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Name: Mark Pajot

Position: Green Party candidate

Notoriety: currently contesting to become the Member of Parliament in the federal riding of Bramalea-Gore-Malton Federal Riding in the October 14, 2008 General Election.

Profile: Mark Pajot is completing his Masters in Environmental Studies at York University with a focus on understanding and addressing the health impacts of climate change. Mark is happily married to his wife Afsaneh and is a loving father of two beautiful boys, Leo (5) and Ethan (2). He got into politics for one reason, to fight for a decent future for his children - one where the environment is of equal or greater importance as the bottom line. He lives in Thornhill but works full-time for Peel Public Health so knows his constituency and their issues of concern well.

Mark Pajot has solid interdisciplinary training and background in applied research and has begun to establish a strong foothold in the research and policy arena related to climate change impacts and adaptation in Canada. Mark Pajot has worked as a Health Promotion Officer for over 6 years: 3 years with Peel Public Health and 3 years in Halton. He has contributed to winning numerous awards for his innovative approach to public health practice and done many presentations on climate change for organizations across Canada.

Mark is currently involved in a number of research projects - one with Health Canada's climate change office to assess Canadians perceptions of health impacts from climate change and another examining health promotions role in addressing climate change with the University of Toronto. Mark is also currently co-lead of a research interest group at University of Toronto's Centre for Urban Health Initiatives called "Environmental Health Justice in the City" and he sits on a high level advisory committee at York University's centre for research and innovation to direct the establishment of a climate change institute for Ontario.

http://www.MarkPajot.com

Responses to Wikisauga Election Questions

1. What will you do for Mississauga? To support communities like mississauga, we need to invest in critical infrastructure of transport and water works to modernize and reduce energy demand. Municipalities need stable and predictable funding so that they can invest in critical infrastructure such as mass transit, sewage treatment, energy efficiency improvements, better water systems to reduce waste and cope with erratic precipitation patterns of a changing global climate, as well as community amenities like sports fields, arts and cultural opportunities.

The Green Party will create a new pool of municipal infrastructure funding by changing tax rules to create a Municipal Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs) bond that can be held in RRSPs and self-directed RRSPs. In February 2006 alone, Canadians bought $8 billion in mutual funds. Imagine if even half of that was available to our communities.

This would be in addition to allocating an additional portion of the federal gasoline tax directly to the provinces for transfer to municipalities. The Green Party supports the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Large Cities Caucus request for a commitment of one cent from GST as a reasonable approach to stable financing. This is made possible through carbon tax revenue. Municipal governments must enter into agreements to ensure that sprawl is not permitted through extensive infrastructure funding. Densification, speedy, safe and pleasant mass transit, safe cycling paths and other investments to conserve electricity and water will all merit stable GST-sourced financing.

We commit to.. · Change tax policy to create a new pool of long term municipal infrastructure funding by allowing municipalities to issue new Municipal Registered Retirement Savings Plans Bonds (MRRSPsBs) which can be held in RRSPs and self-directed RRSPs. · Allocate one cent from GST on an approximate per capita basis to municipal governments for “Green Cities” initiatives, ensuring (through contractual agreements) that the funding is not used in ways that encourage urban sprawl, but instead to reduce sprawl and greenhouse gas emissions, conserve electricity and water, increase densification, expand convenient, safe, reliable and affordable public transit, and build cycling and walking paths. This funding could be transferred through Municipal Superfunds. · Create six Municipal Superfunds of $500 million/fund/year (an average of $100 for every citizen per year) to which municipalities can apply for grant funding to replace the less specific Canada Strategic Infrastructure Fund (CSIF). The proposed funds are: 1. Community Brownfield Remediation (CBR) Fund to provide assistance in cleaning up toxic and brownfield sites; 2. Water and Waste Treatment Facilities (WWTF) Fund to upgrade water treatment, sewage treatment and recycling facilities to make them efficient, safe and sustainable; 3. Sports, Cultural and Recreational Facilities (SCRF) Fund to support the development of green recreational and cultural facilities and refurbish existing facilities; 4. Mass Transit Promotion (MTP) Fund to improve and expand urban mass transit infrastructure and inter-modal connections, as well as car-sharing initiatives; 5. Cycling and Pedestrian Promotion (CAPP) Fund to support pedestrian and cycling infrastructure and smart-growth developments that transform urban areas and towns into walkable communities linked by transit to reduce the need for owning and using cars; and, 6. Community Housing Options Promotion (CHOP) Fund supporting a national housing program to build energy efficient co-ops and affordable housing units where there is a shortage of such housing options. · Increase the Gas Tax Transfer to municipalities to 5 cents/litre to be used in funding the above sustainable transportation initiatives such as public transit, cycling and pedestrian infrastructure and rural roads. · Make transit passes tax-deductible to encourage workers and businesses to use public transport and make employee parking a taxable benefit.

