Key issues being ignored
Posted Apr 11, 2011 05:51:18 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
An independent candidate running in Kitchener-Waterloo accuses Canada’s mainstream political parties of turning a blind eye to the key issues facing our country.
“None of the parties addresses the issues. They’re skimming the surface,” insists Richard Walsh-Bowers, running for the Kitchener-Waterloo seat. “It’s as if there are five elephants in everybody’s living room but nobody is talking about them.”
Those five elements, according to Walsh-Bowers, are economic, environmental, social, democratic and issues surrounding international relations. These key planks in Walsh-Bowers’ platform stem from points made by David Suzuki, someone Walsh-Bowers calls “one of Canada’s greatest treasures.”
“Suzuki talks about how our economic system is the root cause of all of our environmental problems,” Walsh-Bowers notes. “Suzuki now argues that we’ll never solve our environmental problems until we address the fact that our economy is basically flawed, that we need to create a new kind of society. And I agree with him.”
Walsh-Bowers has run for federal office on three previous occasions, each time under the NDP banner. This time, he has decided to forgo an affiliation with any one party.
In our online chat, Walsh-Bowers wrote at www.570news.com, “All parties have their strengths and weaknesses, including the Green Party, but none of them, in my opinion, addresses the five major issues confronting K-W and Canada.”
Among those social issues is poverty, according to Walsh-Bowers, who points out that 1 in 9 people living in the riding of Kitchener-Waterloo are living at or below the poverty line.
“We’ve been talking in Canada for decades about overcoming poverty but we haven’t done it. We won’t do it until there’s a basic change in the nature of our economic system,” Walsh-Bowers explains. “But to make such a change we have to live within our ecological means.”
Walsh-Bowers speaks eloquently and at length on the five elements he sees as critical in the coming election, both nationally and within the riding of Kitchener-Waterloo. But that made an online forum challenging.
“As someone who never really had a typing course, I type slowly,” Walsh-Bowers admits. “So I apologize to those individuals whose questions I just didn’t have the time to answer.”
Still, Walsh-Bowers believes it’s important for candidates to be ready to respond through all available media platforms. You can click this link for a recap of the chat.
Our online chats continue Monday afternoon with a visit from Cambridge Green Party candidate Jacques Malette.
