Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party's action plan on climate change has brought one former British Columbia politician out of retirement and back into the arena.
At his nomination event Tuesday night for the riding of Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo, Terry Lake, a former B.C. health minister, described to the prime minister the conditions the area faces every summer with the wildfires.
"It is like a war zone here, prime minister, in the summer," he said. "People leave so they can breathe clean air."
Lake said locals are worried because they suffer physically and mentally due to the raging wildfires.
"And that's what brought me off the sidelines," he said. "It was your and your government's commitment on taking action on climate change."
With B.C. expected to be a key battleground in October's federal election, Lake is considered a high-profile candidate for the Liberals in the province.
He called climate change a "ballot question" and a "threat to our communities and our families."
The October federal election is going to come down to a "stark choice" between the Conservatives and the Liberal party, he said.
Lake didn't seek re-election for the B.C. Liberals in the last provincial election after serving two terms in the legislature.
He has spent the past two years as vice-president of corporate and social responsibility at Quebec-based marijuana company Hydropothecary Corp.
He said he will take a leave of absence beginning in early fall.
Nearly three-quarters of the riding's population is centred in Kamloops, where Lake, a veterinarian, also served as a city councillor and later mayor before jumping into provincial politics in 2009.
As the province's health minister, Lake oversaw the declaration of a public health emergency amid the deadly fentanyl crisis. He has been urging more research on the effects of marijuana on opioid addictions. Before he was appointed health minister, he served as minister of the environment.
Lake also touched on the fentanyl overdose crisis that is affecting the country.
While the situation in B.C. is improving, he said it is getting worse in Ontario where the Conservative government cut public health funds and closed down overdose protection sites.
"The thing that concerns me most of the possibility of an Andrew Scheer government is the complete abdication of responsibilities such as action on climate change and helping Canadians deal with opioid epidemic," he said.
"They somehow think that is personal responsibility. They don't understand the challenges that people face."
Trudeau told the crowd of supporters that the Liberal government has given Canadians confidence to face the future by investing in education, skills training, families and the future.
"The reality is in 2015 we put forward a very different vision than the Conservative government had for this country," the prime minister said.
"We said the way to grow the economy, the way to help people is not to give tax benefits and advantages to the wealthiest in the hope that it trickles down."
Lake said the Liberal party has the pulse of the people and stands for things they need such as action on climate change while developing the economy in a way that doesn't strand the resources.
"That gets us to a lower carbon future," he said. "That's pragmatic and that makes sense to me."
Comments
Does anyone else see any red flags. This guy was one of Christy’s team. BC liberals /social credit/conservatives. Where was the first store to allow folks to get legalized pot? Kamloops, who was the vice chair of a marijuana company? which he thinks will solve the climate crisis, hey smoke pot and climate crisis goes away! Oh, and before he was health minister he was minister of environment. And didn’t we do well under Cristy’s time as far as environment is concerned. HUGE red flags for me!! So Justin gets rid of Jodi Raybold and puts in Terry Lake! Ahhhh....BC think before you VOTE. Cheerio from Salt Spring Island, go greens!
So, go Greens pretty much means go ahead & help elect Andrew Scheer. Makes absolutely no sense!
In some ridings (such as my own), voting Green IS the best way to keep the Conservative out. If you're going to vote strategically, you need to look at the situation in your own riding, not just mindlessly check the box next to the Liberal candidate. Check out my blog post on effective strategic voting. https://runofftogether.wordpress.com/2019/04/26/a-comprehensive-guide-t…
Vivian, voting Green means supporting new dilbit pipelines to the east; new refinery capacity and shipping this excess in tankers throughout the world. And in the process creating additional ghg emissions that result from this strategy.
So, strategic voting - as you suggest, will not result in a "greener" future. May's rhetoric is just more of the same "Ballot box boiler plate" designed to spin support her way on E-day.
The notion that voting, in our current system, for other than the two dominant parties is a vote for the worst of the two is getting tiresome.
If Trudeau didn't want votes for the NDP or the Greens to be, essentially, votes for the Scheer team, then he coulda/shoulda changed the sytem.
He said, a couple thousand times -- literally -- when stumping in the last election that he'd put an end to First Past the Post. Then Trudeau changed his mind, admitting to lying, and said, but oh well, it served his purpose, which as to get elected. Yes, he actually said that.
Those in my riding, who managed to see past strategic-voting tactics, elected Elizabeth May. This can be repeated elsewhere, although it takes more hope and courage than sticking to the tried and true, i.e. holding one's nose and voting for the least worst of the two main, stinky choices.
