B.C. Green Party leader pushing for more transparency, collaboration and climate-framed policy in 2022
Sonia Furstenau highlights protecting environment, more all-party collaboration, as major goals
B.C. Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau says, for her, the need for more transparency and collaboration in government are two of the biggest takeaways from the province's three states of emergency this year.
Collaboration was the order of the day when, in 2017, then B.C. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver and NDP Leader John Horgan entered into an historic agreement which allowed the New Democrats to form government with support from 41 NDP MLAs and three Green members of the legislature.
But a majority win for the B.C. NDP in the October 2020 provincial election changed that dynamic. It was no longer necessary to consult to get legislation passed.
"The level of collaboration is obviously significantly less under this majority government, despite the efforts of both of the opposition parties to present that .... opportunity over and over again," she said in a year-end interview with CBC News.
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As one of only two Green MLAs in the provincial legislature, Furstenau is pushing to have the party's voice heard as the majority NDP government moves ahead on key issues affecting the province, including changes to forestry practices and the establishment of a new system of forest landscape plans being developed alongside First Nations and local communities.
The new framework would replace the existing forest stewardship plans that had largely been developed by industry.
Furstenau called it a "disappointing year for the government" and criticized the speed of its agenda and the lack of opportunity for opposition parties to scrutinize pending legislation, including a bill that was passed allowing government to impose a $10 application fee for access-to-information requests.
Furstenau maintains the application fee restricts access to information and transparency and the government should not have closed debate on it in order to push it through.
"I'm concerned about some of the trends we've seen over the course of this year, the closing of debate ... the changes to the FOIPPA bill."
Better policy-making to deal with climate driven events
Fursteanu said it's clear there is an urgent need to start dealing effectively with climate change after a year in which the province had to cope with devastating wildfires, a heat dome that killed more than 500 people and catastrophic flooding following a series of atmospheric rivers.
She said the government needs to do more to anticipate climate-related disasters instead of classifying them as "unprecedented."
"The scientists have been very clear. We will see more severe and more frequent weather-related events," she said.
"We have to shift our decision-making and our policy-making to recognize and acknowledge that that this is the reality that we are in now, and it is costly because we have failed to make good decisions."
Furstenau said she'd like to see the government address inequity when dealing with climate change policies affecting people living in small communities like Lytton, B.C., which will need to be completely rebuilt after a massive fire tore through the town in late June.
A larger city has more options to deal with these types of events, she said, including a bigger tax base and more money to replace infrastructure and build improvements.
Green goals for 2022
As B.C. enters its fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic with the arrival of the Omicron variant, Furstenau said she is looking for more accountability from the Ministry of Health in 2022 and an explanation why some data is not being released to the public.
She said the government is being reactive, not proactive, in its approach by not taking measures such as providing take-home, rapid-test kits.
"There's a lot of areas where they have not been transparent about data, about the hospitalization of people after they are considered no longer infectious. We have had a longstanding challenge with this government to be clear about why they are not providing rapid tests to people the way that other provinces are right now."
Among its major goals, Furstenau said, the party has prioritized the protection of old-growth forests and supports for mental health and has been pushing hard on that front.
She said she'd also like to see the party expand and diversify its base of supporters.
"It's really important for us to obviously to attract more people, but importantly diversity. And we've had a number of approaches that we're taking, but mostly it is about connecting with diverse communities," she said.