Dear Friend,

We hope you are having a great weekend, which marks a very interesting confluence of days. Saturday evening marked the Summer Solstice - the closest relationship our hemisphere has with the Sun all year. Today also happens to be Father's Day, celebrating one of the cornerstone relationships in our lives.

And finally, today marks National Indigenous Peoples Day, which is a good time to reflect on the relationship between Canada and the Indigenous Peoples on whose traditional lands this country and province were founded. We are painfully aware that this relationship has more often than not been been fraught with racism. The Green Party shares the vision of establishing a new nation-to-nation relationship between PEI and Canada and our Mi'kmaq hosts, and will work to ensure that the Province continues to implement the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a path towards such a new relationship.

Another couple of weeks of the Legislature have gone by since our last newsletter, plus we have an exciting event coming up this week, so we wanted to send you a brief update today to get you all caught up!

Coming up this Thursday, June 25 @ 7pm

The Legislative sitting that started on May 26th (and was originally thought of as a 2-3 day "emergency sitting" just keeps on trucking along and is now a full-blown spring sitting with a very full agenda. On Wednesday, June 17th, the government tabled its 2020 operating budget, and it typically takes at least a couple of weeks to go through the budget department-by-department in the House.

Here is a very brief roundup of what your Green Caucus has been up to in the Legislature in the past two weeks:

Featured videos

On June 4, 2020 Karla Bernard, MLA District 12 Charlottetown-Victoria Park gave a member statement on lack of information on the historically significant community of 'The Bog' - PEI's first Black settlement.	On June 5, 2020 the Honourable Peter Bevan-Baker, MLA and Leader of the Official Opposition, gave a member statement on achieving balance in all things.	On June 9, 2020 the Honourable Peter Bevan-Baker, MLA and Leader of the Official Opposition, gave a member statement on systemic racism and blind spots.
On June 9, 2020 Steve Howard, MLA District 22 Summerside-South Drive, gave a member statement on the impact of Mi’kmaq on our society.	On June 10, 2020 Lynne Lund, MLA District 21 Summerside-Wilmot, gave a member statement on the debate around proposed changes to Legislative hours and calendar.	On June 12, 2020 Hannah Bell, MLA District 11 Charlottetown-Belvedere, gave a member statement on next steps to bring incremental and positive change that will strengthen the Legislature, its systems and culture.

The Budget

The government tabled its operating budget last Wednesday. The $2.4 billion dollar budget, which comes with a record-setting deficit projection of $172.7 million, reflects the severity of the COVID-19 crisis and the role the government is called to play in supporting Islanders and local businesses at this time.

Michele Beaton, the Green Finance Critic, said ""This is a time that we have to work together. This is a time where Islanders are unsure of what the future is going to bring to them." 

While legislators will take the next couple of weeks to go through the budget estimates in detail, on first blush the Green Caucus is quite satisfied by this budget. The Caucus had submitted 11 specific budget asks (see infographic at right) to the government during pre-budget consultations, and all have been included in the final budget to at least some extent.  

Other highlights from the budget include:

• Increased supports for low-income Islanders, seniors, and persons living with diabilities;
• Increased spending on Health, in particular for COVID-19 preparedness, physician recruitment, and a new mobile mental health crisis unit;
• New funding for education, to hire an additional 24 teachers and 15 teaching assistants, as well as to launch the School Lunch program in the fall;
• $700,000 for wage increases to early childhood educators, and an additional $600,000 to designate six additional early years centres;
• More than $1m for justice programs including community policing, drug enforcement, setting up an Indigenous Courtwork system, and a Drug Treatment Court pilot (something that MLA Lynne Lund had advocated for last fall with a motion that passed in the Legislature);
• A decrease in the small business taxation rate, from 3% to 2%, and a $500 increase in the basic personal exemption;
• $5 million increase for the Active Transportation Fund and $2 million for solar incentive programs.

Read more in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/local/pei-budget-projects-1727-million-deficit-463364/

Legislative reform

The Standing Committee on Rules, Regulations, Private Bills and Privileges, chaired by Green MLA Hannah Bell, continues to bring about historic reform to the the way the Legislature itself operates. 

Last year, the major reform was to ensure that all committees of the Legislature had equal representation from parties - a stark departure from the past, when the government of the day always held majorities on committee.

This month, the Committee recommended finally, after years of discussion, adopting the PEI Coalition for Women in Government's recommendation to scrap evening sittings of the Legislature as a way of making public office more accessible to parents of young children - as well as moving up the timing of spring sittings to better align with provincial budgets and school schedules. And after hours of debate, the recommendations were ultimately adopted.

This marks the first time the Legislature has adopted any of the 17 recommendations put forward by the PEI Coalition for Women in Government in its 2009 report, "Whose Job is it Anyway?" (https://www.peiwomeningovernment.ca/…/Whose-Job-is-it-Anywa…)

Other topics

On Policing

Policing was a discussed in the Legislature as it has been throughout North America in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests as well as a number of publicized cases of Indigenous Canadians being killed during interactions with the police. There seems to be consensus that also here on PEI, it is worth looking at whether policing can be improved, including whether some of the interventions traditionally carried out by police might be better transferred to more specialized responders such as a Mobile Mental Health Crisis Unit.

Greens ask about police accountability on PEI

PEI Opposition makes case for defunding the police

On Water

After a massive, 7 million litre holding pond in Shamrock came to light, Green Water Critic Lynne Lund and the PEI Coalitions for the Protection of Land and Water called on the government to impose an interim moratorium on the construction of holding ponds, which government itself has acknowledged can be used to circumvent the moratorium on high-capacity wells.

With the government dragging its heels on proclaiming the Water Act (dating back to 2017!) into law, massive holding ponds like the one in Shamrock are completely legal and require no permits, even though they are in total opposition to the spirit of what the Water Act is intended to achieve in terms of careful stewardship of this vital, shared resource.

New irrigation pond raises questions in P.E.I. Legislature

Coalition for the Protection of PEI Water: Calling for a Moratorium on Holding Ponds

MLA asks why warning signs weren’t posted at Cousins Pond following liquid manure spill

COVID-19

Opposition leader questions how fast seasonal residents from Ontario are coming to P.E.I.

P.E.I. Greens question whether PPE supplies locally-sourced

Women facing 'disproportionate amount of the hardship' from COVID-19, says Opposition

P.E.I. government reopens fund to assist international students, non-profits

Green Party of PEI
http://www.greenparty.pe.ca/