This is a page from the 2023 Manitoba general election.
Affordability
Childcare
Green's promises
Develop a long-term vision of universally accessible, high quality, affordable early learning and childcare services for all children and families who wish to use them
Work towards implementing this vision, taking into consideration the recommendations of the Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care Commission, 2016
Mandate school divisions, in collaboration with Healthy Child Manitoba and parents/caregivers and the early childhood development community, to develop and implement early childhood education and development programming and initiatives
Provide funding to school divisions for early childhood education and development programming and initiatives
Food prices
Green's promise
Provide Lunch and up to one other meal per school day (Breakfast or Dinner) to all K-12 Students in Manitoba public schools, free of charge
Fuel and transportation costs
Green's promise
Work with all cities in Manitoba with public transit systems to provide fare-free transit service, supported by increased provincial funding for fare-free public transit systems
Pensions
Green's promise
Revise bankruptcy laws so as to prevent any employer in bankruptcy from gaining possession of the Pension Trust Fund, its capital, and its earnings which that employer administers in trust
Post-secondary costs and loans
Green's promises
Work towards a target of all Manitoba Student Aid recipients receiving at least 50% of their funding in the form of non-repayable grants rather than loans
Develop programs to structure repayment of Manitoba Student loans through an income-contingent repayment plan, based on the individual student's ability to pay
Poverty and the minimum wage
Green's promises
Develop and implement a Guaranteed Basic Income program for Manitoba, with the aim of replacing the patchwork of social assistance programs currently administered by the provincial government.
Require that Manitoba’s minimum wage rate be set at that level that allows a single working-age adult working full time, full year to achieve an after-tax income equal to the weighted average MBM low-income threshold for Manitoba
Annually indexing this wage rate to the most current MBM threshold. For November 2022 the minimum rate would be $ 16.75 per hour
Public transit
Green's promises
Work with all cities in Manitoba to improve public transit service including increasing frequency, operating hours, and coverage
Work with all cities in Manitoba with public transit systems to provide fare-free transit service, supported by increased provincial funding for fare-free public transit systems
Develop and implement a province-wide system of electrified intercity bus and rail service
Work toward a target where all busses, new and replacement, are zero emissions, battery electric or electric trolley busses
Investigate a system of airship transportation for goods and services to remote and northern communities
Tax measures and rebates
Green's promise
Develop and implement a Guaranteed Basic Income program for Manitoba, with the aim of replacing the patchwork of social assistance programs currently administered by the provincial government.
Climate Change & the Environment
Active transportation
Green's promises
Permit cyclists to treat stop signs as yields and red lights as stop signs, unless otherwise marked
Permit cyclists of all ages and with all sizes of tire to ride on sidewalks, provided they do so safely and yield to pedestrians
Give Cyclists priority right-of-way over motorists on all highways
Require the installation of stop signs and traffic calming measures in back lanes to prevent collisions with cyclists and pedestrians
Enact a province-wide urban default residential speed limit of no more than 30km/h
Prohibit motorists from turning across a pedestrian or cyclist crosswalk at a red light (effectively banning right turns on red)
Climate adaptation
Green's promises
Recognize the climate crisis for the Emergency that it truly is
Develop a provincial Climate Emergency Response Agency that would bring together environmental, health, engineering and other professionals with Indigenous leadership, government personnel and members of the lay public to oversee the coordinated planning and action on Climate Emergency mitigation and adaptation
Call for a provincial Citizens Assembly on the Climate Emergency with an emphasis on incorporating Indigenous wisdom on climate and the natural environment
Energy generation
Green's promise
Accelerate approvals for wind turbine installation on already degraded sites such as garbage dumps when such sites are suitable for wind turbine development
Green construction and retrofits
Green's promises
Incentivize the purchase and installation of composting toilets
Mandate that all building permits for residential, commercial, institutional and industrial buildings include a water reclamation system so that only minimal amounts of treated water are used for toilet flushing
Public transit
Green's promises
Work with all cities in Manitoba to improve public transit service including increasing frequency, operating hours, and coverage
