Editor’s note:

The Arrow Lakes News offered each candidate an interview if they stopped by Nakusp. Three candidates took us up. Here are the interviews in order of their visit to Nakusp. The first being Jim Abbott, secondly Leon Pendleton and lastly Betty Aitchison.

Nakusp has been hit as hard as any community in Kootenay-Columbia because of the forestry crisis, yet the lion’s share of federal relief seems to be heading to communities in the East Kootenay (Cranbrook, Creston). Is there more relief in the works for this area?

There are more programs that are coming, particularly under the Pine Beetle money. The government has committed and has already started to fund a $100 million a year on everything from mitigation for the Pine Beetle to working on programs for people who are displaced as a result of the Pine Beetle and then finally programs that will help either volunteer groups or other ways of being able to come up with alternative employment or alternative services so that we’re looking at it in a very holistic way. In addition to that there are also, under HRSDC, other programs that are currently in the works, but, rather than making promises about them, they are in the works and there is more coming on the development. Most of the money at this point is directly coming under the Pine Beetle [funding].

Why are you focusing on the long gun issue again? Action was promised at the last election, yet the Harper government wasn’t able to find a solution. Without blaming others, how can you explain this perceived failure to achieve your stated goals?

Well, in fact, we do have to point out we introduced legislation twice, once in the first sessions, second time in the second session to repeal the long gun registry. We could not get the cooperation of the NDP, they ganged up with the Liberals and the Bloc and wouldn’t let us put the legislation through. We’re committed to the long gun registry being gone. If we are government again, if it is a minority parliament, we’re going to have to find some way to dicker with the other parties and get them agree to some reason somehow to allow us to put that legislation through. If we’re a majority government then it will happen. I have been opposed, and my party has been opposed to, the gun registry from the time it was first conceived by the Liberals.

What new Conservative policy platforms announced since the election was called are you most excited about, and how will they benefit the people of Kootenay-Columbia?

I think, there are a number of them. First off, for the seniors, we have already increased the basic personal exemption before you start to pay tax from over $12,000 was where it started and it’s now up to $17,000, so people who are earning who are 65 plus don’t start to pay tax until they have a $17,000 income. We also have, on criminal justice reform, I think that we’re reflecting the concerns that many people have that although much of the youth criminal justice system works, some of it isn’t working and that’s particularly to do with the kids who are into very, very serious violent crime – murder, rape and that kind of thing. We don’t have a latitude right at the moment to be able to do what needs to be done with kids who are into really really serious repeat offences and serious crime. So we’re going to be toughening that up and certainly it’s something that I’ve heard about

over the last two and a half years, it hasn’t been the first thing that people have talked about but invariably as you get talking about what people would like to see in terms of safety in their own community, that is one of the areas that we’re on the right track on that one.

Some were upset by your recent announcement of a $3.7 million federal subsidy for a private power corporation north of Galena Bay (Cranberry Creek) that already had a viable business model. What do you say to them?

The viable business model was made viable by virtue of the fact we committed $370,000 a year at 1 cent per kilowatt hour for 10 years to a total of $3.7 million. It’s our judgement that that project probably wouldn’t have happened without the $3.7 million announcement which would have been a crime because you have renewable energy that is totally green with absolutely no carbon footprint. It’s generating enough electricity for 6,500 homes and will replace the electricity required for those 6,500 homes to be coming from coal fired generators in Alberta. Most people in this area are unaware of the fact that we are importing well over 10 per cent, and it will grow over the next 20 years to as high as 50 per cent of the electricity coming to this area will be coming from Alberta from coal fired generators. Would they sooner have a coal fire generator or would they like a renewable, green, no carbon footprint project? I’m very proud of that project.

The community of Burton came out to a community hall meeting a couple of months ago, and by a show of hands, they overwhelmingly rejected the idea of having run of river projects in the rivers behind their community. The federal ecoEnergy program is scheduled to hand over millions of dollars in subsidies to proponent Hydromax, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Enmax, which is owned by the City of Calgary. How do you explain this to the residents of Burton?

