Craig DeCraene is the Green Party candidate for Delta in this year’s federal election. A team leader/auto glass installer who runs the day-to-day operations at a Broco Glass location in Surrey, DeCraene has lived in North Delta for almost four years. He ran for a seat on Delta council in last fall’s civic election, which paved the way for him to throw his hat into the federal ring.
Q. So often people say they want a different kind of government but then they vote for the same old parties. How do the Greens convince voters there is another way?
A. From what I have been reading, with the Greens, there is not a lot of lobby attention. We are a grassroots party. There are not whipped votes with the Green Party. Other parties, they have to vote a certain way or you get penalized for it, whereas with the Green Party you are open to vote for whatever your constituents want, within reason of course. I know Elizabeth May is in a little bit of hot water with that, but that resonates a lot with me. You can speak for yourself and for the constituents that you represent. My values more align with the Green Party, rather than the NDP, Liberals, the People’s Party or the Conservatives. I like the Green Party because I like their ideas. They have a lot of environmental things which is really good because without a healthy environment you can’t have a healthy economy. It all goes hand-in-hand, but I also like the fact that they want to have pharmacare for all, and other things in their platform really appeal to me.
Q. Most people acknowledge that we’re facing a global climate crisis, but we’re assuming you don’t think current and past federal governments have done enough to address the issue. What would the Greens like to see done?
A. By not expanding the Trans Mountain Pipeline you don’t have more greenhouse gasses coming from the production of bitumen coming from Alberta going into a pipe and into offshore markets. We would rather keep it all internal. You wouldn’t import oil from Saudi Aribia, you would keep it all in Canada, use it all so you would have less greenhouse gas emissions. We can’t keep on the same path that we are going because it is not working, you have to change. With the climate action plan that we have… it is the best plan that any political party has come up with in a very long time.
Q. When the Greens say they want to modernize Canada’s social safety net by creating a guaranteed livable income, what does that look like? And can we afford it?
A. The Parliamentary Budget Officer previously costed a similar program at $76 billion a year, but that number doesn't include the savings that it would bring from rolling up other programs at both the federal and provincial levels.
At the federal levels it would replace the $32.9 billion a year that currently goes to support low-income Canadians, so that brings it down to $43.1 billion. Then there's savings on administrative costs, which are very high for the current programs, but because this would go to everyone and then just get taxed back based on income, the administration costs would be much lower. Then there's the fact that we would be trying to develop it and fund it in cooperation with the provinces. Then there's the savings with regard to poverty related health care costs.
There are quite a few studies on how much poverty costs Canada in health care, policing, shelters, criminal justice, etc. etc. available as evidence. I believe the cost in Toronto alone was $4.4 billion, nationwide I've seen estimates between $28 (billion) and $83 billion.
Q. When people talk about greening the economy, they often look to the energy sector, but the economy can go green in variety of ways, can’t it?
A. It can. With the Liberals, they are getting rid of single-use plastics, but you need to do more than just banning plastics. You don’t have the throw away stuff like you do now. The best way is to make things that you can recycle. I hate to see things like foam products and then when you are done with them, they end up in the landfill. I’d like to see more recycling programs in our cities. Municipalities really only have programs in place for residential. I would like to see more recycling programs for commercial and industrial as well. Businesses need to do more too. It’s generally up to them. Less stuff would go into the landfill if we had better recycling programs for all.
Q. The Greens are proponents of what they call smart infrastructure that’s designed for people, not cars. What types of transportation investments would be wise for our region?
A. I would like to see more light transit. You have the SkyTrain that runs from Surrey to downtown, Coquitlam to downtown and Richmond to downtown, but other than that every other suburb just gets cars. There is the bus system, but if you are like me and you want to take the bus from North Delta to downtown Vancouver it can be 45 minutes or even longer. I’ve been asked questions about the George Massey Tunnel replacement, which is generally a municipal and provincial issue, but at the federal level, the Green Party is against any new highways, or bridges or tunnels, but they are not against replacement of existing, but we would like to incorporate light transit. So why not have light rail running down the (Highway) 99 from Richmond or even connecting it with West Coast Express type-style where the tracks are already there. Start it in White Rock and snake it through Surrey and Delta all the way to Vancouver.
