Conner Borlé, Green Party of Canada candidate for the riding of Red Deer-Mountain View.

By rdnewsNOW staff

Red Deer-Mountain View

Meet the candidate: Conner Borlé, Green Party of Canada

Oct 11, 2019 | 3:54 PM

Electoral reform and making Alberta the Canadian leader in transitioning to a sustainable economy are two of the top priorities for Conner Borlé, Green Party of Canada (GPC) candidate for Red Deer-Mountain View.

The Red Deer junior high school teacher and Notre Dame graduate says he was inspired to run after researching all the party platforms and finding that the Green platform resonated with him the most.

“I was especially impressed with their plans for electoral reform which will put the power back into the hands of individuals and ensure that no one ever feels, as I felt, that their vote doesn’t matter,” he explains.

“I contacted the party to see how I could help with the campaign in my riding but found that there was no candidate to help. If I wanted to vote Green, I was going to have to run myself.”

Growing voter apathy is something Borlé feels needs to be addressed in Canada.

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“The most direct way we can deal with this is to get rid of the ‘first past the post system’ we currently use,” he explains. “In this system, a party that receives as little as 35 per cent of the vote nationwide could find themselves as a majority government. This means that 65 per cent of the country could be stuck with a government they didn’t vote for.”

Borlé says the Green Party would create legislative challenges to the status quo and ensure government is representing the needs of the people.

“The Greens have been pushing for a system of representative democracy for years. In this system, a party’s seats in parliament would be proportional to the amount of the popular vote they received. That way, every single individual vote counts.”

With climate change being a major topic of discussion during the election campaign, Borlé admits it is alarming, yet understandable that some still deny it as an issue to be addressed.

“The science is very conclusive on the issue, climate change is real, it is caused by human activities and it will have significant negative effects on our society today and into the future,” his statement reads. “Yet our psychology makes climate change a difficult issue to address. Rather than being immediate and acute, it is chronic and general. This does not lend itself to quick and decisive actions to combat it.”

Borlé says industries waging a war on climate science are only out to protect company and investor profits to the detriment of the vast majority of the population.

“Energy companies, industry associations and more have spent billions of dollars on this campaign and easily outspend environmental groups 10 to one on climate change-related marketing,” he explains. “When you take this into account, it is very easy to understand why so many people, especially in oil-dependent Alberta, question the science of climate change. This is an example of why it is vitally important to get corporate money out of politics.”

Borlé says if Canada is going to transition to a more sustainable economy, it needs to start in Alberta.

“I’ve heard from Albertans that are tired of this status quo, they want a federal government that knows and acknowledges the critical importance Alberta plays in the national economy and fabric of our nation,” adds Borlé.

“The Green Party would stop foreign oil imports and rely on domestic production, and launch a massive industry of residential, commercial and institutional building retrofits that would generate over 50 times the amount of jobs currently generated in the oil and gas industry. We would invest $400 million a year into retraining and apprenticeship programs so no worker is left behind in the transition, invest billions into service and transportation infrastructure and much more.”