2. How will you support improving healthcare in Mississauga? The Green Party Commits to:

Improve Our Existing Acute Care System

• Use the full force of the Canada Health Act, federal spending power opposes any steps that open the way to two-tier health care in Canada.
• Address the cost crisis that produces long waitlists by providing more money to hire staff to open currently closed beds, fully utilize existing operating rooms in hospitals and purchase new diagnostic equipment.
• Provide funds immediately to begin training more doctors and nurses.
• Work with the CMA (Canadian Medical Association) to immediately establish qualification standards and on-the-job mentorship programs to fast-track certification of foreign trained health care professionals.
• Provide student loan forgiveness incentives for graduating doctors, nurses, paramedics and other health care professionals who agree to staff rural facilities and family practice clinics where recruitment is currently a problem.
• Provide funds to expand provincial health insurance to cover proven alternative therapies that are less expensive and invasive such as chiropractic, massage, acupuncture.
• Improve access to midwifery services across Canada.
• Improve Our Chronic Care System
• Enshrine a policy that seniors’ care must be provided in the communities where they or their families live.
• Expand home support and home care programs and assisted-living services to support people with chronic care needs, including many seniors who wish to stay in their own homes and communities.
• Transfer funds to provinces to build and open more long-term care beds.
• Educating Canadians about end-of-life issues; increase funding for palliative care hospices in hospitals and our communities; enact “living-will” legislation that guarantees people the right to limit or refuse medical intervention and treatment so people have the choice to die with dignity. (See Seniors section above)
• Reduce the Costs of PharmaCare
• Initiate a public inquiry into the rising costs and over-prescription of drugs.
• Immediately embark on a commission to study and conduct a cost-benefit analysis on the feasibility of establishing, in cooperation with the provinces, a new crown corporation to bulk purchase and dispense generic drugs to pharmacies and the feasibility of establishing a national PharmaCare Program that ensures that effective pharmaceuticals are available to all Canadians who need them.
• Achieve Better Health through Prevention
• Remove from use those chemicals known to pose a significant risk to human health. (See Environment Section.)
• Increase taxes on products known to be deleterious or potentially deleterious to peoples’ health. (See Agricultural Section.)
• Move to extend medically required and preventative dental care to the current list of treatments covered by Medicare. Due to costs of this measure, it is a multi-year goal.
• Provide more information to Canadians about healthy food choices and lifestyles.
• Commission Health Canada to do a nationwide body burden study identifying the presence of carcinogens, neurotoxins, hormone disruptors, and the toxicity levels of Canadians.
• Ensure clean drinking water for all Canadian communities by 2010.
• Prohibit by law human reproductive cloning and require a Health Canada license for any organization or institution that performs genetic manipulation for commercial or scientific purposes.
• Promote Fitness, Sport and Active Living
• Promote a broad-based national program of active living as a prescription for better health and lower health care costs, to be delivered in partnership with provincial, municipal and non-governmental bodies to achieve the goal agreed to by all ministers responsible for physical activity across Canada of increasing physical activity by 10% over the next five years.
• Introduce a national standard of daily, quality participation in physical activity in schools, colleges and universities to combat the epidemic of youth obesity.
• Make a strategic investment through Health Canada of $500 million over five years to aggressively address inactivity and obesity.
• Re-introduce a national school-based fitness-testing program.
• Promote the “Walking School Bus,” as developed by the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, in which adult volunteers supervise neighbourhood children walking to school thereby reducing pollution, improving fitness, and promoting community street safety.
• Endorse and promote the Olympic Movement’s Agenda 21 for Sport, which advocates sport and recreation management practices that are sustainable and encourages sustainable practices at all sports events and facilities.
• Establish an Olympic Spending Accountability Act, to ensure the effective long-term use of taxpayers dollars provided to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
• Support the development of high-performance athletes both by encouraging broad-based participation in sport, and by contributing to the provision of essential facilities, coaching and medical support for high-performance athletes, as outlined in the 2003 Canadian Sport Policy.
• Structure the spending for sports to ensure there is a practical progression of long-term financial support for sport at all levels in the sports continuum.
• Establish a Canadian Sports Spending Accountability Act, to ensure the effective long-term use of taxpayers dollars provided to high performance sports programs

