1. The renewed interest in environmental stewardship – in restoring and reconciling the relationship between people and nature – has some spiritual elements to it. In this respect we can learn a lot from religious and cultural communities that understand the importance of reconciliation, whether it be between people and whoever they conceive their God to be; people and themselves; or people and the physical world.
2. This spiritual perspective has a role to play in helping people to recognize the need to sacrifice immediate satisfaction for something in the future for the next generation and the environment. If we constrained our material demands, we would have more time for our personal, family and social relations. If we spent more time looking after one another, we would not have to go to the government for support.
3. This spiritual approach is an alternative to trying to fix everything by regulation or law. It is easy to talk about the future in terms of what it should be economically, socially, environmentally and politically. The Government of Vancouver Island would also add the spiritual dimension, harnessing the great potential of working with religious and cultural communities.

Economic Justice

Preamble

The VanIsle Party has a realistic view of the economy of Vancouver Island. The high technology, manufacturing, film, tourism, forestry, mining (subject to environmental review), renewable and non­‐ renewable energy, agricultural and aquaculture sectors are the horses that are pulling the VanIsle economy cart. We have to give more attention to the strengthening of these industries and recognizing what they are contributing. To maintain our high quality of life, the VanIsle economy must be strong enough to pay for the social­‐services network.

In order to fulfill its Economic Justice mandate, the Government of Vancouver Island would seek to implement the following policies:

I. Fiscal Policy

1. Balance the provincial budget over the business cycle. This will be incorporated in the Constitution of the Province of Vancouver Island.
2. Eliminate the provincial government debt without increasing taxes.

II. Economic Policy

1. Keep taxes on middle–income families and seniors as low as possible.
2. Recognize the economic value of stay­‐at­‐home parents and introduce tax fairness measures such as income splitting for couples with children.
3. Recognize that many seniors live on low fixed incomes and deserve more support in retirement.
4. Make business taxes competitive with Canadian provinces and U.S. states.
5. Restructure the tax system to maximize benefits for the greatest number of Vanlsle citizens.
6. A flat income tax regime will be explored.
7. Provide effective stewardship of taxpayer dollars.
8. Introduce a program of tax credits to promote the economic solutions in the areas of transportation and environmental innovation, among others.
9. Participate in the Government of Canada’s equalization payment program and advocate for a comprehensive review of this program to ensure fairness for all provinces.

III. Cost of Living

Lower the VanIsle cost of living for VanIslers’ goods and services through:

1. BC Ferries Fares

1. Free BC Ferries fares for individuals, either walk-on or drivers, including passengers.
2. Lower BC Ferries fares for cars and trailers and RVs.
3. Substantially lower BC Ferries fare for trucks with 2 tonnes or more of cargo.

2. Freight Costs

Freight costs will be significantly reduced by rail shipments of products to and from Vancouver Island by a proposed railroad connection to the BC Interior at Highway 20 to the Canadian National Railway (CNR) at Williams Lake, BC, following the original railway route promised VanIslers as a condition of British Columbia joining the Canadian Confederation in 1871.

There is an existing rail connection northward from Williams Lake to Prince George along Highway 97 and west to Edmonton. Connections southward to Kamloops, Kelowna and other BC communities would also be considered.

3. Improved bus and rail service for VanIslers who live in sparse population areas.

4. Work toward free and fair trade with other provinces by participating fully in the New West Partnership of western provinces that aim to reduce trade barriers and lower costs for consumers.

5. Support the “Buy Local – Grow Island” campaign of the Vancouver Island and Coast Conservation Society (viccs.van.bc.ca).

6. Introduce free market regime for automobile insurance and servicing for accidents such as in Alberta, Ontario and the State of Washington. It is estimated that savings over the current Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) premium rates for Vancouver Island would be as much as  40%. There will be no more ICBC monopoly on Vancouver Island.

IV.  Job Creation

1. Encourage preferential hiring of VanIsle high school, college and university students.
2. Provide provincial government support for “Green” and “Clean” businesses.
3. Support the principle of “value­‐added” processing on Vancouver Island. VanIsle businesses will be encouraged to export products rather than raw materials.
4. Support the Think Local First Society of Victoria’s (thinklocalvictoria.com) approach to supporting local businesses and the extension of this principle throughout Vancouver Island. Studies show that for every 10% of dollars spent at locally­‐ owned shops, 25% more money stays in the local economy. This change in spending is known as the “10% shift movement.” It leads to a multiplier effect as local businesses make their purchases for office supplies, garbage disposal, lighting, etc. with local businesses.
5. Aim for energy independence by 2030, with emphasis on renewable energy resources such as hydro, solar, wind, run of river and tidal.
6. Negotiate lower costs for the import of electrical power from BC Hydro.
7. Support businesses of all sizes with an environment of minimum red tape and regulatory burdens.
8. Explore widespread employee profit­‐sharing ownership of VanIsle corporations.
9. Endorse Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as a project provided the location is favourable on geographical and environmental considerations. Specifically, the VanIsle Party opposes tanker traffic in the Inside Passage and in the Saanich Inlet, as well as a proposed LNG plant at Bamberton. [download this section]
10. Accelerate VanIsle workers’ productivity by:

