Michael Wolfe Green Party
Born and raised in Richmond like the local products and made-in-Richmond solutions he advocates, Michael Wolfe believes being a familiar face in the Richmond Centre riding can work to his advantage and improve voter engagement.
"Give a familiar name, a familiar resident, a familiar neighbour and the opportunity to represent the public," said the Green Party candidate. "Richmond Centre has such a lack of continuity in representation. It's hard to become a leader in something when you keep changing your captain."
He said in order to properly engage voters, candidates and MLAs need to be present between elections, attending open houses and going council meetings.
There needs to be more effort to connect to voters.
"Our MLAs should be sleeping overnight at the FarmWatch to really understand what's going on there," said Wolfe. "Our elected officials need to see what it's like, get firsthand experience of going to the food bank regularly, for example. I want to be part of these processes, so I can fully understand them."
As rapid growth in Richmond is projected over the next 30 years, Wolfe also put forth ideas about how he would reallocate funding to accommodate for increased pressure on health care, education and transportation.
"Health care is by far the paramount issue for Richmond Centre," he said. "If someone's not doing well, health-wise, they're not going to take a course or worry about transportation."
Besides, improvements in health care spill into transportation and education, as it includes better accessibility to facilities and a focus on prevention through education.
As a secondary teacher, Wolfe said v this could start at a school level, where students have more exposure to health education.
"We subsidize a lot of industries that are highly pollutant to our communities and bodies," he said. "We need to put a higher strain on products, behaviours and activities that are harmful to our health.
"The Lafarge Cement Plant is our largest source of pollutants in the community, and they're currently exempt from the carbon tax. We could be collecting carbon tax from some of these sources and direct that funding into health care."
Additional funding could also come from cutting administrative costs and reducing payout plans for MLAs, according to Wolfe.
A focus on community-based economies would further encourage people to buy local and stay within Richmond, reducing their ecological footprints. To encourage local business, Wolfe believes the province should provide tax breaks and incentives.
This would include implementing better waste management systems for businesses, where, like individuals, not all of a business's waste would go to the landfill.
