Leader's Debate (2008) Analysis - Trade & Globalization

I wonder what the Green Party of Canada's position is vis-a-vis globalization (which Google tells me is not a word!) and Free Trade.

In the Leaders' Debate the first question was about what the parties would do to "stabilize Canada's export-driven economy". Elizabeth May was the first to answer. Her answer puzzled me: She suggested that "we need to take steps to lower the dollar's value and shore up our export-driven industries...". She then suggested we need to do other "long-term" things to ensure sustainability, but those would come after our export shore-up. The first thing she said was she would "freeze" the take over of Canadian companies by foreigners, mentioning Inco, FalconBridge, and Hudson's Bay. "We need to protect our corporations". I agree we need to stop these take-overs, but Inco is not a sustainable company, it is a huge mining company polluting our water and raping the Earth. Why do we want to protect it? We should slow it down and dismantle these polluting industries.

Why is she suggesting we need to keep the dollar low to keep manufacturing and other exports humming along? Why was she not pointing out the fatal flaws in the whole export-oriented economic system? Why did she not make any argument for import-replacement and moving to a localized economy? No mention of the fact that export-driven economics is unsustainable because it depends on fossil-fuels and on delocalizing parts of ecosystems around the world in unnatural ways - draining our soils, forests, and other "resources" - leaving pollution and depletion in the wake. There is a better way - localized agriculture and economies, where local needs are met by local labour and local resources, where jobs and ecosystems are not disturbed, and where sustainable livelihoods, industries, and economies can be built.

To me it seems the GPC is trying to do two conflicting things: (1) appear "realistic", and (2) push for the huge changes needed to allow humanity to survive and perhaps even thrive on Earth into the long-term future.

To most Canadians, the idea that we should abondon our export-oriented trade system is ludicrous. "I'll lose my job!". But really, there are many jobs to be created in replacing the labour done in other countries by producing items locally that we currently import. This is import-replacement and is part of a strategy of localization. It is not unrealistic except in the context/framework of the current economic and political ideology that competition and growth are the only way to survive. They call it "competitiveness" but what it is is really trying to keep our position in an unsustainable system of global trade based on fossil fuel energy and exploitation of nature and people (natural and human "resources").

I am reminded of what the late Rudolph Bahro, author of "The Alternative" and a key player in the German Green Party, once wrote: “Every rejected proposal that contains the WHOLE message is worth a hundred times more than an accepted one which just sets about correcting the symptom without intervening in the suicidal logic of the overall process.” (Source: "Building the Green Movement, 1985).

The GPC and GPM and all Greens in the world cannot just go about tidying up globalization and military-industrialism, we must replace them with localization, peace, and ecological living. These are the only things that will save us. They cannot be relegated to the "long-term", they must be things acted on TODAY or their might not be a long-term.

All-in-all I think Elizabeth May did a great job representing a "balanced" Green Party in the debate. I just think it is important to analyze all these statements and think what they are doing to the overall message Canadians are getting. We cannot allow ourselves to drift into Liberal-NDP territory. We must take the industrial system head-on or we are no longer being Greens.

Why did she wear blue!!???

-Andrew Basham, Leader
Green Party of Manitoba