Any project like this has to go through a complete provincial process. After the provincial process is complete, because the province has full jurisdiction over that issue, then at that point the federal government may become involved in the same way we were involved in the South Cranberry project. We’re not involved in any part of the approval process. We will go with anything that is approved by the provincial government if required. We’re only involved in helping make any projects, whether it’s wind power, solar power, tidal power, we’re only involved in helping them, anything that’s green, no carbon footprint and renewable. We will take a look at those projects and possibly fund them if it’s required for them to commercially viable.

Purcell Green Power / Axor Group Inc., proponents of the Glacier/Howser project, are slated to receive, based on our calculations, about $35 million in federal subsidies through the federal ecoACTION ecoENERGY program. What do you say to residents who feel there is nothing “eco” about the project, and that the money would be better invested in the people of this constituency rather than a large corporation from Quebec?

I think we have to be really careful as Canadians about implying that a canadian living in Calgary, or a canadian living in Quebec, isn’t a good Canadian, or whatever it is that’s being implied. I think that’s very very dangerous. I think what we have to look at is, under an ecoENERGY plan, is if it has received full environmental consideration and has gone through a proper environmental process and on the basis of the decisions made from that complete process, that the best way for any government to be able to get away from coal fired electric generation and fossil fuel burning is to make sure the project indeed is totally eco friendly. As I say, I’m concerned about the tone of the question, that somehow somebody in Calgary or somebody in Quebec is less worthy than somebody somewhere else. I’m sure if there was a company in the constituency who had the capacity to be able to do it, that, I can only guess but I’m pretty sure the provincial government would lean in the direction. If a company has the capability and capacity to do it, it doesn’t make any difference to us where in Canada the company is headquartered.

You’ve said that a labour shortage in the region poses significant challenges to business. What has the Conservative government done about the issue, and what’s in the works in the future?

We’ve done a number of things, for example we have our older workers program which has taken people who have been displaced from the softwood business, whether in a mill or in the bush, and those people who have worked diligently for 20, 25, 30 years who are lacking the basic skills with computers or other things that are involved in the workforce today. We’ve been very proactive with them and have programs that are works in progress right now where we are training and re-training them so they’re confident in computers and the skills they require in order to be in the workforce. In addition to that, we have also gone with the temporary foreign workers program which earmarks where there are specific shortages in the hospitality business or in certain professions where perspective employers can apply to the federal government to get a labour market opinion. If the LMO process determines that in Nakusp, or in Edgewood or Revelstoke that there is this shortage, then the perspective employer can go outside of Canada to bring people in on a temporary business. The standard though, is very very high. The labour market opinion stipulates that there will be housing, provided by the employer, that the wages and benefits will be up to the standard of whatever the area is so that people are properly protected when they’re in Canada and at the same time that people in Canada who could also be employed in those jobs are not possibly displaced by those people. The biggest single problem that there is in Kootenay-Columbia from a business perspective is a shortage of labour. It’s a major problem.

Speaking of a labour shortage, what will the Conservative government do to help single parents who want to work but can’t because the cost of child care doesn’t make it viable? In 2006 your government scrapped the child care funding agreement with the provinces and replaced it with $100 a month for parents with pre-school age children. The Liberals are promising to top that with a $350 tax credit for parents with children under 18, and $1,225 per year for poor families with their Guaranteed Family Supplement. The NDP is promising 150,000 new child care spaces. Why should that single mom or dad who is sitting at home not working because of a lack of child care spaces vote for the Conservatives?