3. As our local econonmy is changing what are your ideas on bringing more jobs to Mississauga? This is of significant concern to me, my constituents and my Party. We are the only Party that saw the manufacturing meltdown coming and as early as 2004 proposed progressive measures to redirect the manufacturing sector towards producing greener products through investment in new green technologies. Unfortunately we had to wait until the crisis in manufacturing happened before we took this issue seriously.

The Green Party will make sure Canada is a leader, not a laggard in this future. A green economy will create many new industries and jobs. By developing and promoting low carbon technologies (alternate fuels, renewable energy) we can create a thriving economy. The Green Party of Canada is the only party able to tackle today's challenges while securing tomorrows opportunities.

Research and knowledge is mobile. It can pick up and move – out of town or out of Canada. An easily accessible and integrated system for business development and growth must be made available in smaller cities and towns to create the business climate that will entice home-grown entrepreneurs to stay. This model has been very successfully applied in Sweden in the form of Technology Centres or “Incubators for Mutual Support and Shared Services.” Most successful applied research and commercialization is done by small and medium-sized businesses, and these business "clusters" attract new businesses seeking the direct and indirect benefits of networking and collaboration.

We will commit to: Establish a federally funded Small Cities Green Venture Capital Fund to support viable local green business start-ups. Set up a Green Venture Capital Funding Program providing matching federal funds for locally raised venture capital up to a set limit per community. Reduce the paperwork burden on small businesses by eliminating duplicative tax filings and red tape. Government agencies will share information from the same database.

4. If elected how will you work to protect our environment? We will leave no stone unturned to put our natural environment back to health.

Our natural environment is the source of our wealth and our health. Canada’s forests, water, soil and energy resources fuel our economy. However, if we treat our environment like a business in liquidation, those resources and our economy will suffer. The lack of federal regulation, monitoring, and action has made Canada one of the world’s biggest and most tragic offenders against the environment. We rank amongst the world’s worst for wasteful use of natural resources. Our soil, air and waters are dumping grounds for toxic chemicals. Through inadequate environment protection we risk leaving our children the deplorable legacy of a debilitated and degraded environment. How can we be so thoughtless?

Our Vision

The Green Party of Canada has set out its plan for a sustainable future grounded in fiscal responsibility, ecological sanity and social justice. As the only party working within a triple bottom line (economic, ecological and social) approach to every policy, our position on key environmental issues is clear. It is urgent that the Canadian government actually set real targets, with measurable objectives and put in place the resources to deliver on those goals. Recent history makes it clear that purely voluntary efforts do not work. Recent history also demonstrates that policies must be consistently applied. For example, it is not possible to reduce greenhouse gases while providing massive subsidies to expanding the production to the planet’s most carbon-intensive oil – crude from the Athabasca tar sands. We need to de-couple the perception that economic success is dependent on physical growth and build upon the benefits of a steady-state economy (non boom bust economy). Continued exponential growth is counter to the realities of a finite planet.

