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Meet the Candidates: Northern Ontario not at odds with environmental policy: Northey

Green Party candidate, John Northey, says a resource-based economy can benefit from environmentally sustainable policies.
johnnorthey
Green Party candidate, John Northey.

The resource-based economy of Northern Ontario is not at odds with environmentally sustainable policy and a candidate in this year’s upcoming provincial election says the two working together actually provides a lot of opportunities.

John Northey, who is running for the Green Party of Ontario in the 2018 provincial election in the Thunder Bay/Atikokan riding, previously ran in 2014 for the Green Party.

Northey has degrees in statistics and economics from the University of Guelph and has worked as a computer programmer.

While many of his priorities from the 2014 election remain the same, he said one of the most important issues in this year’s election is electricity.

“The Liberals and the Conservatives especially seem to be ignoring the fact that that the nuclear plants are all about to be renewed shortly which will commit Ontario tax payers to massive increases for our electricity prices for the next 20 years,” he said.

According to Northey, it would be much cheaper to sign up for power generated in Quebec for Southern Ontario and Manitoba for Northern Ontario.

“We would be getting power for less than half the price than nuclear companies are currently charging,” he said. “The nuclear companies are asking for a 180 per cent increase over the next decade, which seems to be totally ignored by the big parties.”

When it comes to issues like the carbon tax, Northey said the Green Party believes switching to a carbon fee and dividend will not only help reduce carbon emissions, but help the Ontario taxpayer’s wallet.

“Carbon fee and dividend would pay an equal amount to every single Ontarian,” Northey said. “So everyone in Ontario would make the same amount from it. So whatever is collected to would be distributed equally to every person in the province. So you would pollute less and make a profit on it.”

When it comes to the Ring of Fire, one of the biggest natural resource projects proposed in the region, Northey believes environmentally sustainable methods of transporting materials from the chromite rich deposits are possible.

“We’ve been pushing for many years now for the smartest option for the Ring of Fire is to put electrified rail up into the area where it is going to be mined,” Northey said. “Because 500 kilometre of highway going up there and back down will be asking for all kinds of accidents and other problems to occur.”



Doug Diaczuk

About the Author: Doug Diaczuk

Doug Diaczuk is a reporter and award-winning author from Thunder Bay. He has a master’s degree in English from Lakehead University
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