This is a very serious problem that was really left unaddressed. There was an awful lot of talk and talk and talk about child care spaces. In fact, prior to us getting into the position of government there had not been one single solitary child care space produced by the Liberals so people will have to judge their promises based on their past performance. We earmarked a very substantial amount of money, about $125 million in addition to the $100 per month per child under six. We earmarked, I believe it was $125 million, [but] could not get into any agreement with the provinces about how that was going to happen and as a consequence we ended up turning the $125 million over to the provinces, and although we didn’t have a tight agreement as to what they were going to do with the money, each province has responded in it’s own particular peculiar way. In terms of the labour shortage the question is absolutely right. There are people in the potential workforce who are presently not employed because of the child care issue. There are three parts to it, one is the space which is someplace that any federal government could become involved but under the British North America Act the actual delivery of services at the child care level, in other words the staff who would be doing it, are by the BNA act under the control of each individual provincial government, which is why you have a difference in standards between the standard that is required in B.C. versus the standard required in Alberta so that you have more childcare spaces but you don’t have the level of protection for the children and families in Alberta that you do in B.C. This is something that is a work in progress and I cannot make a concrete promise that this specifically is going to happen or that specifically is going happen. It’s a work in progress and will require the ongoing participation by any federal government and the provincial government.

The NDP Candidate Leon Pendleton is making a pitch for the green vote in this riding, with much of his campaign platform focusing on green issues. Considering the Conservative government’s track record of providing huge tax subsidies to the Alberta oils sands, are you making a green pitch? Why should someone who’s concerned about the environment and global warming vote Conservative?

I think it’s really important that we take a look at fact, the fact is the conservative federal government ended up repealing a tremendous amount of the money that was going to the oil sands projects and it’s a myth that there are massive, massive subsidies going to them. Instead what we’re doing is taking a look at the fact that there are projects like the South Cranberry project and other green projects that we want to be putting money into. But at the same time, I think that people should take a look at the reality of what the NDP plan is calling far. It’s calling for there to be serious financial penalties on what they call major polluters. Clearly Alberta hydro generation or electricity generation from coal fired generators is one that they are going to target. What that basically means to everybody in this area is we import such a high percentage -- 10 per cent and growing -- we’re going to be hitting within the next 25 years as much as 40 to 50 per cent of our hydro is going to be coming from Alberta which is just going to be an add on to the hydro prices [and] electricity prices that people are presently paying [in] B.C. Hydro [is] going to continue to go up if you were to apply these kind of penalties that the NDP are talking about, and at the same time we would still end up with Alberta coal-fired electricity generation. It doesn’t change anything except put everybody’s hydro bill up. I think people want to take a look at what we’re doing in a pragmatic, realistic way, and the more theoretical promises that are being made by the other parties.

What are you doing to engage young people in this election and the political process in general?

One of the frustrations that I have had is getting young people involved in the election and in the election process. I’m proud to have been, in the 15 years I’ve had the privilege of doing this job, I’m proud to say I’ve been in most high schools at least once a year and although I cannot point to anything directly in this campaign itself, I have been very aggressive in trying to teach high school and even elementary school kids the importance of their engagement in the political process. It’s a work in progress but it’s something that is really essential if we’re going to end up turning our falling number of people turning out voting. It’s something that we’re going to have to pay a lot of attention to.

Last election you got more than double the votes of all the other candidates combined. Do you think that this makes this a ‘safe riding’ which can be ignored or forgotten by the Conservatives in Ottawa?

First off, my campaigning and my campaign team work by this credo: Anybody who goes into an election that doesn’t believe he can be beat deserves to be, and we run our campaign and I run everything that I do on that basis. I take nothing for granted, I just don’t take support for granted. I have been in Nakusp five times already this year. I respect the fact people have choices. If you take a look at what has happened with -- whether it’s the internet funding in Edgewood and Fauquier or it’s the infrastructure funding in the millions of dollars here in Nakusp -- I think it pretty well shows that this is not a forgotten area, as a matter of fact I think my advocacy for this area is really paying off.

On a global scale, what is happening in Afghanistan has a lot of people worried and counting the days until troops come home. Troops do think they are doing good in the country, but just because good is being done does not always justify work being done in such a volatile country. What are your priorities on the fight in Afghanistan? Pull the troops out, keep them there? More troops, less troops? What do you feel is right for the situation?

