Courtyard café: New economy

• Need to promote green and sustainable jobs
• Need sustainable policy to be implemented by citizens
• Need framework to make decisions.
• Need to shift to framing the importance for the people — not just saving the environment for its own sake
• Need government to invest and take the risk
• Need to address people’s negativity
• We need to reward people who are willing to downsize and live with less ex. taxbreak
• We have to act and contract
• Operate within the planets limits (agriculture, etc.)
• “Limits of acceptable change”- US military
  • Make vision
  • Policies
  • Measure
• The narrative we present is critical
  • Better future for everyone is the goal
  • What is possible for them?
• Terminology and format of platform is critical
• Need to demonstrate connections between dimensions
• Strategic platform to address tactics
• Give people a possible outcome to draw them forward. Either or narrative doesn’t work with jobs or environment. Make the link between the win-win’s
• Have to address change management that is inevitable and the change we want to drive
• Cities will have to address social and economic change

Government ministries operate in silos

• Forestry Silo (resources)
• Environment silo
• Housing Silo
• Health Silo
• Emergency Response Silo

Climate resilience

• Who is going to build climate change mitigation infrastructure
• Adaptation to climate change ex. Delta flooding

• Need to transition to new economy
• Certain business models will disrupted.
• Plan to mitigate impacts and people relying on conventional industry livelihood
  • Ex. Greens do road shows in N.E. and listen to local leaders on how they are going to shift their economies. (These majors think we do not understand their situation. They rely on businesses in their areas for revenue and are fearful of changing the model)

Measuring Success

• Value of “productive” work vs untracked work (care work, etc.)
• What you measure gets watched
• GDP vs GPI
• Ensure entrepreneurs are captured and empowered in measure of progress

Jobs in the new economy

• Impact of automation of industry where with this impact
  • Where will it impact, positive or negative?
• Project the jobs that will result
• Re-investing skill training and industrial innovation in clean, renewable tech
• Need to list the actual jobs people will be able to get
• Are they on WorkBCs website for projections of available jobs and values in future? Include information on livelihoods, earning potential
• Youth in schools
  • Career classes - resource industries grabbing them
  • Need to have green energy industry
  • Reduce work hours as it impacts
  • Education and retraining is key
    • Provide pathway
    • Empower post-secondary to innovate in tech
• What can the Greens do to move people into good well paying jobs.
• Personal investment. Share experiences of people like a person in Comox (Logger-to-new trade)

Infrastructure needs

• New infrastructure needed for the 21st century and we need to change work
• New government building infrastructure needs to support this (ex. municipal buildings. Build the retaining walls, transit, solar
• Important to say this is a structural investment, not just a cost to pay for social programs
• We need infrastructure that addresses:
  • Accessible mass transit
  • Financial reform
  • Shifting to second-growth
  • Reform in forestry
  • Adaptive climate change infrastructure
  • Changing building code
  • Solar Solution

Income in the new economy

• Universal basic income
• How does this fit in?
• Guaranteed livable income as a replacement for lost jobs
• How to increase basic living wage
  • Economics of scale allow biggest companies thrive
  • Small business — per employee are subsidy to ease the burden of minimum wage

Other

• Focus on employers who “force” people to commute (when they could work remote or could locate in a place with transit availability)
• Expectations changing for workers in their influence over business direction
• Movie industry worst polluters

• Local governments needs financial support. New economy will impact revenues
• New structure needed for municipalities to recover costs beyond property tax
• May be win-wins from new economy that reduce municipal costs.
• Health increased = less sick days = less municipal costs.
  • Poverty down
  • Environmental health up = pollution down
• Need a policy that incorporates costs for all levels of government and avoids siloed decision making at all three levels of government.
• Structural triangle needed so we don’t have battle on every issue.
• Encourage community investment in new economy and it will provide dividends. Ex. Investment in solar
• ‘Pace’ program = property assessment clean energy
  • Washington State
  • Municipalities lead money for renewable home project then re-paid through property taxes
  • Would require triangle to communities charter (change charter)

• Sustainable energy is the future
• We have to reduce energy consumption
• Solar and wind will not be enough
• We still need to make drastic cuts
• Green energy infrastructure
• Energy co-ops/ local regional co-ops. Lots in BC Ex.. Indigenious
• Emphasize solar and wind more in platform
• Lower guidelines on the putting solar in building code
• Ability to sell power back to grid
• Greens in Germany produced in 1 year more jobs in wind/economy
• Pacific N.W. - Bring in new forms of energy

