Jim Stephenson, a North Vancouver-based businessman who has a Ph.D in economics from Stanford, is running provincially for the first time after having run for the federal Green Party in the past two elections.
The Green Party of B.C. offers pragmatic, sensible solutions to the challenges facing British Columbians, minus the ideology that enters the picture with the more established Liberals and New Democrats, said the party's new candidate for the West Vancouver-Garibaldi riding this week.
Stephenson on Monday (March 16) said he decided to join B.C. Green Party leader Jane Sterk and her team for the May 12 provincial election because he believes in fiscal conservatism and pragmatic solutions, not those based on left- or right-leaning ideologies.
"Both the NDP and the Liberals are very transparently ideological in their decisions," said Stephenson. "What we need are pragmatic solutions from a centrist government that's determined to enact policies that will set priorities and be willing to do what's practical to get us there."
The Green Party stands for environmental sustainability, and two areas in which the party would diverge from the ruling Liberals, if elected, are on the issues of fisheries and the privatization of B.C.'s hydroelectric power industry, Stephenson said.
If elected, Stephenson said he would work toward a ban on open-net salmon farming as one way to help bring back dwindling stocks of valuable wild salmon in B.C.
"They [open-net farms] are harming our natural salmon and I certainly would not like to replace natural salmon with farmed salmon," he said. "There is technology for closed-containment farming. We just need to take care of it so that we don't lose the whole thing."
Stephenson said he's not opposed to small, run-of-river power projects, where they're appropriate. However, he does oppose selling off B.C.'s rivers and streams to private power producers, which he said could well have disastrous results for British Columbians.
B.C. Liberal energy policy is really just another way of promoting public-private partnerships (PPPs), to the benefit of the private sector but the detriment of the public.
"To some extent I think PPP should stand for private public plundering," he said. "They talk about PPPs helping to share the risk, but to a great extent it's helping the public assume some of the risks for the benefit of private industry.
"Once you move something into the private sector like that, you lose control over the ability to regulate it. And you open yourself up to lawsuits from American companies. There's a concern that once they're opened up to private power production, then you open them up to the export of water. I sometimes wonder whether there isn't a hidden agenda to do just that."
While the Green Party is generally supportive of the carbon tax, Stephenson said the B.C. Liberals' record on the environment is "mixed." He said the carbon tax sends one, positive message while the massive road-expansion project known as Gateway sends quite another.
The Gateway project, he said, "will see a substantial increase in fossil-fuel transportation. The Green plan requires making available alternative ways of moving people and goods around. Over time we need to move toward more public transit, especially electric railroads, and also electric cars and plug-in hybrids."
As well, he said, the Greens would take the carbon tax one step further, bringing in a system that would be carbon-emissions permits auctioned off to the highest bidder. The level of allowable emissions would decrease over time.
"You then let that auction price adjust to the desired level of emissions, so you're actually controlling the level rather than letting it go through the back door. But that being said, putting a price on carbon is a good first step," Stephenson said.
Joan McIntyre, the current MLA for the riding and the current Minister of State for Intergovernmental Relations, is the Liberals' candidate in the riding that includes the Sea to Sky corridor. NDP Party spokesperson David Biever said the party has no candidate yet for the riding.