As you’ve rightly pointed out, the troops that are there are the people putting their own lives on the line who have the potential of paying the ultimate sacrifice and they know it and are very very proud to be there and pleased to be there and really grateful for the opportunity to be there. The fact that it is a UN mission and the fact that there are 37 other countries there, we are going to continue to work to help the Afghan people under their democratically elected government, come to a point of self-sufficiency, whether it’s with their own army or with their own police or we’re continuing to help with their infrastructure and of course help with their education and medical and all that. I’m immensely proud that this was an agreement that was arrived at between the federal Conservatives and the federal Liberals. The federal Liberal party supported us as having been a government they understand the position of Canada in the world. However, at the same time we have paid as a country, as individuals with the ultimate sacrifices and the billions of dollars we’ve put into it. Canada has made a massive commitment to Afghanistan that the prime minister, on the basis of the agreement that we arrived at in parliament, has said that we are going to be terminating that agreement as of 2011. This is not open-ended. We are [doing] really, really good work that I think all Canadians should be proud of and yet it’s not open-ended and blind to the financial and personal sacrifices that people are making.

What initiatives that the Conservatives are planning for the near future are you most excited about?

I’m most excited about the fact that we have a prime minister, and this does answer your question, I’m excited about the fact that we have a prime minister who, when he sees particular requirements, whether it’s adding to or subtracting from different environmental initiatives, or economical initiatives, or the direction that we’re going with, with respect to having created the seniors ministry. I’m just really excited about us being on the right track. I get the impression, certainly in this constituency, I really get the impression that I have a tremendous amount of support from people who agree that we are on the right track. I can’t actually put it down and say I’m excited about this specific initiative. It’s an entire package. I don’t think that I’ve ever, in the time that I’ve had the privilege of doing this job, which is 15 years, I don’t think that I have ever been in a campaign ... I’ve had more people come up to me in this campaign and congratulate me and talk supportively and talk about the fact of how proud they are to be a Canadian. It’s not a single initiative, it’s the whole thing.

Leon Pendleton

Nakusp has been hit hard as a result of the current forestry crisis. Do you see relief in the works if your government comes into power in the area?

A lot of our forest products go to the United States and we see what's happening down there. I've been watching this for 40 years now, it's one of the reasons I left the U.S. because unfettered capitalism, unfettered corporatism just does not work. These people are too greedy and they need some controls and restraints and that's where government comes in, to protect individuals, workers and pensions. This is the result, a $700 billion bailout. The U.S. is in very deep trouble and since we're so close we're going to be in really deep trouble so we have to find other markets overseas and stop shipping raw logs. We need to start keeping everything and manufacturing all the way down to wood pellets in our country, and if people want them, and they will ... the Chinese are dying for wood pellets, but they're taking whole logs, chipping them up and putting them into wood pellets, and that's ridiculous. With the high cost of fuel it's going to become harder and harder, so we need to do the secondary industries in our own country, and then we have the manufacturing products in our own country we can sell throughout the whole world. The Pine Beetle, that's an example of our neglect of our environment, it's a product of climate change. We need to develop really quick strategies, and that's another thing provincially. Provincial governments, they want to let the market do it, and the market just isn't available, so even if we have to stockpile lumber in places, we should be doing it. We're not looking for short term solutions, we're looking for long term strategies. There is an argument for short term solutions and we will have to deal with that as government of course, but part of the problem with most governments is they don't develop long-term strategies for these issues and we end up having short term policies – two, four, five year -- when we need to be looking at 10, 15, 20, 100 year strategies for these things and we allow private industry to have sole responsibility which is in my mind completely wrong. It's like governments have abandoned their responsibilities for managing forests and have let the private sector in. governments really need to take back that responsibility of managing the forests.

What platforms announced since the election was called are you most excited about, and how would they benefit the people of Kootenay-Columbia?

It's more of challenges than excitement. There's a challenge to inject environmental principals into our economy. That's going to be the challenge of this century. Get people used to the fact that the environment matters and inject those principals into the economy. That's where I think the New Democratic Party has really, in this country, taken the lead. You have the Liberals carbon tax but that's just a symptomatic approach and not a systematic approach. It's got to be a systematic approach where we inject those environmental principals into our economy so we come out of it on the other end where our economy recognizes that there is an environmental component to all economy, all of it. Everything that's done. There has to be that environmental component in the economy otherwise we're doomed to continually making the same mistakes.