1. Increasing human capital through better secondary, post­‐ secondary and job­‐related education such as apprenticeships and co­‐operative training opportunities,

2. Work with the Government of Canada to encourage more efficient immigration of skilled workers, including the recognition of training credentials from other countries,

3. Encourage efficiency and innovation in small and medium­‐ sized enterprises through greater research and development (R&D) and capital investment.

11. Encourage governments at all levels and educational institutions to promote and incubate new businesses.

 12. Protect the right to private property.

V.  Labour Relations

1. Promote public service excellence by supporting a non­‐ partisan, professional public service for the Government of Vancouver Island. Competitions will be held for all positions.
2. Introduce Whistle­‐blowing legislation to ensure that those who expose corruption and wrongdoing are protected from reprisal.
3. Support the right of workers to organize democratically, to bargain collectively and to peacefully withdraw and withhold services while
   1. Respecting the law, and
   2. Respecting private property.
4. The VanIsle Party respects the role of labour unions in democratic society and provides a place for a union representative as a member of each of its 14 Constituency Associations (CA) and its Party Council (PC) in its VIP Constitution & Bylaws.

VI. Transportation

Social Justice

Preamble

As a truly progressive political party, the VanIsle Party advocates policies for its Social Justice mandate that aim to close the widening gap between the rich and the poor. We support a strong social safety net, which protects those who truly need support, within a compassionate free enterprise economic system. Our policies will promote volunteerism, individual responsibility and care for those who cannot care for themselves while encouraging individuals to be self­‐sufficient.

We will study the fiscal feasibility of social policies such as –

I. Income Support 

1. Consider an increase in the VanIsle minimum wage with annual adjustments for the cost of living.
2. Study the feasibility of a universal basic guaranteed annual income, irrespective of any income from other sources, to replace the current system and bureaucracy of social assistance payments. This policy may also eliminate the need for a minimum wage.  
   Pioneered in Manitoba in the 1970s, this social income safety net could help ensure that no one is forced to take work that threatens their children’s tomorrow, just to feed those children today.
   The City of Utrecht in the Netherlands is currently conducting an experiment with a guaranteed annual income. A parallel project is underway in Finland.
3. Ensure equal pay for equal work for men and women in the Government of Vancouver Island and encourage this goal in other VanIsle governments, educational and health institutions, businesses and societies.

II. Poverty Reduction

1. Assist regional and local governments to eliminate child poverty on Vancouver Island beginning with a comprehensive school breakfast program.
2. Construct more affordable long­‐term care facilities for low­‐ income seniors.
3. Assist municipalities in finding temporary and permanent shelter for the homeless.
4. Provide grants to food banks throughout Vancouver Island, especially with seasonal grants at times of greatest needs such as Christmas and the summer.
5. Help VanIslers with low levels of literacy to upgrade their skills for the jobs of today.

III. Health

1. Support the sanctity of life and the dignity of the person by:

1. Encouraging Adoption

1.  Supporting legislation to make adoption easier,less bureaucratic and more affordable.

2. Removing barriers for potential adoptive parents.

3. Helping older children in foster care to find forever families.

2. Protecting Women’s Health

1. Providing funding for rape crisis centres, including training and technical support.

2. Providing funding for parenting and pregnancy centres that provide counselling to pregnant women, meeting practical needs of new mothers such as cribs and formula and connecting new mothers to additional help.

3. Provide funding for post abortion grief (PAG) counselling. These effects include, but are not limited to, for some women (and also men), post-abortion guilt, grieving that may lead to depression, sorrow, anger, self-recrimination, fear, despair, sleep deprivation, the pain of loss, and much more.

Prescribing anti-depressant drugs is not enough. The problem is not a chemical imbalance. It takes a very skilled psychiatrist or counsellor who understands these post-abortion conflicts to help these women. Link to Abortion Side Effects

3. Protecting Unborn Children’s Health

1. Reduce the perceived need through education for partial- birth, late-term birth and elective abortions in VanIsle hospitals and clinics. Abortion Side Effects Article 2  and Abortion Side Effects Article 3

2. Encourage that the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia members, abortion clinics, the Health Link website (Frequently Asked Questions) of Island Health (formerly Vancouver Island Health Authority -VIHA), the Pregnancy Option Line and the Facts of Life Line provide complete information on the full range of post- abortion effects on women of having an abortion.