1. Air quality Canada faces an epidemic level of respiratory diseases, exacerbated by poor air quality. On smog alert days our emergency wards are packed. Asthma is the leading cause of absenteeism from school and the third leading cause of work loss. Three million Canadians, about 8.4 % of the country's population, and one in eight children suffer from asthma and the numbers are increasing rapidly. Yet, Canada’s regulation of air quality lags behind that of other nations. Canada allows sulphur dioxide at concentrations of 115 parts per million (ppm) while the European Union, for example, allows 48 and Australia permits 80. The issue of air quality is intimately connected with climate change. The formula is: pollution + heat = smog. A failure to confront the climate crisis, directly and soon, will result in more extreme heat conditions during the summer months. The more 30+ degrees C days that Canadians experience, the more smog days will occur.

Our Vision The Green Party knows that regulating to reduce the precursors of smog (particulates, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide) as well as to reduce serious neuro-toxic contamination of air with mercury is necessary and is immediately possible within the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA). Regulating to reduce these contaminants must be coupled with reducing the burning of fossil fuels that emits particulates as well as climate-warming greenhouse gases (GHGs). Measures to meet Kyoto targets by reducing reliance on fossil fuels will have important benefits in avoiding ever worsening heat impacts and these contaminants.

Green Solutions

Strengthen CEPA with specific and strong regulations to reduce particulates, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and other airborne contaminants. Address smog-causing heat and pollution through solutions outlined in the climate change/Kyoto sections of this document.

2. Water protection and conservation Freshwater is the lifeblood of Earth. Protecting and conserving freshwater is a major political challenge for the 21st century. Looking down from space one sees that Canada encompasses one of the Earth’s most water-abundant regions. On the ground, however, the story is different. Our water use is geographically concentrated. Sixty percent of our water runs north while over 90 percent of our population is concentrated along our southern border. Sadly, Canadians are among the world’s most inefficient users of water, wasting more water per capita than any other nation on Earth except for the United States. While Europe has considerably reduced its water consumption, Canadians continue to put a heavy strain on water infrastructures and drain our valuable freshwater reserves. As stewards of nine percent of the world’s renewable water, we are ethically bound to conserving it for this and future generations. While most citizens have access to safe water, Health Canada indicates that as many as 85 First Nations communities (under the sole jurisdiction of the federal government) are under boil-water advisories. As our population, economic activities and communities grow, water problems will become increasingly common. Some, like Walkerton and Kashechewan, are related to water quality; others, like recent droughts in the Prairies and Southern Ontario are water quantity issues; some span provincial borders; others national borders. All speak to a need for renewed attention to water policy by the federal government.

Our Vision Sustainable communities and sustainable livelihoods need healthy watersheds. The Green Party is committed to responsible water stewardship. That includes restoring and protecting watersheds from industrial activities. We advocate a renewed federal government role in water management, focused on strong regulations and programs created in collaboration with provincial and municipal governments. When it comes to our vision for freshwater, the Green Party’s message is clear: Keep it. Conserve it. Protect it. Keep it. Pressure is mounting to export freshwater south of the border, with trade agreements such as North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) leaving us susceptible to relinquishing control over our water. The Green Party supports current Federal Water Policy that emphatically opposes large-scale exports (bulk exports) of our water. Conserve it. The federal government must work to ensure sustainable use of our water resources and at the same time maintain and improve access to safe water for all Canadians. This includes water metering and pricing that both reflects a fair value for water and fosters efficient use, and regulations that protect and enhance water quality and ensure that Canada does not become a haven for water-wasting industrial technologies. Protect it. To protect and restore freshwater ecosystems and their ecological services (e.g. as habitats for fish and freshwater species; as domestic water supplies; for energy-generation and recreation; as sources of water for irrigation and other economic uses) the federal government has to use its powers, including the Fisheries Act, and its role in inter-jurisdictional water sharing. This is especially important when considering the changes in quality and quantity of Canada’s freshwater that will occur due to climate change. The Great Lakes’ levels will fall, resulting in higher concentrations of toxic chemicals and other pollutants; BC rivers will become over-heated preventing salmon spawning, and farmers will face increasing drought. The Athabasca River is already experiencing significant declines in flow due to climatic impacts and tar sand developments. Green Solutions