The Conservative government seems to be wholly behind run of river projects, what is the NDP's stance on these projects as they are a contentious issue in the area.

The run of the river projects, in some instances might be a good idea, but what from I've seen in all of them, they're wrecking the environment. Say you have a community in the north that's using diesel fuel for their power, diesel generators, a run of the river project might be good for them, but it's not going to add anything to the grid because the run of river project are only viable in the springtime when the river is high. They do nothing for the rest of the year. For them to say they're green – governments tend to use these terms green, they're so green because it's the thing to do. Without doing the environmental assessments, because if it's under 50 KW they don't have to do a full environmental assessment, so all of them are 49. They don't' even know if they're environmentally sensitive at all. So we need to have a moratorium on them until it's determined whether in fact they are environmentally sensitive which I would wager a guess that they're not because what they're going to do is divert fish habitat, and when you do that, you warm it up and make it uninhabitable for the fish to make it upstream. It may not be appreciable, but anytime you take a free moving body of water and put it through a narrow opening, it's going to increase the temperature of the water plus it probably does other horrible things I cannot even think of right now ... take out the oxygen from it and doesn't enhance the run of the fish up the creek at all because you're taking out the majority of the water, so where are the spawning grounds going? It's crazy that they aren't being forced to do environmental assessments on these kinds of things. The economists and their sustainable development nonsense, they've taken our words and turned them around on us, so we need to take them back and make them accountable for using them.

A lot of your platform focusses on green issues. Could you name a few main initiatives and how you think they would help the area?

There's initiatives for capping carbon [levels]. We have coal mining in the East Kootenays that will have to be looked at. Some of the other industries, like some of the sawmills, will have to look at how they produce their wood and to try and cap and reduce carbon emissions and like I said, interject environmental principals in everything we do because we can no longer afford not to do that. One of the things I would really like to see and one of the things I do right now, my wife and I live off of the grid. I think that instead of doing these IPPs we would start manufacturing solar panels, and put solar panels on every home in Southern B.C. It doesn't matter in the winter -- they still producing electricity. Photons penetrate clouds and it's not a great deal, but in the summertime when people are using air conditioning and things there's an abundance of electricity. If you tie them into the grid, you're still producing electricity. If we had solar panels on every home form Vancouver to Golden, Cranbrook, it's amazing the amount of power we could produce, plus we're providing employment for carpenters, electricians, manufacturers and all kinds of things that would spawn off from the secondary industries. A lot of the stuff is made in China now. With the price of fuel, it's down now but it's not going to stay down for very long, we'll have the infrastructure in place to do these types of things. Another thing is sustainable agriculture. We already have the framework in place. A wise NDP government had the vision to put aside agricultural land and we need to start ... communities need to become more self-reliant with organic, local food production and get off of this chemical treadmill that we're on and imported food that we're on. We have to encourage that more. One of the other things I was touched on earlier was true geothermal, drilling down to near the mantle where we heat up water and produce our own electricity instead of these IPPs. You could also heat whole communities with the energy. The Kootenays are blessed with a lot of resources and one of them is an untapped geothermal potential, I've heard estimated that we're one of the greatest areas on the planet for tapping geothermal. You can see with the amount of hot springs we have around here, it's not very far down. We have to start developing that kind of technology to take advantage of those resources which we're not doing now at all. Geothermal is potentially the saviour for the Kootenays for making us completely self-reliant. Could you imagine geothermal green houses, using geothermal energy to power green houses and food production? The potential is amazing that we're not doing now and I just have all these ideas and the NDP has always promoted -- we're the innovative party.

What are you doing to engage young people in this election and the political process in general?

