Don't vote Green, Hampton urges Saultites

Could the Green Party act as a "spoiler" in today's provincial election, skewing the overall outcome by siphoning votes from another party with actual prospects of winning?

Ontario NDP Leader Howard Hampton was going out of his way last night to discourage Sault Ste. Marie voters from voting Green, arguing that only his New Democrats are able to ensure that Dalton McGuinty's Liberals are not re-elected.

Both Hampton and federal NDP leader Jack Layton were in the Sault as the party launched an election-eve blitz in what it clearly views as a key swing riding.

Layton spend the entire day stumping a half-dozen Sault venues with help from Sault MP Tony Martin.

Hampton (shown last night at Sault Candidate Jeff Arbus's war room in the former House of Comics location at 332 Queen Street East), encouraged local campaign workers to work flat-out until polls close at 9 p.m. tonight. "Sault Ste. Marie is a great hockey town," Hampton said. "And you know that you don't stop playing with one minute left to go in the third period. The Leafs may do that from time to time, and you know what happens when they do that. You know that now is when we work harder than ever. And that's what we need to do."

Regarding the Green party, Hampton added: "I say to those people who've thought about the Green Party... there is only one way to ensure to someone that we neither trust nor believe doesn't get a blank cheque. And that is to support [Algoma-Manitoulin candidate] Peter Denley and [Sault candidate] Jeff Arbus and the NDP."

"We can't afford to see people who want real, effective action against climate change let down again."

MMP referendum

While in the Sault last week, Ontario Green Party Leader Frank de Jong was talking about the referendum also taking place today.

"We're strongly in favour of MMP [mixed-member proportional electoral system], but not self-serving," said de Jong at an appearance with local candidate Andre Riopel. "It will improve all politics in Ontario."

If the Green Party is the breaking the law by supporting MMP, de Jong isn't worried.

De Jong said that Elections Ontario has instructed parties that they weren't allowed to campaign for or against MMP.

But de Jong and the Greens have clearly been campaigning for it.

de Jong says that MMP will get rid of strategic, throw-away and wasted votes, as well as false majority governments in Ontario.

"MMP will make politicians more collegial because we will be run by coalitions," he said. "The politicians will be more inclined to work together and build bridges with each other."

De Jong said MMP will help involve young people in politics as well.

"We want young people to get out and vote and when they do they say, 'what, my vote is wasted?' and then they say, 'screw this'," he said. "That's not a very good way to welcome them to the political system."

De Jong said that the Green Party has essentially ignored an Elections Canada dictate to not campaign for (or against) MMP because the party believes that more people need to be more informed of the potential for positive change that MMP offers.

Ontario Green Party candidate for Sault Ste. Marie, Andre Riopel is concerned about planned increases in production at Algoma Steel Incorporated.

His party leader, Frank de Jong, also shares those concerns.

De Jong and Riopel said they want to ensure the steel plant pays the real cost of increasing production.

"We're not about increasing taxes," said de Jong. "We're about shifting them."

The Green plan for taxes would see the burden shifted from people who live on small or average-sized lots like in Bayview, to resources, pollution and sprawl, said de Jong.

"We would shift the taxes off of people and onto resources," de Jong said. "That will incent every business to reduce pollution and reduce resources used; to hire more people, and to encourage more labour-intensive value-added production across the province."

"We're not so much in favour of legislation as in setting up the invisible 'green hand' to do the work for us," he said. "We're not interested in micro-managing the steel industry or any other business in Sault Ste. Marie, but what we would do is shift taxes to encourage Algoma Steel to go green as much as possible because they would make more money by going green."

Algoma Steel and the West End

Riopel says that environmental protection is in the best interests of Algoma Steel and its neighbours in the West End.

"They can reduce their air and water emissions by developing and testing new technology and become an industry leader," he said.

This is a great opportunity for the steelmaker to increase production in an environmentally friendly way while protecting the health of its neighbours and ensuring its competitiveness into the next millennium, Riopel said.

De Jong agreed, saying sustainability and environmentalism saves everyone money and improves health, from the single-family household that relies more on human-powered transportation and locally-grown food to multi-million dollar industries that reduce waste and resource consumption.

Shifting taxes paid by industry to the real costs of pollution, resource depletion and health care would encourage business to go green without further government interference.

"Industry would strive toward sustainability without government subsidy, without government micro-management," said de Jong. "The Green Party is not into bigger government and we're not into subsidies. We're not tax raisers and we're not tax cutters, we're tax shifters."

He also said he's happy when other parties steal his party platforms.

"Green is good for everyone and we don't own ideas," he said. "There should be four green parties of different shades in Parliament all debating green issues."

De Jong also said standard-offer contracts for alternative energy sources that help to encourage their development would not be needed if the Ontario government passed on the real cost of nuclear and coal fired electrical energy to its citizens.

"Nuclear energy is horrendously expensive, not to mention horribly dangerous because of earthquakes and terrorist attacks. And it's also non-robust. They [nuclear reaction stations] break down a lot and are offline an awful lot. They cost huge billions of dollars to build and then there's decommissioning costs and then you need heavy grids around them across the province to distribute the power. The list is just goes on," he said.

"The McGuinty government wants to spend $40 billion on nuclear power which is $4,000 per person in Ontario and if you gave the average family of four the money they could get off the grid. It is absolutely immoral to leave nuclear waste to future generations."

The five candidates running in Sault Ste. Marie are: - Jeff Arbus (NDP) - David Orazietti (Liberal) - Bill Murphy (Family Coalition Party) - Josh Pringle (Progressive Conservative) - Andre Riopel (Green)

NOTE: Parts of this article under the sub-headlines "MMP referendum" and "Algoma Steel and the West End" were prepared by SooToday.com's Carol Martin.