Work with all cities in Manitoba with public transit systems to provide fare-free transit service, supported by increased provincial funding for fare-free public transit systems
Develop and implement a province-wide system of electrified intercity bus and rail service
Work toward a target where all busses, new and replacement, are zero emissions, battery electric or electric trolley busses
Investigate a system of airship transportation for goods and services to remote and northern communities
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Green's promises
Eliminate fossil fuel subsidies in Manitoba
Remove the exemption for fuel under the Fuel Tax Act, and apply PST to all fuels
Ban hydraulic fracturing (fracking)
Cancel all new oil exploration projects
Phase out existing oil and gas operations, so that they continue on a declining basis, to terminate at the end of 2035
Waste
Green's promises
Develop and implement province-wide municipal organics (compost) diversion programs from both the residential and the Industrial, Commercial and Institutional (ICI) sectors
Develop and implement a deposit return system for recyclable single-use packaging and
Introduce new tax incentives for enterprises that repair, reuse, and repurpose items that would otherwise have gone to landfill
Accelerate regulations to phase out non-essential, single-use plastics, and expand the list of items to be phased out
Increase fines for illegal dumping
Mandate sorting of waste, compostable material and recyclables for all government departments and agencies, industry and corporations across the province, with meaningful fines in place to address non-compliance
Require that all plastic packaging sold in Manitoba contain at least 50% recycled content by 2030
Adjust provincial procurement practices and support municipalities that adopt equivalent or better reuse standards
Introduce targets for reusable, returnable product packaging systems
Prioritize and accelerate the upgrade of the Winnipeg North End Sewage Treatment Plant
Support consumers in independently maintaining their electronics, large appliances, machinery, and vehicles, and being able to access cost-effective repairs to those items, by introducing Right to Repair legislation
This would include mandating:
- The availability of parts at reasonable prices;
- Provision of free and publicly available service manuals;
- Publicly available repair information such as software tools and schematics;
- Repairability labeling to inform consumers of the likely lifetime and fixability of the product; and
- Enforcing repairable designs (e.g., replaceable batteries, long-term software support, etc).
Accelerate approvals for wind turbine installation on already degraded sites such as garbage dumps when such sites are suitable for wind turbine development
Water
Green's promises
Prioritize and accelerate the upgrade of the Winnipeg North End Sewage Treatment Plant
Incentivize the purchase and installation of composting toilets
Mandate that all building permits for residential, commercial, institutional and industrial buildings include a water reclamation system so that only minimal amounts of treated water are used for toilet flushing
Ban hydraulic fracturing (fracking)
Ban Silica Sand mines
Education
K-12 funding
Green's promise
Provide Lunch and up to one other meal per school day (Breakfast or Dinner) to all K-12 Students in Manitoba public schools, free of charge
Post-secondary costs and loans
Green's promises
Work towards a target of all Manitoba Student Aid recipients receiving at least 50% of their funding in the form of non-repayable grants rather than loans
Develop programs to structure repayment of Manitoba Student loans through an income-contingent repayment plan, based on the individual student's ability to pay
School curriculum
Green's promises
Affirm that young people have the right to be educated on matters pertaining to their own bodies
Condemn and prevent the suppression and censorship of educational materials informing youth about puberty, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and sexual health
Condemn the suppression of books that feature queer individuals and issues
Expand Manitoba's social studies curriculum to include an exploration of the history of the AIDS epidemic and its causes, including the government-sanctioned AIDS information suppression campaigns
Student mental health
Green's promises
De-emphasize and reduce the role of testing and quantitative evaluation in school, instead giving teachers the means to make more meaningful assessments of their students' progress
Discontinue all standardised testing in Manitoba
Healthcare
Drugs and addiction
Green's promises
Legalize the growth of cannabis plants for personal use, in harmony with federal laws
Advocate to the Federal government to decriminalize possession of controlled substances for personal use
Establish overdose prevention sites and a legally regulated safer drug supply
Increase the accessibility of safer drug use supplies, including, but not limited to naloxone, drug-checking kits, glass pipes, and sterile needles & syringes.
