From Blue to Green

Traditionally, I have voted Conservative. Whether it's federal, provincial or municipal, I generally vote for fiscally conservative politicians. In this sense, I have not changed. I believe that Canada operates most efficiently with consumers being able to spend their money freely. When government interferes, generally, I believe Canada is worse-off. The government represents an inefficiency that inherantly inhibits our effectiveness of social programs. Granted, there are programs that need to be managed (ie. healthcare), but the programs should be minimal.

Why the hell am I changing my vote to the Green Party of Ontario?

First, I do not like the conservative policy on creating a new system of education. This system will incorporate religion further into our education. For the last 30 or 40 years, there has been a shift to remove religion from education in society. I see the conservative policy as a huge step backwards. For the risk that I am sounding like a bigot, I want to make it clear that I am not against any specific religion, or religion in general. I believe people have a right to practice their religion. I just do not believe that there is necessarily a point in segregating our public school system even further in order to accomomodate different religious beliefs. In fact, I do not like our current system where there is essentially a Catholic board and a public board.

This segregation is intended to promote religious equality. I believe the most "equal" system is a system that does not promote religion in schools. I mean this on a macro level. I don't think it's a good use of taxpayer's money to build two separate schools for two neighbours who are only separated by the beliefs of their parents. There is no reason why they cannot share the same roof, and practice their religion within the same building. If these two neighbours were far enough away from the school, two buses would be needed. There are duplications of costs in the current system with the two major school boards, and there will be a ridiculous amount of incremental costs with the addition of other major religions. This is terribly inefficient and pointless.

Therefore, I cannot vote for the conservatives. To be honest, I have not researched their entire platform, but my fundamental opposition to their education plan is enough to consider the other parties.

Similarly, I cannot vote for the NDP. There have been times when the NDP has appealed to me because of their liberal social policies. However, it is usually their fiscal platform that turns me off. In this case, it is their minimum-wage policy that is turning me off. They want to increase the minimum wage to $10 per hour. This is a short-term solution with long-term detriments to society. I do not want to get into the economics of this policy, but wish to simply express my displeasure to the policy. For any individual that believes increasing the minimum wage will benefit society, I would recommend picking up an economics textbook.

For the Liberals, I believe they've been doing a decent job. There are quite a few things that I have disagreed with in their previous mandate, and there are some things in their platform that I do not support, but, in general, there is nothing that I am fundamentally opposed to. I want to make this clear because I do not want to make an argument for the Green party with the impression that they are the lesser of all of the evils. There are policies that I generally believe in.

First of all, despite common misconceptions, the Green party is generally a fiscally conservative party. In this sense, they have always appealed to me. Depending on the leader, their focus is sometimes too liberal than conservative for my liking, but they are usually not too far off. After reading their economic policy for this election, I like their direction. They have promoted tax relief for workers, and they have decided to shift the tax burden in other areas. They have provided for specific tax shifting, so that people can realize economic prosperity, but remain responsible to our planet. As described on their website, "pay for what you burn, not what you earn" describes a tax system that I am in favour of. Again, being somewhat of an amateur economist, I prefer consumption taxes over income taxes and I won't go into the details, but will simply say that this is good for Canada both economically and environmentally.

Therefore, I think this time I will vote Green.