It may have lacked the fireworks often seen at candidates debates, but the people running in Sudbury and Nickel Belt still had some surprising things to say Thursday night at St. Andrews Place.
One of the 100 Debates on the Environment taking place during the federal election, Moderator Gerry Labelle set the tone early, telling Sudbury candidates to stick to the topic.
“Tonight is not about blackface, it’s about the environment,” Labelle said. “No personal attacks, no hate speech.”
The Sudbury riding debate
The Sudbury debate was held first, in front of about 150 people, which thinned to about 30 people for the Nickel Belt debate two hours later.
Sudbury NDP candidate Beth Mairs said as MP, she would push her party to go even further in protecting the environment than they have already promised.
“Like many of you, I love the land with all my heart,” Mairs said. “Like most of you here, I feel an urgency. It sometimes keeps me up at night.”
She would fight for the “most aggressive plan” to reduce carbon emissions and would consult locally with Indigenous communities and activists to determine what the priorities should be for Sudbury.
Sean Paterson, the People's Party of Canada candidate in Sudbury, said he knows the environment has to be protected.
“We must stop pollution,” Paterson said, adding it “threatens everyone and everything.
“Sudbury has seen a drastic change in its environment.”
But, he said natural resources has been key to Canada's prosperity and the key will be finding ways to reduce the impact of fossil fuels while we transition to other sources of power.
“Sudbury can benefit greatly from the transition to a low-carbon economy.”
Incumbent Liberal Paul Lefebvre said he represented Canada at the G20, where he talked about the success of local regreening efforts that has turned the city from black rock to green.
“I got up and talked about the Sudbury story,” Lefebvre said.
He said the Liberal platform from the last election didn't include many environmental initiatives that are considered crucial to their current platform.
“These policies we’re putting forward, we weren’t even talking about four years ago,” Lefebvre said.
It's part of a change in thinking that has been going on for years. He said 40 years ago, the solution to pollution was to build the Superstack and send it somewhere else. Today, tougher emission standards that have been brought in over the years are the real solution.
“Now we’re bringing down the Superstack,” Lefebvre said, because it's no longer needed.
Sudbury is in a unique position to benefit, because not only have we developed the expertise, we have the nickel the world needs to build electric vehicle batteries.
“We’re seeing that already in Sudbury — four new mines are being built,” he said. “We’ll get green jobs during this transition — we’ve already seen it here.”
Green Candidate Bill Crumplin, a professor at Laurentian University, said he has spent 27 years studying the impact humans have on the environment.
“So I know a fair bit of stuff,” Crumplin said.
He and his party will prioritize making progress on environmental issues over partisanship every time.
“I will not be shy talking to other MPs, regardless of what colour their flag is,” Crumplin said. “Crossing partisan lines is the only way we’re going to be able to do this.”
Mairs made the point that, when big changes to the economy occur, nations have a poor record of helping workers who are hurt. There's a tendency in the environmental movement to be “holier than thou,” she said, and forget many families depend on fossil fuel industries to survive.
“In the NDP, it’s really important to us that we take care of people ... or our democracy will fray,” she said. “It’s important people are not left behind.”
“Alberta is very upset,” Lefebvre added, about the anxiety many people have about what it means to adapt to climate change. “We need policies that bring us together, and we know that’s not easy.”
In response to a question about whether they support the Fridays for Future movement, Crumplin said its children leading the way. They have done more to push the issue to the forefront than the Green Party has done in the last four decades, he said.
“I will tip my hat to you guys – and I do have a hat,” he quipped.
Paterson, whose PPC has been very critical of Greta Thunberg and the movement, sidestepped the question like a veteran politician
“I believe in education,” he said. “Education is incredible.”
Over to Nickel Belt
At the Nickel Belt debate, incumbent Liberal Marc Serré, NDP candidate Stef Paquette and Green candidate Casey Lalonde were on hand. But unlike Sudbury Conservative Pierre St-Amant, who missed the debate to attend the Doug Ford dinner, Nickel Belt Tory candidate Aino Laamanen was present.
Paquette, the artist running for politics for the first time, led off by saying “the very idea of saving the planet is fictional."
“It will revolve around the sun, with or without us,” he said.
What they are really about is saving ourselves from ourselves. Canada needs a nation-to-nation partnership with First Nations, he said, who are well-positioned to help Canadians protect the environment.
It's “shameful,” Paquette said, to declare a climate change emergency that sounds good to the public, but doesn't translate into meaningful action.
He was critical of his own party for insisting he use corrugated plastic campaign signs.
“I lost that argument,” Paquette said, adding he has plans to reuse his signs so they won't hurt the environment.
If he had his way, he would “ban all political signs for good.”
Green candidate Casey Lalonde said she has been involved with the party for a decade, and has run in a few elections now.
“I love running for election,” she said, because even though she hasn't won, her message on the campaign trail has led “people to tell me I helped change the way they think.”
What bothers her now is that with so much focus on climate change, people have almost forgotten the dangers of garbage and air pollution.
There are massive garbage islands in the ocean, plastics choking ocean life, and severe air pollution in many countries, she said.
“But we’re not focusing on that (because) it’s so easy to be ignorant,” she said.
Citing complaints about Greater Sudbury's move to a one garbage bag limit, Lalonde said people don't see the problem if it's not right in front of them.
“People would change their tune if they had to bury that garbage in the back yard.”
Serré drew the one rebuke of the night from Labelle, when he accused the Tories of treating climate change as a “fairy tale.”
“We can ignore it any longer,” Serré said. “I’m proud to be a part of a government that is taking action.”
While thanking Laamanen for showing up, he said the Conservatives are spending “millions” in the court system to fight the carbon tax.
“I’m not one of those nasty Conservatives who doesn’t care about the environment,” Laamanen quipped. “I’m not going to pretend I have the answers ... I’m here to listen and learn from all of you. We can’t be arguing and putting each other down.”
She was a member of the soils study group that helped plan Sudbury's green reclamation, and she has come to realize that you can't exploit natural resources without doing some damage to the environment.
What's needed, she said, is a way to strike a balance, finding ways to make progress that limits the damage to the Earth.
For information on the non-partisan group behind 100 Debates on the Environment, check out their website, GreenPac.ca.