Believe me, I understand the disillusionment with JT. I have every intention of voting strategically, and in my riding that could mean voting Green. However, like it or not, when it comes to the 2 main parties it is a lesser of evil for me.
Leader aside, the basic values of the Liberal Party are much more in line with my own than the Cons. They are stuck in the 50's not just on the environment but other issues. Scheer seems pretty Harper-like on important issues like safe injection sites and other harm-reduction strategies which are so critical in dealing with the opioid crisis, not to mention foreign policy and corporate tax breaks. And, no matter what Scheer insists on the abortion issue, I don't trust him for one second on women's reproductive rights. Especially with what is going on in the US, which could embolden our anti-abortion politicians.
To me it's clear, there is definitley a much worse choice than giving the Libs 4 more years. Having said that, they need to do better. Much better.
I agree with Brenda. Those of us who are seriously concerned about the risks of climate change are not getting what we want when we vote Liberal for fear of the Conservatives being elected.
I think there are three good reasons to NOT vote strategically:
1. COMPLACENCY: After being out of power since 2006, Trudeau's Liberals have quickly become complacent - assuming we will continue to vote for them even if they about-face on most of their election promises. They take fear-based progressive votes so for granted that they have actually bought a pipeline, in what I expect will be a doomed attempt to win over Alberta voters.
In my opinion, we are NOT going to get meaningful action on climate change and species extinction from the federal government as long as we keep voting strategically for Liberals. They are taking our votes for granted. The more 'scary' the Conservatives become to progressives, the more the Liberals can - and do - ignore us and renege on their promises.
2. LACK OF FEEDBACK: When we vote strategically for the Liberals, there is no opportunity to communicate on our ballot why we are voting for them. Is it because we like their platform best, and trust them to implement it? Or did we vote for them because we figure *anything* is better than the Conservatives? If it's the latter, then we have just thrown away the most powerful opportunity democracy gives us to express our desires... our vote.
3. INCORRECT GUESSES: When we vote strategically, we are second-guessing how others in our riding will vote. I've voted strategically most of my life (including the last election), and have seen my vote wasted on various occasions because I made the wrong guess about who would win that riding that year. I threw away my voice, and didn't even get my second (or third) choice.
No more strategic voting for me. As much as I abhor the Conservatives' willingness to sacrifice species and our future for corporate interests, I would rather use the most powerful voice democracy gives me - my vote - to tell the federal government that what matters most to me is protecting the environment as much as is still possible.
In my riding, the alternative to the Conservatives is the NDP. I'll lobby their candidate to think Green and social conscience. And hopefully to back a Liberal minority in carrying out programs good for Canada and the world.
The Liberals haven't made it easy to defend voting for them again. They have a history of taking voters for granted. But I also think the Cons are revelling in all the media talk about how the Liberals' carbon tax is poor policy.
Personally, I don't know enough about the merits of the Lib's plan, but some argue that though it doesn't go far enough it is at least an important step that needs to include other measures.
Scheer, Kenney, and Ford in particular are engaged in positively Orwellian propaganda using lies, misinformation and disturbingly heavy-handed tactics. And remember Scheer's unsolicited texts to people in the 4 provinces the weekend before the carbon tax was being imposed? Talk about fear-mongering. Even the Libs don't come close to these guys.
I don't mind admitting that I am sick to my stomach at the thought of Scheer getting a majority. Do you really think they'll listen to the Greens? As usual, the progessives are left divided and scrambling for a voice.
The Cons are calculating that, because their own opinion research indicates climate change and the environment rank third of fourth among voters in general, and lower among voters who may consider voting Con., that Scheer can get away with some token measures on climate-change that he will claim are better than some form of carbon pricing but won't hurt the economy. He may even use the now-prevalent right-wing argument about how little impact Canada can have on reducing global carbon emissions because of larger emitters like China, as an excuse to retreat from or waiver on our commitments under the Paris agreement.
We also have to remember that Scheer has clearly stated his intention of going back to appointing Senators based purely along partisan lines. He will only appoint Conservative senators, so he can implement a Conservative agenda for Canada. I wonder what that will look like.
I too gave up strategic voting many years ago, after I realized that all this does is confirm the status quo. Voting for who you want, has the best policy, is the most competent, is the most trustworthy, that is the only way to achieve change, even if it may take many cycles.
Looking back over the last four years, the Liberals have done some things very well (most of all the Canada Child Benefit) but reneged or made little progress on many. Most egregious to my mind is the treachery about electoral reform. Eighty seven times is the number, I believe, that JT said "This will be the last election..." but as it turned out he only wanted Alternative Vote, which would have guaranteed Liberal majority forever and is not a proportional system. This is cheating the public to an unforgivable extent.