Protect the fundamental right to water for all Canadians today and in future generations by amending the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to enshrine the right of future Canadians to an ecological heritage that includes breathable air and drinkable water. Push government to strategically implement the 1987 Federal Water Policy to meet the requirements of sustainable water management—equity, efficiency and ecological integrity—by:

Passing Federal legislation to prohibit bulk water exports;

• Establishing regulations and product standards to promote water efficient technologies in Canada;
• Ensuring secure, safe water supplies for all citizens with a focus on First Nations communities through establishing regulations requiring protection of drinking water at its source, public inspection of domestic water supplies and mandatory and regular drinking water testing;
• Provide funding to municipalities through a new “Water and Waste Treatment Facilities Municipal Superfund” (see section on Federal-Municipal Relations) to enable replacement of chlorination systems with ozonation, ultraviolet sterilization, sand filtration and other safe water purification systems;
• Conduct an inventory of all polluted groundwater and water bodies and develop and implement strategies for cleaning them up; and,
• Enhance the capacity of federal departments and agencies to protect and restore the health of aquatic ecosystems
• Ensure that water is managed in a way that helps create healthy, sustainable communities and fosters sustainable livelihoods by demanding that government:
• Replace federal guidelines for drinking water quality with binding national standards that secure clean drinking water and human health;
• Make federal funding for urban water infrastructure contingent on water efficiency plans that include measurable and enforceable goals and objectives;
• Provide adequate funding for local and regional flood protection and drought management planning;
• Provide strategic climate change program funding for water conservation on the basis that water conservation results in energy savings and reduced greenhouse gas emissions;
• Revive the InfraGuide program (quietly eliminated by Environment Minister John Baird) that supported graduate internships in leading edge municipal infrastructure projects
• Shift subsidies and funding away from dams and diversions (including feasibility studies) toward comprehensive “ground to the glass” drinking water protection strategies, especially source water protection, watershed restoration and community-based water conservation and efficiency planning and programs; and,
• Review federal agricultural subsidies and develop transitional strategies to shift production away from water intensive crops toward local sustainable agriculture.
• Address inter-provincial/territorial and international water-related concerns by demanding that government:
• Restore ecosystem health to Canada’s coastline and inland watersheds by funding improvements to municipal wastewater treatment systems, with particular emphasis on ensuring shoreline communities and industries stop dumping untreated waste into rivers, lakes and oceans; and,
• Ensure that binding water-sharing agreements among provincial, territorial and federal governments are created within the Mackenzie Basin (within 1 year). The agreements must reflect contemporary scientific knowledge and principles of social equity, efficiency and ecological integrity. Elements to include:
• Capping withdrawals from the Athabasca River based on assessment of in stream flow needs;
• Ensuring oil sands developers deal responsibly with polluted waters in storage ponds (largest man-made structures on Earth); and,
• Placing a moratorium on further oil sands development (i.e. increases in annual production).
• Review the Prairie Provinces Water Board Master Agreement on Apportionment to ensure it is consistent with contemporary scientific knowledge and principles of social equity, efficiency and ecological integrity;
• Address invasive species in the Great Lakes by developing stringent, science-based protocols for ballast water flushing prior to entering the St. Lawrence waterway, and funding for monitoring and enforcement of these protocols;
• Strengthen the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement to ensure it deals with emerging issues such as endocrine disrupters and pharmaceuticals;
• Support international momentum for the human right to water by establishing a national legally binding human right to basic water requirements for all Canadians (both quality and quantity); and,
• Increase Canadian aid for access to basic water requirements and sanitation consistent with the Millennium Development Goals.
• Fulfill the need to increase science capacity related to water issues by demanding the government:
• Enhance funding for data collection and integrated information-systems on water use, availability and quality; and,
• Link research spending in the natural and social sciences to water policy goals to ensure our higher education institutions create the knowledge for 21st century water management (i.e. emerging issues such as endocrine disrupters, pharmaceuticals and toxics, instream flows and sustainable groundwater yield, climate change adaptation).