3. Ensure that evidence- based medicine must apply to all kinds and practices of medicine, including abortion, in order to get funding under the Canada Health Act. The onus is on the doctor to prove that abortion is necessary. No abortion in justified under this criteria as being necessary to the health of the mother unless the life of the mother is threatened.

IV. Education

1. Recognize the crucial importance of pre­‐kindergarten education and conduct educational programs, including recommended learning materials, at no cost to parents.
2. Support the expansion of day care spaces at a reasonable cost, such as in Quebec, to all families with young children.
3. Recognizing the principle that parents are the child’s first and most important teachers, provide grants per student to approved home schools equal to the grants per student provided in public schools, provided that they offer excellent curricula, extra­‐curricula activities and wellness programs.
4. Strengthen the public school system by:
   1. Ensuring that the provincial core curriculum prepares students to become independent thinkers and to achieve excellence in reading, writing, English and French, arithmetic, physics, science, home skills, physical education, shop, civics, history, the rule of law, democracy and governance,
   2. Adding to the provincial core curriculum financial literacy relating to budgeting, saving and investments,
   3. Supporting the teachers’ union recommendation on class size,
   4. Supporting extra funding for the arts, music, sports and other extracurricular activities.
   5. Support funding for special needs students, and
   6. Supporting literacy programs.
5. Encourage apprenticeship programs at an early age such as the successful programs in Germany. The German model (now introduced in NorthCarolina) prepares students as young as 16 for local factory jobs by following an apprenticeship program of four years of free training split between school and the workplace, and a job upon completion.
6. Provide free college and university tuition for VanIsle high mark students with proof of at least five years of VanIsle residency.
7. Assist all VanIsle students to pay off student debt with easier repayment terms, including partial debt forgiveness for high marks and for community service.

V. Family Support

Encourage and implement, wherever possible, the delivery of social services by community-based organizations rather than directly by the provincial government.

Preamble

VanIslers need to address environmental concerns, especially as they interface with resource development. We cannot continue to engage in a polarized “environment­‐versus–economy” argument. Nobody is out to destroy the environment or the economy – we need both – but some people are willing to take one side or the other. There are many ways of reconciling the economy with the environment, some on the supply side and some of them on the demand side. Few groups in society talk about constraining demands.

The VanIsle Party believes that living within our means – a fiscally conservative approach for families, businesses and governments – is also an ecological concept. We cannot take more out of a natural system than goes back into it.

_{The VanIsle Party supports 12 Principles of Environmental Justice, as follows:}

I. Affirm the importance of God’s creation (the Earth), the interdependence of all species and the right to be free from ecological destruction.

1. Introduce a comprehensive VanIsle provincial environmental strategy to address rising sea levels, drought, extreme weather events, changing rainfall patterns and increased forest fires.
2. Reduce the enormous waste in our energy system.
3. Consider harnessing market mechanisms for environmental conservation.
4. Keep the Agricultural Land Reserve system and support programs to encourage a more localized and ecologically­‐based agricultural system that would reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, capture carbon in the soil and absorb sudden shocks in the global supply– as well as produce healthier and more affordable food for everyone.
5. Provide a tax credit for the removal of noxious weeds such as broom from all properties to protect native plant growth.
6. Introduce a VanIsle–wide program to build energy efficient homes and retrofit existing houses.
7. Support training for workers in carbon­‐intensive jobs, ensuring that they are fully able to take part in the clean energy industries
8. Ask the Government of Canada Transport Canada to devolve funds to VanIsle and other west coast coastal communities to facilitate the removal and demolition of abandoned and derelict vessels littering the coastline, many of which have oil remaining in their tanks.

II. Improve regulation of air quality and toxins.

1. Reduce air borne contaminants and pesticides. In particular, protect the essential honeybee population.
2. Regulate substances shown to be a significant risk to human health.
3. Enshrine the precautionary principle approach toward chemical management, putting the onus on manufacturing companies to demonstrate a product’s safety before it is approved for use, as is done with pharmaceuticals.

III. Manage intensifying threats to our coastal waters.

1. Support the Government of Canada and international regulatory regimes to prevent, reduce and control the release of toxic substances and nutrients into the marine environment..
2. Encourage the Government of Canada to support ongoing domestic and international research into the effects of ocean acidification in Canadian waters.
3. Advocate and participate in a task force with the Governments of Canada, the United States, British Columbia and Washington State to focus on pollution reduction in the Juan de Fuca–Georgia Strait region.
4. Endorse the Dogwood Initiative (http://dogwoodinitiative.org/no-tankers/stand-up-for-bc) campaign to get a citizen’s initiative to give British Columbians the chance to vote on plans to expand pipelines and oil tanker traffic on our coast.