We have a great deal – my campaign manager is 27-years-old, my assistant campaign manager is 32, my communications officer is 30 years old. I am really trying to, and I'm so encouraged by their drive and tenacity and their vigour for solving these problems and they look at me as the wise old sage to get the ideas I've been promoting for a very long time. I've been very encouraged by the participation of young people in my campaign and relished their energy because it picks me up. When I was coming up there was civil rights to inspire us, there was the anti-Vietnam war movement that inspired us and for young people there hasn't been a lot to inspire to you. You're inspired by the technology. I see a lot of young people just wandering and not having any kind of inspiration and that saddens me a great deal, and I think it's how we have strived after things in my generation.

Top three issues in this election and what are you doing about them?

The top three are obviously the economy, the environment and health care among Canadians. I think, like I say, interjecting environmental value into the economy will go a long way, it will be short term pain for long term gain and we have to do it, we have to, otherwise we stand to lose our ability to live comfortably on this planet and that's a great concern for me for my great grandchildren. I want them to have the ability to have a similar lifestyle to what I've had and we won't be able to do that if we don't do something very important. The economy like I say has got to change to reflect the values of Canadians and not the values of Americans. We have to again be leaders in the world, we have social programs that they envy like our healthcare system that we've allowed to deteriorate because we've allowed Conservatives and Liberals to run it, whereas the CCF and New Democrats created it with balanced budgets. We know what a balanced budget is, we have more balanced budgets in our provincial governments than any of the parties. It just goes to show we don't like being indebted to the banks. When it comes to our healthcare system, it's important that people understand that it's going to take some time to rectify it because it's been wrecked by the lack of transfer payments to the provinces from the federal government and the lack of innovative solutions for our problems like the lack of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals, the lack of long term care, assisted living and those kinds of things. It will take innovative ideas to get those things in practice and not break the bank.

Do you have any ideas yourself?

There are some ideas out there, like one of the ideas for creating more health care professionals is helping to pay their tuition if they give back to our communities and commit to a reasonable amount of time to rural and smaller communities. There are other innovative solutions out there. It's a holistic solutions because they have to have places to live which goes back to affordable housing. It's a way of looking at a whole and every problem has an associated problem. It's not just a piece here, piece there. There's a 30-person waiting list for homes in this town alone. Thirty people, 30 seniors, and it's only growing, it's not getting less. It's growing and it's appalling what we're doing with our seniors, making them choose between medications and rent and food. That shouldn't be the life of a senior, they shouldn't have to choose.

Jack Layton has said he will scrap the softwood lumber deal. Do you think that is a good idea, and how do you think it would help the riding?

I do, and because it's a bad deal for Canada. We are allowing, we are Kowtowing to the whims of the US. again when we really should be standing up for ourselves. Every decision that has come down in the dispute mechanism of NAFTA has been on our side. Wake up Stephen, it's our thing and you need to stand up for Canada. Right now it's difficult because of the crash of the housing market in the U.S., like I said before we need to find other markets.

Nakusp is currently exploring options for affordable housing. How would you get federal money to the area for an issue like this?

Well, we really have to reinitiate the federal program that was cut by the Conservatives for affordable housing. It can't be this piecemeal nonsense that the Conservatives are doing. 'Oh look at me, I come to your community and I've given you this much money for this and this much money for that,' -- that's absolute nonsense. It has to be an overall look at the country and not just this little piecemeal, I give you $15,000 here, or $20,000 there, it has to be something that is going to benefit communities, the whole communities, not just the ones in B.C., but the ones throughout the country, and that's where the Conservatives don't get it, they just don't get it that it's a problem throughout the country. We're seeing it as a very acute problem here in the Kootenays because the economy has changed so drastically from a resource base to a service and vacation spot, when you have that combination you have rich people coming in, buying up all the property and escalating the prices so the service people can't afford to live. It's a finite market and there has to be some regulations where if these resorts are coming in, they have to provide housing for their employees without a detrimental effect on the surrounding communities. It's really important to look at the long term and the needs of each community. That will be my job as an MP to find out what your needs are as a community and relate them to the government so we can develop a long term strategy for solving this problem. It's kind of the number one issue throughout the riding.

In your opinion, how honest have all the candidates been in this election?

