By Joe Foy

 

It all began to spin, as it usually does, in the first sunny days of the year on the front steps of the BC Legislature.

 

That’s where, in early February the governing party rolled out the red carpet and announced their re-election platform in a rock-em sock-em Throne Speech that started off with the incredible claim that the government of Premier Gordon Campbell is “Leading The World In Sustainable Environmental Management.”

 

Say what!?

 

Gimme a break. Since taking office in 2001 the Campbell government has gutted environmental regulations and eliminated public oversight. And they’ve dismissed many of the 

frontline workers who are the public’s eyes and ears at the Ministry of Forests and Ministry of Environment.

 

So now that the Libs have downsized the Environment Ministry into submission, what’s with the over-the-top enviro boasting? I guess they are betting that many voters won’t look beyond the green-wash feel-good pre-election slogans.

 

I sure hope that the other political parties won’t try to match or even out do the Liberals’ boasting. It’s hard to imagine how they could. Maybe we’ll hear a call for “the strongest environmental protections in the galaxy,” followed by counter promises of “the best enviro laws in the known and unknown universe!”

 

I guess the point is, we get the government we deserve, and we deserve a lot better than we’ve been getting.

 

Which means that like it or not I’m going to have to roll off the couch, head to the nearest all candidates’ meeting and start asking some specific questions of our political hopefuls. And my vote’s going to depend on some clear concise answers.

 

I want to hear a cross-my-heart promise to expand BC’s protected area system. Pristine valleys in Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island and around the Elaho Valley north of Squamish and on the mid coast in the Great Bear Rainforest still await protection after over a decade of debate. And key wildlife habitats all over the province need protection as well. Which party will step up?

 

I want to know which party will give BC strong endangered species legislation that grants citizens the right to defend endangered species’ habitat in the courts. Spotted owls, marbled murrelets and mountain caribou are at death’s door because of continued destruction of their forest habitat. Which candidate will come forward and stand for a ban on BC’s bloody grizzly bear sport hunt?

 

Which party leader will make an oath to keep our public lands in public hands? Crown lands are being sold off at a record pace.

 

Rural and urban voters alike want someone who will stand up to protect BC’s fast dwindling Agricultural Land Reserve. Which of the nice folks up at the podium is going to grant local governments the right to protect their drinking watersheds from industrial logging and other waterquality-harming activities? Which party will finally ban raw log exports?

 

Candidates raise your hand if you will defend our coast by banning offshore oil and gas development and putting an end to open netcage salmon farms. 

 

Who will protect the airshed of our largest urban community by not twinning the Port Mann Freeway Bridge and instead focus on improving transit?

 

If you’d like to learn more, or even join me in the grassroots effort to hold the various candidates’ feet to the fire on environmental issues, check out our web site:

 

British Columbians really do want to lead the world in Sustainable Environmental Management. We just want to lead the race to the top of the heap, not the bottom.