3. National parks Every Prime Minister of Canada for the last twenty years has committed to the completion of the national parks system and the creation of Marine Protected Areas sufficient to protect marine ecosystems — except the current Prime Minister. The 2005 Liberal Budget committed $209 million over five years to capital maintenance and acquisition in existing parks, but did not increase funding to the creation of new parks. Key ecological areas are under assault. Unless government acts soon, areas like the South Okanagan, Canada’s only area of true desert, wilderness in Labrador, or the Flathead in British Columbia, will no longer be available for protection. They will be lost due to development pressures. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has warned Canada that we are allowing dangerous erosion of existing parks that are designated as World Heritage Sites, particularly Banff, Jasper, Kootenay and Yoho National Parks as well as several provincial reserves. The UNESCO Committee pointed to the risk of “adverse impacts of the operation of the Cheviot mine on the integrity” of parks, particularly Jasper. UNESCO also warned that Canada was not doing enough to ensure that “various mining, mineral, oil and gas explorations activities" around Nahanni National Park, located in the southwest corner of the Northwest Territories, not be allowed to erode the ecological integrity of the park. The progress on Marine Protected Areas is even worse. While Canada has protected less than 1% of its marine areas, Australia has protected 7.5%. Yet, Canadians do care. Polls reveal that 90 percent of Canadians consider time spent in natural areas as children very important; 85 percent participate regularly in nature-related activities; 98 percent view nature as essential to human survival.

Our Vision

The Green Party is committed to reversing the disappointing recent trend of the federal government to devalue park protection, with firm and unwavering action to protect existing parks and expand our terrestrial and marine park systems. We must rapidly establish “no-take” marine parks as a last chance to save our vast tracts of critically threatened and over-fished coastlines.

Green Solutions

Re-commit to the completion the National Parks system that consists of a representative network of Canada’s terrestrial and marine ecosystems, setting a target date of 2015 with emphasis on:

• Fast tracking the establishment of “no-take” marine protected areas. Consultation with fisheries communities and sectors is essential drawing on experience from New Zealand and elsewhere where “no-take” areas actually improved the economically viable fisheries;
• Extending, in partnership with provinces, territories, and aboriginal peoples, Canada’s network of land, freshwater and marine protected areas and linking them up with provincial and territorial protected areas wherever possible, and establishing compatible-use buffer zones around national parks for the maintenance of natural biological diversity and ecosystem health; and,
• Providing Parks Canada with the funding necessary to protect the ecological integrity of Canada’s National Parks.
• Establish a National Park Completion Budget of $500 million annually to meet the goal of completing our National Parks and Marine Protected Areas Systems by 2015.
• Implement the recommendations of conservation scientists for effective action to preserve:

Critically threatened habitats;

• Keystone species, endangered species, or species of commercial or cultural value, especially those of First Nations value;
• Habitats specifically threatened by global-warming; and,
• Continuous interconnected tracts of habitat for wide-range migrating species sufficient to maintain viable populations.
• Advocate the purchase of private land, where necessary, to help protect critical habitats especially of endangered species.
• Increase monitoring and protection efforts, including park rangers and guides with interpretation skills to educate Canadians and visitors on the vast beauty and value within our National Parks.

4. Species at risk Globally our wealth of species is being lost at an astounding rate. Canada’s rich heritage of wildlife is disappearing. While Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA), proclaimed in 2003, has some redeeming qualities, overall its flaws make it ineffective in protecting Canada’s threatened species. It provides basic protection only for species on federal lands—about 5 percent of the lands in Canada. It lets the federal cabinet rather than COSEWIC (the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada) scientists decide on which species are on the “species at risk” list. Habitat protection and recovery plans are voluntary. The legal listing of species at risk has become more political and less scientific each year. Cultus Lake sockeye salmon were not listed to avoid “significant socio-economic impacts on sockeye fishers and coastal communities.” Eight aquatic species recommended by COSEWIC were not listed by federal cabinet in 2006. Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn said it was “to ensure that we don’t negatively affect the fishing industry.” In the last few years, despite rhetoric about “safety nets”, the federal government has refused to issue emergency orders to protect critical habitat on non-federal lands. Ottawa has looked the other way as the BC government has permitted logging in Northern spotted owl habitat, condemning the last few pairs to extinction in Canada.