Well you don't hear a word from Jim Abbott and you won't because Stephen Harper has told them all to shut up and don't say anything that isn't in the book, so you won't hear an opinion from him like you're hearing from me. A lot of these are our policy but a lot of them are my own opinion. It's important that Canadians learn about who their politicians are and not about what a party stands for, that's part of the problem with our country is we don't take the individual candidates and ask them what their opinions are about things and we take what the party says about them and certainly, I'm a New Democrat, there's no if ands or buts, I've been a New Democrat for a long time and held the ideals of the New Democrat and CCF for a long time, but I don't agree with everything, and I'm not afraid to say what I don't agree with. I didn't agree with the long gun registry, I knew that was going to be a fiasco. There's accommodations we have to make to people in order to make sure that they feel that their rights are intact and I'm not afraid to say those, but Jim Abbott is, he won't tell you, he won't say a word. They're afraid he's going to say something stupid and get them in big trouble. I might say something stupid too, but I hope that people understand I have opinions just like they do and I'm willing to listen to anybody's opinion. I have to represent all of the people. not just my party, but all of the people. I don't agree with everything New Democrats do. I didn't agree with Jack Layton's refusal to allow Elizabeth May to join the debates, and I was public about that.

What are your fundamental disagreements with other candidates?

Well obviously the Conservatives have it all wrong. They want to integrate us more with the U.S. and do more deregulation which has caused the U.S. economic system to collapse and we just can't allow the corporatism to have free reign on the economy, we just can't allow it. We need to encourage innovation and entrepreneurism but they can't have a free reign. Liberals have a symptomatic approach whereas we have a systematic approach, we think the whole system needs to be reformed in small increments so it doesn't hurt people too much. The Liberals just want to put a band-aid solution on it whereas we need a long term solution, that's what's gotten us into the mess. With the Green party, I think the main difference between me and the Green is I didn't abandon the labour movement. I think that the labour movement is very important, labouring people are the backbone of this country, whether you're a part of a union or not you represent how wealth is generated in this country, and not just in this one, but any country, it's labour that generates wealth, it's not rich people. A lot of entrepreneurs have innovative ideas and put them forward and get them going, but it's their employees that make them the money.

On a global scale, what is happening in Afghanistan has a lot of people worried and counting the days until troops come home. What are your priorities on the fight in Afghanistan? Pull the troops out, keep them there? More troops, less troops? What do you feel is right for the situation?

Troops do not set foreign policy, it's a civilian command, and that's the way we need to have it. The troops do what the civilian command says, and right now there's no clear direction on what we should be doing in Afghanistan. We're following NATO's lead and most of the NATO nations don't want to get in on the front lines so why in the heck are we there? Partly it's like we're trying to prove something to the world, and we don't need to prove that we can fight. Canadians were the best fighters in WWII, in WWI, in Korea. The Canadians have nothing to prove, we do know how to wage war, we need to learn how to wage peace. What's right for the situation is to get out. We need to learn to follow our own instincts and not the whims of the US.

Betty Aitchison

Nakusp has been hit hard as a result of the current forestry crisis. Do you see relief in the works if your government comes into power in the area?

I'm not good at that. ... It's not that I don't have an opinion, it's just that I don't want to voice an opinion that's incorrect. I'm not informed enough.

What platforms announced since the election was called are you most excited about, and how would they benefit the people of Kootenay-Columbia?

There's lots of things that will benefit the Kootenay-Columbia and the Green Shift is one of them. The Green Shift is meant for low-income people and your footprint that you make of course is going to depend largely on people who have a lot of money, they're going to be taxed, whereas the people that are on the lower income are probably going to receive a subsidy. I believe the number is, for a single person, it's $600 and for married it's $800. That would be an increment in most cases, and we're talking pension. We're also talking about improving the homes so they are more green. That includes your windows and whatever is needed to be more energy efficient.

Could you name a few main initiatives in this campaign you're bringing to the table and explain how you think they would help the area?

