Media Releases
Green Party backs legal challenge to fracking in New Brunswick
Wednesday, 11 April 2012 15:56
At their recent annual meeting, members of the NB Green Party voted to endorse a legal challenge being launched by several anti-fracking community groups. Renewable Energy Advocate Rick Roth says “This is a courageous challenge to the Conservative government’s ill-advised rush to industrialize large areas of New Brunswick in search of shale gas revenues.”
A collection of concerned citizens groups called Know Shale Gas NB has banded together to challenge Government plans to exploit shale gas in New Brunswick. Two representatives of one group, Hampton Water First, brought their proposal forward to the Green Party AGM on March 24th.
The group plans to bring an application before the court against the Provincial government in order to halt further shale gas development in the province. Spotlighting the environmental, economic, and social impacts will place this program on front pages and in cyberspace media across the country and around the world. This exposure will allow New Brunswickers to decide for themselves whether shale gas development is the right path to pursue.
Hiring a legal team to make the case and to permit engaging experts who will present their evidence is expected to cost $ 500,000 which will be raised through individual donations. Details of the legal challenge are found at http://KnowShaleGasNB.ca
Roth notes “NB Green Party principles demand a robust program to develop alternatives to fossil fuels, and shale gas use undermines that goal. We have supported a ban on shale gas development in the past and welcome the opportunity to endorse this initiative.”
Roth concludes “Permanently stopping shale gas exploitation is critical to ensure both energy security and a pollution-free environment for our children and grandchildren. This program deserves our wholehearted support and that of every New Brunswicker.”
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Shadow Cabinet Announced
Friday, 04 March 2011 16:27
Green Party Shadow Cabinet
Interim Green Party Leader Greta Doucet retains the role of Seniors advocate in the shadow cabinet. «We have a team of passionate New Brunswick advocates who will bring forward ideas that will provide real solutions to the problems that New Brunswick faces.
In its very first election, the New Brunswick Green Party received 5% of the vote in the 49 ridings in which it ran – the best showing for any provincial Green party in their first election.
Members of the shadow cabinet are ‘advocates’ rather than critics, because that will be their role – to advocate ideas to solve problems and to advocate ideas for change.
The Green Party’s Shadow Cabinet includes the following advocates :
- Health – Jim Wolstenholme
- Sustainable Finance – Janice Harvey & Jack MacDougall
- Municipal/Rural Governance – Tom Beckley
- Sustainable Energy – Roy MacMullin, Rick Roth (Renewables)
- Democratic Reform – Janice Harvey & Jack MacDougall
- Seniors – Greta Doucet
- Early Childhood and Education – Sharon Murphy-Flatt
- Post-Secondary Education – Kathleen MacDougall
- Family Court and Legal Access – Sandra Burtt
- Social Justice – Ellen Comer, Shaun Bartone (LGBT)
- Forests – Tegan Wong-Daugherty
- Agricuture and Food Security – Wayne Sabine and Stephanie Coburn
- Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation – Louise Comeau
- Economic Transition – Janice Harvey
- Ecological Sustainability – Jean-Louis Deveau
- Green Ethics – Louise Comeau
- Aboriginal Relations – Margaret Tusz-King
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Green Party Supports Students
Friday, 04 March 2011 16:20
Green Party Supports Student March on the Legislature
The New Brunswsick Green Party supports post-secondary students in New Brunswick in their efforts to get the attention of the government on the issue of financing their education. The Alward government has signalled its intention to cut services in its upcoming budget in an attempt to get the deficit under control. Students want to make sure that what is already an untenable situation does not get even worse.
Green Party post-secondary education advocate Kathleen MacDougall stated, « Students are already labouring under a huge debt load at the end of their time in college or university. Many are forced to leave the province after graduation in order to find jobs that pay well enough to support those debts. This trend has to be reversed if New Brunswick is going to advance. Any budget cuts that make that problem worse might look good on the provincial balance sheets, but it will undermine the educational and life prospects for our young people, and the long term prospects of our province. »
The Green Party presented several measures in its election platform that directly address the financial needs of students. These include:
- Make all provincial student loans interest-free, including all outstanding loans.
- Develop a program whereby university or college graduates could have their student loans forgiven by working for a set period in a social enterprise (non-profit or cooperative) in return for a minimum stipend.
- Apply the current $26,000 cap on student debt (New Brunswick residents) to all loans retroactively and over time reduce the cap to $20,000.
- Extend the grace period of six months from graduation to one year before repayment of student loans begins.
- Increase funding for bursaries.
Students are much more likely to stay in New Brunswick after graduation if their debt load is manageable. It is the responsibility of the government to enable our young adults to get out from under the burden of debt they now face. To make this burden even greater is counter-productive for students and the province as a whole.
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Green Leader Wants Environmental Bill of Rights
Friday, 24 September 2010 12:01
For Immediate Release - September 24, 2010
It’s About the Next Generation
Green Party leader Jack MacDougall says it is inexcusable that none of the other parties have addressed the environment in their platforms. New Brunswickers deserve to have the right to clean air and clean water, so Green MLA s will work to enact an Environmental Bill of Rights to entrench those rights in law, said the Green Party Leader.
Citizens victimized by pollution or a contaminated environment have often complained that the Department of Environment is unresponsive to their concerns and that the justice system is not an option.
It is no longer a case of just protecting the environment from harm, we have to reverse the damage that s been done. An Environmental Bill of Rights would put the legal obligation on the Department of Environment to become an effective enforcement agency and it would open up the courts to citizens seeking clean-up orders and legal redress for damages, said MacDougall.
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