Our assessment:  

Something wicked this way comes OR

The Green Fog - full cost not low cost OR

The green police state

Grade: F

Mr. Percy in his preamble hints at what is to come in the Green Party of Nova Scotia’s (GPNS) Election Platform, ‘Healthy Economy, Healthy Communities, Healthy Environment’, how an outdated model of governance needs to be changed.

Change is what is needed here in Nova Scotia since the province is heading for a bleak future,  depopulation, historically low political participation, a failing democracy, people leaving to go ‘out west’, the highest costs/taxes and the poorest growth in Canada, the private-sector’s complete lack of confidence in government, continuing government politicization of the economy; Nova Scotia after 50 years of constant malaise is becoming a backwater.

Mr. Percy advocates big change in the GPNS platform;

http://greenparty.ns.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/GPNS-platform-doc.pdf

It has 10 pages of text finished off with an explanation of why none of their ideas are costed (lack of data), but they affirm that “all of the ideas expressed here in our platform document are revenue neutral at worst and will actually reduce spending in many  cases. “ We are not convinced.

Many parts of this platform are vague. For instance “a Green Government will address the key issues related to climate change and energy security.” What does that mean? Does this mean a few small initiatives or a massive re-alignment of government economic policy? So we have no way of telling whether this is a good or bad idea and how much is the cost (addressing climate change sounds expensive). We have sorted them into different ‘piles’ based on our best understanding.

They make 58 promises.

Promises that will increase costs in the economy; 8

Items such as ‘food security’ which will force consumers to consume local products rather than the lowest priced product. GPNS wants to bring in ‘full cost accounting’ which “explicitly values human, social, and natural capital”, how this is to be done and who does the costing is not explained, but it certainly will not produce lower costs. Everything from chocolate bars to new cars would be more expensive.

Promises that involve more government spending; 29

The key word is ‘supporting’ some activity. GPNS also wants to “buffer” the agricultural and fisheries sectors “from the market forces”. This is also know as subsidies and price fixing.  This will probably be very expensive and will produce an anemic economy in those sectors. GPNS also wants to start rebuilding the rail system, another expensive project.

Promises that are too vague or confusing to be assessed;  9

Promises that are nonsensical; 2

Increasing the immigration quota will do nothing because Nova Scotia lacks prosperity to retain immigrants and the GPNS notion to reduce the civil service given all of the new activities by government makes no sense. We believe the civil service will have to be expanded.

Promises that are good ideas and should be noted; 5

·        Harmonization of federal and provincial regulations.

·        Guaranteed annual income (IF tied to a flat tax scheme to create Negative Income Tax).

·        Greater economic and regulatory cooperation with the other two Atlantic provinces.

·        Study of electoral systems by a Citizen’s Assembly.

·        Require that environmental protection policies and regulations are supported by adequate enforcement.

·

There are two additional aspect of the platform that need airing:

Green Jobs (5 promises)

GPNS wants to “generate green jobs across multiple sectors by stimulating existing businesses, initiating new businesses” They then offer a solution “To offset layoffs in industry”. Clearly this is a massive intervention into the private economy by government, ‘approved’ businesses will be subsidized while disapproved businesses will be forced to close either by regulation and/or imposition of fines according to full cost accounting.

Totalitarianism

You own a wood lot. You clear some big trees to build a new garage. Under the GPNS “any new project would be developed within a sound ethical and social assessment framework.” You have ‘damaged the environment’ therefore you must pay the cost. Also your neighbors feel the loss of the trees detracts from the neighborhood; you have damaged you social environment and again you must pay the cost. For this to work government needs to maintain extensive oversight of all private activity so it can intervene, in this case using your private property, and have the means of coercion to enforce compliance. Assessing the vague “ethical and social” cost will, no doubt, be done unilaterally by government with apparently no recourse to the legal system.

In short the GPNS wants to establish an ideological regime with extensive invigilation of individuals, a regime which can exercise unilateral power over you on any pretext that they determine in the name of the environment. This is also called a police state. This is a massive and terrifying invasion of individual rights. 

Analysis

Ideas to fix our dying democracy?

Nothing substantive.

Plan to deal with our potentially crippling debt?

No.

Commitment to balance the budget?

No.

Make government more transparent?

Nothing substantive.

Reduce the size of government.

No. Probable large new spending.

Lower taxes?

No. Probable tax increases.

A vision to empower the private sector?

No. The opposite, greater regulation and higher costs.

Plans to explore a regional approach to regional problems such as power rates.

Minimal and vague.

Conclusion

A massive and frightening vision. A left-wing totalitarian green socialistic movement that wants a green police state. Before it was dictatorship of the proletariat, now it is dictatorship of the environment that individuals must be subjugated to.

Assessment

The green police state.  Grade: F