Our Vision

The Green Party believes in the conservation of species diversity as an essential part of a healthy environment. To do this we must strengthen the Species at Risk Act (SARA) and make it an effective tool that actually protects endangered species and their habitats everywhere in Canada including all federal, provincial, territorial, First Nations and private lands. We envision an Act that includes powers to enforce prescribed measures to protect species at risk and stop acts of non-compliance. We believe the COSEWIC scientists should have the final say on the designation of threatened species and not have its recommendations subject to Cabinet approval, a condition that greatly weakens COSEWIC’s power and ability to protect species at risk.

Green Solutions Amend the Species at Risk Act (SARA) to: Ensure that listing under the Species at Risk Act is based on scientific, and not political, processes. COSEWIC’s determination would be the actual legal listing. Cabinet approval would be removed; Ensure that recovery-planning efforts identify and then appropriately manage, protect and/or restore the habitat that species need to recover, through consultative, collaborative efforts with stakeholders, land-owners, provinces, municipalities, and First Nations governments; and, Ensure that it is a criminal offence, made punishable as a mens rea offence, to kill a listed species, regardless of whether the offence occurred on federal or provincial land.

5. How will you work to improve the existing infrastructure in Mississauga? Besides investing in cities as outlined above we propose a national transit strategy and national housing plan . Urban sprawl means commuters crawl. More roads don’t solve the problem; they make it worse, quickly filling up with more cars. Gridlock means more air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. We have to break this vicious cycle.

We must build our way out of the problem of clogged roads and smog-choked cities, not by building more roads and bridges and more distant suburbs, but with “smart growth” infrastructure. Excellent public transit and efficient housing in high-density nodes along existing transit corridors will make cities livable and people-friendly. The federal government must take the lead in funding the “greening” of Canada’s cities. (For more details also see the section on government: Federal-Municipal Relations.)

We commit to…

· Increase federal funding for pedestrian, cycle and car-sharing infrastructure in towns and cities. · Double existing funding to stimulate a massive re-investment in public transportation infrastructure in all Canadian towns and cities to make it convenient, safe, comfortable and affordable. · Make transit passes tax-deductible to encourage workers and businesses to use public transport and provide financial support to provinces that provide free public transit passes to people living below the poverty line. · Cancel all funding for specific highways and bridge expansions (like the Gateway Program in Greater Vancouver) that encourage urban sprawl, increase private vehicle use, truck transport of goods and consequently increases greenhouse gas emissions. · Ensure federal infrastructure funding does not go to expanding highways and roads.

The Green Party believes it is the right of every Canadian to have affordable, safe and secure housing. It enhances people's health, dignity and life opportunities. It is an essential prerequisite to an equitable society. The Green Party supports the delivery of social housing dollars to provincial, territorial and municipal governments through the traditional vehicle of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The funding for social housing needs to be dramatically increased. CMHC programs must be directed to the communities most in need and fast-tracked to provide homes for people at risk.

We commit to… · Create a National Affordable Housing Program that provides sufficient funds annually through the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to community-based agencies across Canada to: · Build new subsidized affordable homes: 20,000 new and 10,000 rehabilitated affordable units per year for the next ten years using capital grants and changes in tax and mortgage insurance regulations; · Provide rent supplements or shelter assistance for an additional 40,000 low-income households per year, for ten years; · Provide credit and loan guarantees to non-profit housing organizations and cooperatives for the building and restoration of quality, energy-efficient housing for seniors, people with special needs, and low-income families; · Subsidize private developers to include a percentage of affordable housing in their housing projects; · Extend provisions in the Income Tax Act to offer tax incentives to build affordable, healthy, energy-efficient, multi-unit rental housing and to include tax credits for gifts of lands, or of land and buildings, to community land trusts to provide affordable housing; and, Dedicate funding to the co-operative housing sector to enable more new affordable housing projects to proceed

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