Parties & Leaders
Green Party Leader: Scott McKayCBC Online News | Updated March 12, 2007
The Green Party of Quebec leader, Scott McKay, says his party will try to drive home the point that climate change has an economic cost that trickles down into all areas of society. McKay — an environmentalist and water specialist based in Montreal — has anchored his 2007 campaign on climate change, using it as an entry point into other issues such as economic development, health care, education, culture, energy and social justice. Only "coherent" and "firm" policies will counter its effect, McKay recently said. McKay — who served as a municipal councillor in Montreal's Honoré-Beaugrand district for eight years before being elected to lead the Greens in May 2006 — will run in Montreal's Bourget riding, and hopes to field Green candidates in all of Quebec's 125 provincial ridings. He said he would work hard to distinguish his team from Quebec's other left-leaning party, Québec Solidaire. "Extreme left-wingers won't find a lot in our party that resonates with them," McKay told La Presse in an October 2006 interview. "If we only oppose everything, like Québec Solidaire, we won't get far. We're not looking for confrontation. We want to solve problems." The Green leader believes Quebecers are increasingly sensitive to environmental concerns, and a growing number of voters consider it one of their top priorities. In a January 2007 CROP poll on voters' intentions, the Greens captured eight per cent support. Focus: Kyoto and emissions The centrepiece of the Green Party's platform, not surprisingly, is its Green Plan which makes cutting the province's greenhouse-gas emissions the top priority. The Greens commit to bringing the emissions to the level required under the Kyoto Protocol — to six per cent below 1990 levels, which would be a cut of 80.4 megatonnes. They also promise to reduce the emissions by a total of 30 per cent by 2020 "through a program of vast ecological reform of both the fiscal as well as regulatory frameworks." "The Green Party firmly believes that a minimum of $580 million a year must be devoted to the fight against climate change, with a significant portion of this expense being recuperated by the government through various tax measures," the party says in its Green Plan. Among these measures, they target private vehicles, proposing higher fuel efficiency standards, rebates on energy-efficient vehicles and taxes on high-energy consumption vehicles and car ads, as well as a rebalancing of property taxes between downtowns and their suburbs, in order to discourage urban sprawl. Among the other proposals in the Green Plan, they target industry, promising to focus on a carbon tax and carbon sequestration. Ecology infuses health-care, fiscal policies But the Green Party's platform is aptly named "We are all green" and uses ecology as the starting point for most policies. For example, health-care proposals include mandatory labelling for genetically modified organisms and greater provincial support for organic agriculture. The Green Party also proposes creating health co-operatives to increase access to medical services, and pledges to increase investment in programs that focus on prevention. The Green Party's economic platform proposes an "eco-fiscal" principle, in which Quebec's tax system could encourage environmentally friendly behaviour through breaks and credits. The Greens' political platform offers various measures to reform Quebec's electoral system, through the introduction of some form of proportional representation, fixed election dates, and the decentralization of powers. The Greens also propose an "eco-conditionality" principle that would subject all provincial government programs to meeting certain ecological standards. Seeks support through guaranteed loans A longtime environmentalist, McKay launched ecological groups at his CÉGEP and at the University of Quebec in Montreal before becoming editor of Contretemps, a science magazine. The 45-year-old father of one works as a water treatment consultant in Montreal. To finance its campaign, the Greens are asking voters who want to donate a minimum of $1,000 to invest in the party through a guaranteed loan offering an eight-per-cent return.
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