By Greg Dunlop
Electoral reform is top of the agenda for Ottawa Centre Green party candidate Greg Laxton; it became his passion and the subject of his master’s thesis.
“The current voting system doesn’t meet the basic requirements for representative democracy,” he argues. “It doesn’t weigh our votes equally. That’s wrong, that’s just not democracy. It is incompatible with current values and society.”
The self-described ardent advocate of electoral reform rejects the notion that a reformed electoral system would lack any accountability.
“The process would at worst be no less democratic than parties currently selecting their candidates for election,” he says arguing there isn’t any less freedom of choice in a system of appointment.
After Laxton received his master’s in political science at York University he pursued a career in the civil service, most recently working as a policy analyst for the Ontario government.
A new arrival to the capital, he left behind work as a policy analyst for the Ontario government to campaign full time.
Recently marrying his wife Deidre, an Ottawan, as a candidate Laxton sees his experience in Toronto as a strength rather than a weakness.
“I’ve only lived here one year,” he says. “But my civil service experience in Toronto has shown me mistakes we might want to avoid here. A vote for me is a vote for someone that really cares about representing Ottawa Centre to the best of their ability.”
An opponent of faith-based school funding he instead advocates a single publicly funded school system that would eliminate the separate catholic system consistent with Green party policy.
“Public education should be separated from religion,” he says. “I don’t think there’s any place to invoke a religious bias inside publicly funded schools.”
Laxton also advocates the Green’s money saving preventative health care initiatives as a way of keeping people out of aged-care facilities and in their own homes.
He says the Green Party would maintain current levels of health funding but would strengthen community health care programs allowing senior citizens treatment in their own homes rather than being sent to institutions.
On environmental issues he’s also an advocate of long-term green energy use and bio-fuels.
“The Green party would ensure all government purchases and contracts would require local procurement, full cost accounting and have minimal environmental impact,” he says adding the Greens also want to promote inter-municipal transit rail and reduce urban sprawl.
“Some of the things we could do would be spending $300 million over four years to bring about local food production in Ontario. We’re also trying to ban cosmetic pesticide, limit land development and establish green belts around cities.”