Use taxes raised from the sale of all controlled substances, in part, to fund education and health services to prevent and treat substance abuse
Work towards addressing the social and economic conditions underlying substance abuse
Gender-affirming care
Green's promises
Establish dedicated gender-affirming care clinics in each regional health authority and urban centre across the province of Manitoba
Require that no individual wait more than 90 days to meet with a specialist following referral to a dedicated gender-affirming care clinic
Require all general-practice physicians and nurse practitioners to receive training in respecting and caring for transgender individuals, including basic training on the prescription and maintenance of puberty blockers and hormone-replacement therapies
Use reasonable, patient-centred, informed-consent procedures to determine eligibility for all gender-affirming care such rather than mental assessments or requiring diagnosis of gender dysphoria
Eliminate all fees involved in changing the gender marker on provincially regulated identification
Eliminate all fees involved in the legal name change process;
Eliminate the fingerprinting requirement for a legal name change in Manitoba for individuals without a criminal record
Eliminate all fees involved in the replacement of Identification documents following legal change of name or gender marker
Prohibit medically unnecessary non-consensual 'sex-normalizing' surgeries on intersex children
Mandate appropriate training of medical professionals on malpractice relating to non-consensual ‘sex-normalizing’ procedures
Investigate past instances of unnecessary non-consensual surgeries on intersex children to make amends and implement a patient-led response going forward
Mental health
Green's promise
Introduce legislation to abolish Daylight Savings time in Manitoba and permanently observe Central Standard Time (UTC–06:00)
Sexual and reproductive health
Green's promises
Provide full public funding for abortion services
Require every Regional Health Authority to offer abortion services within its geographical boundaries
Fully publicly fund all family planning, conception, and contraception services and products in Manitoba under Medicare and Pharmacare
Require all Manitoba pharmacies to provide access to contraception and abortion products, such as the ‘morning after pill’ and the ‘abortion pill’
Housing & Homelessness
Affordable housing
Green's promise
Advocate collaboration and leadership between all levels of government on housing policy and investment in non-profit and cooperative housing
Homelessness
Green's promises
Develop a comprehensive strategy to end homelessness in Manitoba by 2025, based on research regarding what has worked elsewhere and on consultation with community members and social service workers in Manitoba
Work with local community members, organizations, and businesses to mitigate the effects of and ultimately end homelessness in Manitoba
Jobs, Businesses, & Labour
Poverty and the minimum wage
Green's promises
Develop and implement a Guaranteed Basic Income program for Manitoba, with the aim of replacing the patchwork of social assistance programs currently administered by the provincial government.
Require that Manitoba’s minimum wage rate be set at that level that allows a single working-age adult working full time, full year to achieve an after-tax income equal to the weighted average MBM low-income threshold for Manitoba
Annually indexing this wage rate to the most current MBM threshold. For November 2022 the minimum rate would be $ 16.75 per hour
Society & Government
Electoral Reform
Green's promises
Lower the voting age to 16 in Provincial and Municipal Elections.
Establish a Mixed-Member Proportional Representation electoral system for Manitoba
Fix the date of provincial general elections to no sooner or later than once every four years, except should the government fall in a vote of non-confidence
Impose an annual moratorium on winter by-elections
Significantly reduce the annual political contribution limits to reduce the influence of wealthy stakeholders on Manitoba's Elections
Public safety
Green's promises
Advocate for the federal government’s provision of refugee status to 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals who are subject to persecution and/or cannot legally and safely obtain gender-affirming care in their home country, and the repeal of the Safe Third Country agreement
Develop dedicated safe spaces for 2SLGBTQIA+ refugees and housing at least 750 2SLGBTQIA+ refugees before 2028, equivalent to approximately 10% of the annual refugees received by Manitoba each year
Require the installation of stop signs and traffic calming measures in back lanes to prevent collisions with cyclists and pedestrians
Enact a province-wide urban default residential speed limit of no more than 30km/h
Prohibit motorists from turning across a pedestrian or cyclist crosswalk at a red light (effectively banning right turns on red)
Permit cyclists of all ages and with all sizes of tire to ride on sidewalks, provided they do so safely and yield to pedestrians
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Biography
from their website
Aaron is a University of Winnipeg graduate, having studied Psychology and Biological Sciences. A millennial, Aaron has lived and worked in and around the Fort Garry community his entire life. He has also had the opportunity to travel extensively, and has seen firsthand the effects of both good and bad ecological, economic & social policies.
“It is essential that we, as a nation and a province, begin shifting our focus to proactive, sustainable policy-making. Green initiatives are the inevitable way of the future, and the sooner our governments embrace these initiatives, the more Manitobans can ultimately benefit from them. As a resident and as a voter, I am tired of watching the decline in quality of life here in MB, and I am prepared to bring a bold, progressive voice to the legislature on behalf of our community.”
Aaron and the Greens are working together for Health, Ecology, Fairness, and Care in our Province, and for a brighter future for all Manitobans. This means taking real action on the climate emergency, taking a new, upstream approach to public health, tackling affordability with a guaranteed liveable income, and modernizing our democracy with proportional representation and other electoral reforms.
For a Better Tomorrow, Vote for Aaron Kowal and the Green Party of Manitoba on October 3rd.
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