FEATURE
Furstenau says it’s not too late to govern differently
The B.C. Green leader promises to listen to science in addressing the climate crisis and overdose deaths
O
by Charlie Smith
ver the years, some political leaders have explicitly promised to follow evidence-based policies in responding to society’s most vexing challenges, including the climate crisis, if their party forms government. But after the election, they’ve ignored this pledge. This was on display when Justin Trudeau was leading the federal Liberals into the 2015 election. Climate was a big issue during the campaign, but after the election, Trudeau’s party bought Kinder Morgan’s Canadian assets. He and his then–finance minister, Bill Morneau, subsequently proceeded with a pipeline project that will result in more annual downstream emissions than the entire total generated in B.C. each year. And its cost shot up astronomically. Similarly, in 2005, Vancouver mayoral candidate Sam Sullivan promised to pursue evidence-based policies while leading the NPA. Afterward, his critics said he refused to follow best practices by not allowing separated bike lanes on the Burrard Bridge and in other areas of the city to reduce crashes between vehicles and cyclists. However, the leader of the B.C. Greens, Sonia Furstenau, insists that she’s serious with her pledge to listen to scientists and experts. And it’s not only with regard to climate. In a phone interview with the Georgia Straight, she emphasized that she will embrace an evidence-based approach in other areas, including addressing the opioid crisis and combatting inequality. “We cannot continue to ignore reality and we cannot continue to ignore evidence that tells us what solutions are needed to be in place,” Furstenau said. “So in a climate crisis, for a government to give $6 billion in tax cuts and incentives to the fracking industry makes no sense.” Of course, she was referring to the NDP minority government’s efforts to attract a large, Shell Oil–led liquefied-natural-gas project in northwestern B.C. Often called a carbon bomb by its critics, the LNG Canada plant will rely on fracked natural gas—and it will gobble up a growing portion of B.C.’s carbon budget with each passing decade. “It goes against what the evidence tells us we need to do,” Furstenau continued, “which is to urgently reduce our emissions and urgently invest in clean energy so that we can have a safer future for our children.” As for the opioid crisis, Furstenau pointed to Portugal, which has decriminalized personal possession of cocaine and heroin and sharply driven down the number of overdose deaths and HIV infections. According to drug-policy researcher Adam Fisher, if Canada had the same overdosedeath rate as Portugal had in 2016, there
North Vancouver–Seymour Green candidate and climate-strike organizer Harrison Johnston says that Sonia Furstenau has been the only B.C. party leader to truly hear his concerns, whereas he felt like he was ignored by federal Liberal and provincial NDP cabinet ministers. Photo by Jimmy Jeong.
would have only been 96 such fatalities in 2018 instead of more than 4,000. This year, there were 684 overdose deaths in B.C. in only a four-month period, from May to August, according to the B.C. Coroners Service. Furstenau noted that the provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, issued a report two years ago with recommendations to address the overdose crisis. But many of those proposals, including decriminalization, have been ignored. “We approached COVID-19 listening to what the experts told us what to do, listening to the scientists, listening to Dr. Bonnie Henry,” Furstenau said. “We’ve taken the guidance of experts in response to this global pandemic. We need to take the guidance of experts in response to the opioid crisis.” Furstenau, a former teacher, told the Straight earlier this year that she entered politics—first at the local level in the Cowichan Valley, then provincially in 2017—to address a “feeling of disillusionment with decisions that were being made”. According to her, those decisions, such as granting a provincial permit for a contaminatedwaste dump in her town’s watershed, were affecting communities across the province. “What we need to have more of in politics is forward-looking visions that put people at the centre of that,” she said at the time. “We’re in a transition. We’re in an
economic transition. We’re in transition because of climate change. “Pretending that is not so is the worst thing that people in decision-making positions can do,” Furstenau added. “We actually need to get in front of that transition and decide where we want to end up. Where I want B.C. to end up is resilient and safe and secure—and also where people can have a quality of life that isn’t rooted in consumption but about connection.”
We’re in a transition because of climate change. – Sonia Furstenau
It’s a vision that has attracted the support of young environmental activists such as Harrison Johnston, a 20-year-old organizer with the climate-justice group Sustainabiliteens Vancouver. In a phone interview with the Straight, Johnston said that Furstenau was the only B.C. party leader who truly listened to what his group had to say.
In contrast, when he attended demonstrations at the offices of federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, B.C. Environment and Climate Change Strategy Minister George Heyman, and B.C. Attorney General David Eby, these politicians weren’t interested in engaging with young people in a serious way. As a result, Johnston has signed on as the Green candidate in his home community of North Vancouver–Seymour. “Our leaders are failing young people, they’re failing Indigenous people, they’re failing Black people, they’re failing people with disabilities, they’re failing drug users, and they’re failing our communities as a whole,” Johnston wrote in a recent commentary on Straight.com. “We can’t beg them for change any longer. We need something to hope for again.” Furstenau said that government’s job is to ensure that every person in the province has access to public services such as health care and education. “I think we should really question the way we do political campaigns when party leaders go into ridings and make promises about what government should be ensuring exists for every community in this province,” the B.C. Green leader declared. “Every community should have schools where children have safe places to learn, where they thrive. Every community should have enough doctors.” g
OCTOBER 1 – 8 / 2020
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
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