Jack Powless is the Green Party candidate for Melville-Saltcoats and he hopes to bring honesty, transparency and a heart-centered approach to leadership upon election as MLA in the riding.
As far as the highlights of the Green Party platform, Naomi Hunter, the leader of the Green Party of Saskatchewan said, “The Greens have introduced a very innovative agriculture and food security platform. We want to introduce homestead protection legislation to help small family farmers, people like myself. We have a small family farm and I want to see people like myself protected moving forward. We also have legislation we want to bring forward to protect individual farmers and encourage Saskatchewan retailers to need to carry a certain amount of Saskatchewan product. We saw, especially with COVID-19 we saw how quickly the grocery stores emptied out. For a province that’s known as the break-basket of Canada, this is unconscionable to me.”
The Green Party wants to bring in legislation to protect seniors, those on disability, farmers and unemployment in times of trouble like COVID-19. When CERB came in, the Liberals had a lot to handle. Naomi proposes a guaranteed livable income for residents that would have prolonged ripple effects through our local economies.
Major points of our platform this year are on pushing a guaranteed livable income to ensure that we have looked after people in further stages of the pandemic. Also, focusing on agriculture. I’m stymied to why we line the pockets of people who want to build bypasses. I know what each of those overpasses should come to, and it went 500x over budget. I want to look at situations like that. I would say we need full-cost accounting and especially with the by-pass. I want to see a strong voice in government that will point out details like this when corruption is happening while our hard-earned tax dollars are shipped off to off-shore tax dollars.” She added, “Saskatchewan is all about hard-working individual citizens, you are just lining the pockets of your buddies.”
Naomi stated, “I would roll in retrofitting and installation so that even people that can’t afford the initial outlay would be able to enjoy the benefits of the utility costs right away….I am the kind of person that can relate to people.”
As far as a timeline for the Green Party platform they stated,
Sept. 14: The Green Party says it will establish a guaranteed provincial income.
Sept. 28: Naomi Hunter said a Sask. Green Party government would expand provincial health care coverage to include all health services like dental, optical, mental health support, as well as complementary and alternative healing practices. She did not provide a cost for this plan.
Oct. 13: The Green Party released its platform today, with leader Naomi Hunter emphasizing the party’s focus on climate change initiatives. Hunter said the goal would be for the province to move to 60 percent renewable energies within four years and to fully renewable energy within a decade.
”We need someone in the legislature concerned about the climate concern, and that person is me”, claims Naomi Hunter.
Other promises include reinstating solar net metering systems, working towards tuition-free post-secondary education, looking into provincial pharmacare coverage, and providing a guaranteed income to residents. The Green Party would also seek to reform the government system by moving to proportional representation and lowering the voting age to 16.
Naomi left off by saying, “For the most part, I think that a lot of leaders have really neglected rural Saskatchewan and I want that to be our focus.”
As far as a timeline for the Green Party platform they stated,
Sept. 14: The Green Party says it will establish a guaranteed provincial income.
Sept. 28: Naomi Hunter said a Sask Green Party government would expand provincial health care coverage to include all health services like dental, optical, mental health support, as well as complementary and alternative healing practices. She did not provide a cost for this plan.
Oct. 13: The Green Party released its platform today, with leader Naomi Hunter emphasizing the party’s focus on climate change initiatives. Hunter said the goal would be for the province to move to 60 percent renewable energies within four years and to fully renewable energy within a decade.
”We need someone in the legislature concerned about the climate concern, and that person is me”, claims Naomi Hunter.
Other promises include reinstating solar net metering systems, working towards tuition-free post-secondary education, looking into provincial pharmacare coverage, and providing a guaranteed income to residents. The Green Party would also seek to reform the government system by moving to proportional representation and lowering the voting age to 16.
Naomi left off by saying, “For the most part, I think that a lot of leaders have really neglected rural Saskatchewan and I want that to be our focus.”
Composed by Gary Horseman
Local Journalism Initiative