Green Party unveils wide-ranging platform

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Green Party Leader James Beddome unveiled a 28-page policy book today.

The Green Party of Manitoba is promising voters free post-secondary education, free public transit and a guaranteed annual income as a part of a wide-ranging if not outright utopian platform.

This morning at Memorial Park, across from the Manitoba Legislature, party leader James Beddome unveiled a 28-page policy book that positions the provincial Greens in more idealistic territory than their federal counterparts, who elected their first MP earlier this year.

A Green government in Manitoba would work toward reducing the consumption of consumer goods, reducing the use of transportation in general and reducing the consumption of energy. The party promised not to build Bipole III at all, sidestepping the conventional debate over whether to build new hydro lines on the east or west side of Lake Winnipeg.

The Greens also promised a number of bans. Under a Green government, the sale of kitchen garburators would cease, deep-fried foods would no longer be cooked in schools and hospitals, fluoride would be removed from drinking water, nuclear-waste storage would be illegal and nanotechnology would not be introduced.

More conventionally for an environmentalist party, the Greens promised to end the practice of draining wetlands and to replace sewage-treatment plants with waterless sanitation.

Few cost assumptions were attached to any of the party's promises.

The Greens are fielding a record 32 candidates in this election, prompting Beddome to note it could theoretically form a government.

The party currently has no seats. Its candidates finished second in Wolseley in 2003 and 2007. Beddome is running in the inner-city riding this year.