I don't know whether it will benefit the people that much, but I do feel that the women, 52 per cent of the population of Canada are women and I don't feel women are well represented. I feel very strongly that the Conservative government really didn't utilize too many women, and I would like to say that Mr. Abbott who was appointed as parliamentary secretary to Bev Oda, she had heritage, and the first thing she did was cut funding to women's programs, and she cut them very severely, and I didn't hear anything from Mr. Abbott that would indicate that he supported women in that particular case.

What are you doing to engage young people in this election and the political process in general?

Young people have always been my target, and I target them not as a commodity but as individual people, and I feel that if they're interested in politics, they're interested in what Canada is and how it is going to be in the future. There's some awfully bright people out there, that are a completely different breed of people and they're going to have better ideas. They have a good system in order to follow into and I recommend it highly.

Top three issues in this election and what are you doing about them? Healthcare, childcare, forestry?

I would say that child care, once again, child care is one of the issues that women are involved with, mainly, and it's not just a women's issue, that's not what I mean. I mean that women have the responsibility nine times out of 10, for whatever happens to that child. A lot of women require day care and once again, day care as we were going to have a universal day care in Canada and it didn't happen because it was cut by the present government, they then gave $100 for each pre school child to all of the families. I defy you to find a place that $100 is going to do any good, plus that's taxable. I think healthcare is moving in a different direction, I don't know whether it's good or bad. It's easy to say that it's wrong, but if you don't know the insides of it, then you don't have a solution, and I certainly don't have a solution and I don't think there's anyone that's running in this riding that has a solution, but I just hope we maintain our healthcare.

Nakusp is currently exploring options for affordable housing. How would you get federal money to the area for an issue like this?

Affordable housing is getting more attention, and I know that in Kimberly, where I come from, they have actually set up committees in order to get this going. I know that Cranbrook is doing the same thing and I think there's a movement towards alleviating this problem. Another problem that's big, and I think we all know this, we were in Invermere last Sunday and we went to have something quick to eat ... we couldn't find any place open. It was around 5 p.m. and the reason was there was no one there to staff the restaurants.

In your opinion, how honest have all the candidates been in this election?

I haven't seen Mr. Abbott but I know that his honesty is limited in that he's a one-issue candidate, and he did not turn up at Revelstoke and the rest of us all had to travel for about eight hours, [and] stay over night. He had the temerity to send in a written report expecting to be represented without being there and I think that's arrogance, elitism to the ultra.

What are your fundamental disagreements with other candidates?

I don't disagree with any of them because we're all partisan politicians. So as we have a message to give, and I hope my message is superior to theirs. I'm a firm believer in Danny William's committee on ABC... Anybody But Conservatives, and for a variety of reasons. This morning I happened to catch an interview with our prime minister and he was explaining at one point he would like a majority government and he felt he did not want to be like the United States over the the economy. I don't know about you, but I'm a little concerned about dictatorship, and the fact that Mr. Abbott was not there would indicate that his mouth has been zippered. Whether I agree with Mr. Abbott or not, I feel that he has been paid for a long, long time, and we deserve, as taxpayers, to have him there, and if he blows it, he blows it.

On a global scale, what is happening in Afghanistan has a lot of people worried and counting the days until troops come home. Troops do think they are doing good in the country, but doesn't necessarily justify us having to be there. What are your priorities on the fight in Afghanistan? Pull the troops out, keep them there? More troops, less troops? What do you feel is right for the situation?

It's my understanding that all four parties agreed with the policy of staying there until 2011, and at that time the troops would have been out of there. I agree with that. I know you can't, it's like anything else, once you start, before you start is when you should start thinking about it. That's interesting too because when they originally went into there it was with the idea of getting the people better educated, the women especially, and sort of getting them out from under the control of the Taliban, but in the meantime we have women here that are not being well represented, but who are we to go to a country like Afghanistan or any country and tell them they aren't treating their women properly. My point is the agreement is between all parties.

Is there anything else we didn't talk about today that you would like to mention?

I think people should get out and vote. Voting is a privilege and people should take advantage of it. There are politicians out there that are not crooked, not devious, not elitist, but who really care about their country and I think they should be looking at who they vote for. Question all the components.