October 2nd, 2007
One-on-One with Frank de Jong
By Sean Fitzgerald // 2 Comments
Frank de Jong is the leader of the Green Party of Ontario and a candidate in the riding of Davenport.
Spacing: Do you think your omission from the leaders’ debate shows a disinterest in the environment from voters and the province?
Frank de Jong: I think it shows our dysfunctional electoral system, and I think we need to encourage everyone to vote MMP, Mixed Member Proportional, to make our electoral system more favourable to minority opinions. The Green Party is going to start electing people now, but there are other parties that are going to come behind us.
It took us a long time to get to where we are today, because when we were smaller, we were persecuted against. We know who we are now, and we’re going to elect people, but we should have a fair system so that minority opinion gets a better chance to become majority opinion.
Spacing: How far away are we from the “walkable cities” that you’ve spoken about?
FdJ: It depends. It’s hard to know. Sometimes I think it’s a hundred-year project. But the point is, the best time to start is today. Oil was over 80 dollars a barrel today…and we know we’re hitting peak oil and it’s going to be the end of peak oil, so I think we’re going to have to expedite our plans to get to walkability. And I think it’s doable. It’s a question of how it will actually work. I think public schools and high schools and shopping malls will become hubs, and then we need to fractually organize. Which means we need optimal walkability, because the grid is designed for cars, but people don’t like walking around grids. We need to re-organize and re-think the entire planning for the environment. It’s gonna be a project.
There’s a book called Capitalism 3.0. It’s written by Peter Barnes, it’s a fabulous book, and he talks about this kind of thing. He talks about the economics that I’m talking about…and he sketches it out with how we can have the type of walkability linked by transit.
Spacing: Is the environment a key issue in this election, or has it fallen behind other issues, such as funding for faith-based schools?
FdJ: The funding for faith-based schools is the flashpoint. You don’t have to say that one thing is important. I think that environment is number two, roughly, in terms of if you have to categorize them. The problem is, environment is a motherhood issue, and everyone says, “oh yes, (we care).” (Minister of Finance) Greg Sorbara was trying to do that today. He says, “everyone cares about the environment. We can’t do anything about it right now, but we really care,” sort-of-thing. They try to take it out of the system, whereas the Green Party shoves it into the front and centre every single time. And we have to realize that our jobs, the economy, our institutions, our food…virtually everything depends on nature. It’s a core value that the Green Party has out there, and I think people are getting it. The voters are not perhaps as stodgy as we may think. I think they’re ahead of us.
One-on-one is a series of environment-related conversations leading up to the provincial election.
photo by Shaun Pierre
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Neither the author nor Spacing necessarily agree with the comments posted below. Spacing reserves the right to edit or delete comments entirely. See our Comment Policy.
good read. thanks mr. fitzgerald.
Do you think your omission from the leaders’ debate shows a disinterest in the environment from voters and the province?
Et tu, Spacing?
Can we please get back to using the word "disinterest" in its proper form? It means absence of partiality, not lack of interest.
Comment by McKingford
October 2, 2007 | 11:54 am