Ray’s Journey to Green

In the first 1000 word (or less) article we established Sustainability consists of 3 key pillars: Prosperity, People and Planet. We also likely agreed that many business and political leaders use the term for convenience, attempting to paint over contentious topics. In fact, your radar should likely be elevated when you hear a leader touting sustainability. Their pattern is to pull out the sutainability card on major topics they’d prefer you not critically analyze. They believe Canadians will accept whatever topic is at hand if the word sustainable is attached to it. Asking how a given topic effects constituents, effects nature and effects standard of living is a great place to start for holding these leaders accountable.

Still, I maintain that real sustainability will positively effect the lives of 99% of us. Yes, I also believe sustainability positively effects the ‘top 1% of income earners’. A more detailed explanation is required to demonstrate that. This 1% will be covered in another article. For the short term, this article shares with you how I arrived here. Because, I believe I’m not so different from you. This article like the last, is intended as a lead into the next article: How sustainability is critically important for 99% of Simcoe North residents and all Canadians.

Arriving as your Federal candidate for the Green Party of Canada has been a long, circular journey for me. I started out as what many of you will recognize as a ‘Joe Clark Conservative’. I even supported Mulroney and liked Peter McKay although, I did not vote for him or that party. Furthermore, other populist parties seemed at least to me, to dictate to myself and other Canadians; what should be our opinions and what should be important to us. As compared to actually listening to Canadians, they’ve treated us like children by telling us that this policy or the next is good for us. We’ve witnessed back and forth partisan, divisive politics and bickering serving for the most part, only the interests of the leader or party they represent. Resulting in stalled legislation, watered down policies that fail to achieve their stated objective(s) and without question; bloated government spending. The inevitable bi-product of failing to work on behalf of all Canadians and leading to one party buying votes of support needed to pass legislation at hand.

How you vote is and will always remain completely up to you. This next bit may be challenging for some and my request of you is to stay engaged with this series of articles. If you raise your eyebrows at this next piece please take comfort; you likely hold many beliefs that I still share (recall my progressive conservative confession above). If you invest in consuming the logic shared in this series of articles, it is firmly believed you will become an advocate for sustainability. What party, platform or person you vote for is up to you. What’s important is that you actually cast a vote. And, please, encourage everyone to VOTE! (41% voter turnout in Simcoe North last election).

Lets’ get to the point here. The Federal Conservative party is no longer (and for a longtime) has NOT been progressive. Yet, as evidenced in the vote tally from the last election; Progressive Conservative people are voting for the Federal Conservative party. Make no mistake about it; what once was the Reform Party has a good marketing team. They’ve adopted the Conservative name in an attempt to soften their right wing agenda and act as a migration bridge for progressives to join their party. Now, you might say; ya but, they are the only party touting some form of fiscal responsibility. I’m absolutely thrilled to share with you that this is just not true for two reasons. First, fiscal policies of the conservative party do not (for the most part) respect the three sustainability pillars. I will demonstrate in later articles how this leads to long term, fiscal neglect (and increased taxes for you). Second, please take a look at the Green Party more closely!? The Green Party advocates fiscal responsibility while caring for the environment and the people. The Green Party champions a sustainable approach to governance. As discussed, sustainability includes Prosperity. Which, at its core, means Greens champion a fiscally responsible approach to government.

I’ve joined the Green Party as a fiscal conservative who cares deeply about mother earth and the people who inhabit her. My fiscal expertise has been gained first at Georgian College, later via a Masters in Business Administration and of course, 25 years in my own small firm along with about 15 years in corporate, executive management. I also have all of the educational credentials (although I don’t practice) for the designations CMC and CMA (Certified Management Account and Consultant). I’m an accountant by training. My whole life has been working in generally, executive roles for companies in the UK, California, Dallas, Pennsylvania, New York, China, Quebec, BC and of course, right here in Simcoe North. I’ve mostly been a triple bottom line champion my whole career. I’ve repeatedly seen the evidence of increasing prosperity through caring for the environment and people.

A very strong and persuasive argument for a sustainable approach to governance is most easily demonstrated when viewed from the perspective of upper, middle and lower class income earners. In other words, sustainability increases the standard of living for 99% of all Simcoe North residents and indeed 99% of all Canadians. Absolutely, we will cover how sustainability applies to and benefits our other 1 percenters. Making that case in a logical way requires some of the building blocks that will be shared for the 99%. So, we will start with the 99% understanding that these articles will not ignore the 1percent. I hope you will find fascinating the facts shared in the next series of articles. Demonstrating, through current events how, caring for the environment and caring for people leads to generational prosperity for all Canadians.