IV. Protect and conserve freshwater lakes and rivers, groundwater and aquifers and their associated riparian zones.

1. Recognize that in the age of climate change, water is our most precious resource.
2. Prohibit bulk water exports.
3. Establish regulation and product standards to promote water­‐ efficient technologies.
4. Ensure secure, safe water supplies for all VanIslers.
5. Conduct a VanIsle inventory of all polluted ground water and water bodies.
6. Provide adequate funding for local and regional flood protection and drought management planning.

V. Ensure the protection of VanIsle parks and marine protected areas.

1. Regulate resource exploitation within provincial parks.
2. Increase monitoring and protection efforts, including an addition to the number of park rangers and guides with interpretation skills to educate VanIslers and visitors about the vast beauty and value of our VanIsle provincial parks.
3. Create and manage marine­‐protected areas (MPAs).
4. Support the Vancouver Island and Coast Conservation Society (viccs.van.bc.ca) advocacy of a Vancouver Island National Marine Conservation Area.
5. Support the Vancouver Island and Coast Conservation Society (viccs.vcn.bc.ca) petition to establish a Southern Strait of Georgia National Marine Conservation Area.

VI. Enforce and enhance protection for species at risk.

Implement effective action to preserve critically threatened habitats, endangered species at risk, species of commercial or cultural value, habitats threatened by climate change, and continuous threats of habitat for wide­‐range migrating species.

VII. Affirm the right of all workers to a safe and healthy work environment without being forced to choose between an unsafe livelihood and unemployment. 

VIII. Protect the right of victims of environmental injustice to receive full compensation and reparations for damages, as well as quality heath care.

IX. Affirm the need for urban and rural ecological policies to clean up and rejuvenate VanIsle cities and rural areas in balance with nature, honouring the cultural integrity of all our communities, and provide fair access for all to a full range of resources.

X. Oppose the destructive environmental operations of national and multi-national corporations.

XI. Educate present and future generations by emphasizing economic, social and environmental issues based on VanIslers’ diverse cultural perspectives.

XII. Require that we, as individuals, make personal and consumer choices to consume as little of the Earth’s non-renewable resources and to produce as little waste as possible; and make the conscious decision to challenge and reprioritize our lifestyles to ensure the health of the natural world for present and future generations.

1. The VanIsle Party believes that social bodies, such as governments, exist for the sake of individuals and that whatever individuals can do, society should not take over. It also believes that what small societies can do, larger societies should not take over. Consequently, wherever possible, the Government of Vancouver Island will devolve the responsibility and funding of provincial governmental services to regional governments and municipalities on Vancouver Island. At all times, due diligence will be applied to avoid duplication of government services whether provided by the Government of Canada or the local authorities.
2. ResPublica (www.respublica.org.uk), an independent non-partisan think tank in the United Kingdom, offers a unique and proven approach for a country or a province or region (like Vancouver Island), which seeks to develop wealth that promotes both social and economic flourishing. It also seeks a renaissance of virtue and honour in public policy and practice. Not only will the good be done, it must be seen to be done. The VanIsle Party will establish links with  ResPublica in designing the growth potential of mid-sized cities and regional devolution.

To disentangle the Government of Vancouver Island from British Columbia government programs and crown corporations.

1. Create a VanIsle Power Authority to negotiate lower costs for the import of power of from BC Hydro and develop alternative VanIsle power sources such as green technologies for locally-generated hydro, solar, wind, run of river and tidal for energy self-sufficiency as soon as possible.
2. Introduce a free market regime for automobile insurance to lower costs for automobile insurance and servicing by as much as 40% for accidents such as in Alberta and Ontario. There will be no more Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) monopoly on Vancouver Island.

To respect First Nations’ beliefs, customs and history.

1. Understand and honour First Nations’ beliefs, customs and history in order to foster mutual understanding, respect and trust amongst all people who call themselves “VanIslers”.
2. Recognize that there are three First Nations groupings on Vancouver Island: The Coast Salish, The Nuu’chah nulth and The Kwakwaka’waka peoples. Within these groupings are many individual bands. There are about 50 First Nations reserves on Vancouver Island.
3. Acknowledge that whereas the Constitution of Canada grants the Government of Canada exclusive jurisdiction over First Nations’ affairs and the land and/or cash settlements in negotiated treaties, most VanIsle First Nations bands have close to or more than half their members living off reserve in VanIsle and other communities where jobs and access to public services, such as health and education, are more readily available.
4. Introduce policies designed to bring hope to First Nations’ youth by supporting apprenticeship training, skills training, employment opportunities and entrepreneurial initiative. Youth with good ideas will be helped to build good and successful businesses.
5. Support economic development projects that are environmentally sound and have community support within and outside of the reserve.