Quebec election 2007: Time to vote with your vote.

Residents of the United States (and many politically ignorant Canadians) may not know about the upcoming Quebec provincial election, but on March 26 over 7.5 million Quebecers will decide which group of politicians will be making the rules for the next little while. I commented last week on some campaign posters put up by the separatist-minded Parti Quebecois which suggested that” we” would rebuild a greener Quebec - assuming that the Parti Quebecois won the election. Since the top priority of the PQ is to separate Quebec from the rest of Canada, I wonder how much time and effort they will actually devote to the environment if they come to power. I decided to take a slightly closer look at the environmental and sustainable angles of the election.

I was hoping to ask the PQ and representatives of the other major parties some biting questions about their environmental agendas. Will they abolish CAFO’s? (or at least reinstate the moratorium against new pig farms that was in effect from 2002-2005). Will they toughen beef and cattle regulations so we can prevent any more instances of mad cow disease? Will they order the cities and towns to install more bicycle lanes or reduce public transit prices? Will they finally install a ‘Ministry of Food’ to ensure that all food produced in (and imported into) Quebec is done so sustainably, so we can do away with labels such as ‘organic’, ‘free range’, and ‘local’ and everything will just be called ‘food’? I sure hope so!

My first call went to the Parti Quebecois, who seem to be the only party actually mentioning the environment in their major campaign efforts, but also the only party with absolutely no English on their website or in any of their publications (they say they will have some “soon”). Catherine Bourgault, press attaché for the PQ, boasted to me that not only does their campaign focus heavily on the environment, but they have also sent out a directive to all candidates telling them to run “green” campaigns.

The 5-page manifesto instructs all PQ candidates to use paper made from 30% recyclable materials, to avoid using Styrofoam cups for their coffee and tea (which should be of the fair trade variety) and are even reminded not to leave any windows open or let their cars run too long. This made me wonder about the thousands of cloroplast campaign posters attached to every visible surface in Quebec, which according to Valerie, a representative of Eco-Quartier (an environmental initiative created by the City of Montreal aimed at the active promotion of recycling and urban cleanliness), are not recyclable.

The poster issue is addressed in page 5 of the PQ campaign directive, which instructs the candidates to make sure they collect all of their posters on the day after the election and re-use them in some way. (Incidentally, Noshette was taking a walk on the mountain yesterday with a friend and they saw some kids - obviously future environmentalists - using a campaign poster as a sled.) Shrugging off this responsibility to the individual candidates felt like a cop-out to me, but on the whole, I admire this initiative and wonder if it will be adhered to. Perhaps I’ll drop in on some campaign offices this week to see how they’re doing - it may very well help me decide how to vote, because if they can run a “green” campaign, perhaps they can run a “green” province. Of course, that also works the other way around.

The Liberal party, who has been in power since 2003, states that they plan to flat out ban soft drinks, candy and sweets from school vending machines. I’d like to see them win the election just to see them bring this promise to fruition. “Sustainable development and the environment” is listed as the Liberal Party’s 5th priority, after health, education, family support, and creation of wealth. I would like to see it closer to the top of the list seeing as it directly affects the other four priorities. They boast about having already developed public transit policy, but a Montreal bus ticket just went up to CAD$2.75 (approximately US$2.35) while a Berkeley bus ticket is US1.75 and it only costs US$1.50 to ride the bus in Boston.

The right-winged ADQ (Action Democratique du Quebec) lists the environment 3rd in their program, behind economy and education. Similar to the Liberals, who state in their platform that they will “make Quebec a North American leader in sustainable development”, the ADQ commits to “making Quebec a worldwide leader in clean energy”. Hmmm…do I want to lead North America or the world? I would probably choose ‘world’ and then fire the Liberal platform writers. The ADQ also plan to declare water a national resource, but don’t really supply any specific details as to how water will enjoy its new status. What is water’s official status now?

All in all, it looks like the PQ have the best environmental spin so far, and I plan to dig even deeper before March 26 to see how things are shaping up.

Oh, and , uh, I had some organic chicken for lunch.

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