Kate is an organic farmer based in Manitoba. She is also the Agriculture critic of the Green Party and an aspiring politician that is standing for the coming federal and provincial elections, hoping to be either an MP or an MLA.

For me this was a back to back interview with two candidates of the Green Party. They are on a fast growth track, far as I can see, but are starting from a near zero level. Their system and policies stand apart from any other conventional party.

Besides, being concerned about Canada’s food security and this chemical and biological attack we are subjected to through foreign biotech corporations efforts to own everything in Canada and our politicians penchant to sell Canada piece by piece to the lowest bidder is, at least to me, a national crisis whose root is in political corruption and can only be resolved politically, by electing good people into our parliament. Just like Politicians have a duty to protect the land and the people, a task in which they are failing, citizens have a duty, to ensure good people get elected, and to keep our politicians in check. A functioning democracy needs both elements – good politicians and involved citizens.

I wanted to ask her questions that relates to the particularly unenviable position that Canada is in, with regard to exposure to transgenic organisms and nasty biocides such as Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide and others being used on our food system, our prairies, forests, parks and everywhere else.

I wanted to ask her if the Green Party might bolster its policy on UN convention on biodiversity and the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety, by proposing to ratify the Cartagena Protocol and actually pass a law that will protect indigenous flora and fauna. She agreed this is a good idea and asked me to send her the details. Members of the party can propose amendment on their party policy and she was a member, so she would consider helping the party adopt it.

Then she spoke for around ten minutes straight, describing the Green Party agriculture policy, possibly reading it out, and covered a lot of ground so we did not have to ask each item one by one. I was concerned about the rural heartland being depopulated as small farmers were driven to extinction, and becoming unemployed job seekers while mega corporate farms replaced them and turned to extremely energy and input dependent toxic chemical dependent mono-culture regime that only bring illness to the people and lifelessness to the land while impoverishing the people. She did a good job explaining all of that in one shot.

Then we went to another difficult issue – political alliance in ridings where the left vote is split and the conservatives gain by stealing the seat there. I got a response from Tom Mulcair about his effort to form an alliance with the Liberals, but that the Liberals refused. He did not mention the Greens.

Kate spoke on record that the NDP had refused to form any alliance with the Greens. The Greens had tried very hard to form alliance with both Liberals and the NDP but apparently none of the larger parties were interested. This is a tragedy, in my mind, because ego of the parties get in the way and open the path for the Conservatives, who are ruining the country.

I should be asking Tom Mulcair again to clarify the issue of alliance with the Greens.

Kate opposes absentee owners of the farm land and supports agriculture cooperatives for helping small farmers and dependence in local food instead of our cauliflowers coming from California.

Pesticide use has increased instead of decreasing, with widespread adoption of GM crops. The party is aware of Glyphosate poisoning of people and proposes all children being tested for Glyphosate.

I did not interrupt her to state that Canada does not even have a lab that will test children or our food for Glyphosate content. Canadian labs at this moment only offer testing Glyphosate in water and soil. I am personally involved in trying to coax labs to offer this service on one side, and asking the people to demand this test, so as to create a “demand” for this service, so that labs take note and get on board.

I should be asking Kate to consider writing in a policy to help in this effort so Canada gets a few labs that will test Glyphosate in people and food.

I asked her about mandatory voting law. Its not mandatory in Canada, and Canadian voter participation is rather poor. She things this is a great idea, as is the issue of proportional representation. The problem is, I thought, that current senators may never vote these systems in, because they are the beneficiary of the absence of these laws.

However, these are necessary goals and can only happen with public pressure and public demand.

She said NDP is in power in Manitoba and that they have a policy to support proportional representation, and yet, they have not passed this law. So,  somebody needs to ask NDP Manitoba about it. Perhaps I shall ask them by email, and see what they say.

Kate predicts that the Greens will get somewhere between ten and twenty seats in the next federal election, with British Columbia leading the way and perhaps PEI following suit.

All in all, this is one politician and hopefully a future MP that I really enjoyed speaking with.

I do hope she wins, and gets to kick some butt in Ottawa.

The podcast is just over 31 minutes long. You can listen to it by clicking the play button at the bottom of this page.