• Mandate BC Hydro to change - BC utilities
• Need to repurpose/redirect BC Hydro
• Revisit BC Hydro mandate - Broader than Hydro-Electric
• BC Hydro has to be revisited - It is out of control
• IPP’s - independent power producers
  • Locked into contracts to buy energy from IPP
  • New government: report to remove IPP’s
  • BCUC has to be involved
• Ticked off that BC Hydro
  
  • Feed in tariff - pay above market rate - pay off investment
• Our/water exchanges draw on electricity
  • IPP/ clean Energy BC need 5 sites C’s over the next few years
• Excess energy production
• BC Hydro should be elected as they have controlled our energy policies for a long time
• Bullfrog power - support
  • They introduce green power into the grid
• How to encourage co-ops
  • BC Hydro is locked into buying energy when they don’t need it
  • The Greens can be successful at restructuring BC Hydro
    • Lots of examples in Germany etc.

• Raise the bar on energy efficiency
  • All new home must be net zero
  • Raise the bar on energy incentives
  • Waive fees for builders
  • Net zero emission homes
  • The living building challenge Blows LEED out of the water
  • Produces all its own energy (water & energy)
  • Not connected to water or sewage systems
  • Multi family buildings from 50s
  • Have no power to put in EV’s stations
• Market will build these homes but people can’t afford these homes
• 58% of emissions are buildings
  • 80% of current buildings will still be standing in 2050
  • Needs to retrofit need to train people to reprofit to install renewables
• Passive house standards

• Food waste
  • Feed people, feed animals, make energy
  • Clean BC plan talks about making food waste to mulches/compost
  • Soil, worlds largest carbon sink
  • Food — our energy needs soil
• Class 1 agriculture is precious
  • Concern about the non-food use of class 1 agriculture
  • Food security with global climate change so important
  • Need to grow local food -how to increase opportunity for people
  • Do not allow US strawberries when they are in abundance in BC
  • Victoria - CRD approved food and farmland trust above ALR
• Need similar to public housing
• Lease out at market rates - affordable land
  • Should be province wide - barrier to youth on farms
• Farmers cannot afford to just grow food
• Subside farmers instead of oil and gas industry

• Logging industry is losing logging jobs every day
• Forest industry
  • The beetle infestation - people lost their jobs
• People in oil /gas with large mortgage
  • How do they re-train and still pay for down sizing
  • 2 year EI program when transitioning fossil fuel industry is needed
• We need retrofit mills
• Resources are controlled by a minority of corporations

• The same as “Leap Manifesto” and any other trendy branding
• “Green” cement (could be part of a Green New Deal-retrofit)
• Green New Deal needs to prioritize social and economic wellbeing rather than just “wealth”
• NGOs building the Green New Deal are often NDP backers (motivations, partisan attitudes)
• Town halls across Canada
• Feedback: It is at 20,000 feet — need to bring it down to earth
• Unionized - after 2001 NDP was decimated
  • Greens 12%
  • Citizens started to organize — save our services
    • A lot of Greens showed up
    • Morphed from non-partisan to NDP machine
  • If the Greens are in there we are going to compete with the NDP for people
  • NDP have thrown their weight behind it
• We are the Green New Deal
  • Need green organizers to run in and must champion the GND
  • The GND - Elizabeth is supporting
• History of the GND
  • 1929 is original New Deal - about getting people back to work
  • Built the highways dams, parks
  • Fiscal responsible
  • WWll was part of the recovery
  • Social security 1935
    • Separated banks from savings
• The GND need to be framed around work to transition our economy
• The GND - what is it?
  • FDR’s new deal-roads/dams
  • Stimulus spending
  • Try to build for future
• Green New Deal is great marketing term
• Recent high school students don’t know the history of what the “New Deal” is, only taught in Canadian history
• Need to measure the success of progress of a potential Green New Deal
  • Holistic sustainability measures need to drive a Green New Deal
• New Green Deal concept
  • Good that it's a visionary beacon, we need this first then trails
• May represent an overshoot of what we need
• Sunrise Movement (in the USA)