Please watch out for bike riders carrying election signs

Andre Riopel says the local Green Party is happy to deliver campaign signs by bike.

For other parties.

For a price.

"If they are willing to give us the money they were planning to put into offsetting their carbon emissions and if the signs are not too big to bring on a bike, we will do it as close to carbon-zero as it can be done," Riopel said at a meet the candidate session last night.

Stumping at Algoma's Water Tower Inn, the local Green Party candidate said this act of green teamwork would support an underlying principle of the Ontario Green Party - cooperation.

"Democracy is about discussion, cooperation and consensus," he said. "It's about using discussion to find a balance between opposing viewpoints that keeps in mind the greater good of the community and the earth."

For Riopel, Green Party principles mean striving toward a life of joyful connectedness that rejects ideas divisive of human relations with other humans and other living beings.

"It's all about lifestyle and about trying to find a balance in life, about trying to be aware of what is for the greater good of the community," he said.

Riopel believes an individual's lifestyle evolves based on the choices he or she makes.

It's government's responsibility to make healthy living as easy a choice as possible.

"People behave the way they do because it's easy," Riopel said. "But if people knew how easy it is to improve, they would."

He talked about how a community can benefit from walking and cycling by increasing social interaction on the street, improving neighbourhood safety and supporting local businesses.

Riopel said that, if people live within one kilometre of shopping, socializing, green, work and education places, they are much more likely to enjoy a carfree lifestyle.

"If most of the people in our community just walked one or two kilometers every day, it would reduce our health care costs by 20 percent," he said.

Riopel also talked about promoting a greener education system in Ontario.

"One single, publicly-funded education system is most efficient because it could help promote smaller community schools that children can walk to," he said. "But we also have to look at the way we design, build and maintain schools."

Riopel said that schools should be built with gardens and trees in the yard and less spaces for cars: they would very energy efficient and produce no garbage.

"We could reward schools that have a zero carbon footprint with higher funding and penalize those that choose to continue to produce garbage and not reuse or recycle water, chalk, paper and such, with less funding. Kids start learning from our example at a very young age and if we don't teach our children about the environment we are doomed."

He and other Green Party members who were at last night's event also voiced their support for the upcoming referendum on electoral reform.