crop diversity.  

We also support the establishment of a special agricultural research climate adaptation fund and a reexamination of the role of the PFRA to extend climate change information to foreigners - to help them make decisions in a rapidly changing environment. 

2. Saskatchewan is resource rich, but it also has a well-established core of manufacturing, particularly in rural centres in or bordering on your riding. What would your party/government ensure to undertake to help small to mid-sized manufacturing and value-added ventures to prosper?   

We have a really cool, innovative idea about this. Our strategy for this is to keep Canadian resources from being exploited and shipped out of the country to be made into value added items and then resold by foreign companies who then make millions of dollars off them. What we want to do is keep that money in our economy by developing strategic reserves run by crown corporations. So, these reserves would buy at fair market value Canadian raw materials and then be able to sell them to buyers here in Canada and around the world.  

For example, we buy the raw lumber from Canadian logging companies instead of allowing foreign companies to directly harvest and profit from it. We'd be in control of prices of our products, and this would help Canadian companies, you know, from getting hit. 

Our core platform idea here is to incentivize small and medium sized companies to develop sustainable value-added products from our natural resources held in those strategic reserves. It's kind of like Sweden does with IKEA furniture. 

They take their lumber, turn it into furniture that's then sold all over the world by them. Win, win, win, right? We then, you know, can control the sustainable harvesting of natural resources and the marketing of them. Canadian companies then would also be created and supported to flourish and develop a strong and resilient economy.  

3. Affordability and housing are of heightened concern, not only in large urban centres, but also in rural communities, some of which are poised to see expansion. How would your government help support consumers in the face of rising costs and foster an environment that promotes affordable housing?   

Greens believe that there are certain things that are non-negotiable, among them human rights, so adequate shelter, healthy food and clean water are obviously among those. 

We also believe that everything is interconnected and needs to be dealt with in a comprehensive way. So, we know that paychecks are just not keeping up with inflation and many people are feeling squeezed in a real way right now. If you can't afford to pay your bills, mortgage or rent and buy food, then you're literally one step away from being homeless. I think there's many people in our riding that are probably living like that. 

So, Greens have a complex plan that will help to keep more money in the pockets of low and middle income earners which would then be spent in the local economy helping small and medium sized businesses continue to support their community with essential needs. First, we would remove the federal income tax for anyone earning less than 40,000 which puts more money in the pockets of people that spend their money locally.  

Second, we would clamp down on wealth inequality by making the ultra-wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share of taxes. We do this by closing tax loopholes and offshore tax haven opportunities that have been used by the rich to avoid paying taxes. So, this money then would be used to support social safety net programs like a universal basic Income program that helps those who need it when they need it to get back on their feet and become emotionally stable and financially independent. In conjunction with all this, we would build housing with public money. We would ensure housing for people who need it meets the 30% rule where no more than 30% of their income would be spent on rent. 

When you look at things in an interconnected way there are many ways to control the affordability crisis, but everything is interconnected, so it has to be looked at together. 

4. What do you see as a key critical issue that you and your party, if elected, would need to step up to address in your riding?   

My key issue, and one that I think many people are actually starting to pick up on and agree with, is electoral reform. For years, the West has felt unable to secure fair and adequate responses about issues we face from the federal government. I believe our first past the post system is just not conducive to our voices being heard in Parliament. Because the east has far more population, they receive more seats in Parliament. Sometimes our issues in Western Canada go unheard or unresponded to due to the imbalance of how many MP's we get to send there and that creates hyper partisanship, an East-West Divide which we're seeing now. 

With electoral reform and moving to a system of proportional representation, this imbalance would be greatly reduced. In a in a proportional system, voters are more engaged and elected representatives are more likely to work with other parties. 

Parties would create coalitions to govern collaboratively, creating stronger laws and legislation that doesn't just get thrown out when a new government comes into power. This policy lurch wastes millions and billions of taxpayers' dollars when this happens. 

In this kind of system, power is no longer about who can win a majority to push through their agendas and platform promises. It's more about shared power and responsibility to the people that elected them. And in this system, the Prime Minister's office would have much less power and the local ridings would have much more power. MPs elected in this type of system are generally ones best suited to govern in this manner. Therefore, voters generally feel well represented and participate in larger numbers without worrying about vote splitting and strategic vote.