This presents an excellent opportunity to highlight how the Green Party makes the links between multiple issues. This fun YouTube video which is about 8 minutes gives two answers. See it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7FkfWcAOP8

The blog below gives the written version (this isn't a transcript but the arguements that I make with the more perfectionistic discipline of writing).

In 2005 Toronto had more smog days than any other year on record. You could call it the summer of smog. In fact it got so bad that the Ontario Medical Association said that 5,800 people are now dying every year prematurely on account of smog-related illness. In addition there are 17,000 emergency room visits annually caused by smog related illness, in what are already overcrowded ERs. And it will cost Ontario taxpayers $7.8 billion every year.

So tell me – is this an economic issue? Is this a health care issue? Because the premature deaths and illnesses stress and already stressed health care system? Or is it a human rights issue – because Canadians should have the right to breathe clean air.

In the 2006 federal election I am proud to say that the Green Party was the first party ever in Canadian history to call for putting in the charter of Rights and Freedoms the right of every Canadian to breathe clean air and drink uncontaminated water. So is this a human rights issue?

One in every five children will develop asthma before they become an adult. Why are we using our children as “the canaries in the coal mine” to warn us that our society has to change?

You know 30 years ago, incidents of childhood asthma was less than oen in 50 and today it’s one in five. When will we stop the insanity – when childhood asthma reaches one in four? One in three? When every other child can’t breathe properly? At what point do we say enough is enough?

One is it a transportation issue? Because smog comes from idling cars. If we invested more in public transit, HOV (high occupancy lanes), had higher gas prices (Europe pays about double what we do in Canada) all these would reduce smog and air borne pollution.

Or is it bad economic planning because the federal government is subsidizing the oil and gas industries to the tune of $1.4 billion a year – for total of $40 billion over the last three decades. So is it bad economic planning?

Or is it bad taxi planning? Canada’s 25,000 taxis on average drive 10 times the distance of a normal car every year. And these taxis are idling in city streets day and night. But hybrid cars like my Toyota Prius reduce smog emissions by more than 70% by turning off the gas engine when it isn’t needed. Requiring Canada’s taxis to be hybrids would not only have the same impact as reducing the smog by more than 70% from 250,000 vehicles – it would save cab drivers up to $1,500 a month in gas. If all 200,000 taxis in North America were hybrids with 50 mpg the industry would save more than $5 billion over the next decade!

Why don’t we build any hybrids right here right now in Canada? Do you know that the federal and provincial government has given $1,000,000,000 in subsidies to Detroit automakers here in Ontario over the last five years? Why? Ostensibly to protect jobs – and these three automakers have laid off and announced lay offs that total more than 100,000 jobs in North America. So not even a billion dollars of taxpayers money protected one single job in Canada!! So is the issue (or problem) really bad government incentives – and its willingness to subsidizing sunset companies – rather than focus on sunrise companies?

Is it as a result of bad electricity planning? The traditional incandescent light bulb is misnamed. It is in fact a “heat bulb” because 75% of the electricity generates heat not light. Here’s a staggering fact – replacing just one 100 watt heat bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb will reduce the need in Ontario to burn 533 lbs. of coal which generates smog. So if in your house you replace 20 x 100 watt “heat bulbs” with light bulbs Ontario will not have to burn 20,660 pounds of coal. That’s a lot. And you’ll save money too. While compact fluorescents (CFs) cost slightly more in the short run they save a LOT in the long run. You can now get CFs for about $2.50 a bulb when buying 4-6 at a time. First each one will last 10 times as a long as a “heat bulb” – so instead of paying 10 x 50 cents – just on the capital cost your can win with these now. But the real bonus is the operating cost dropping by 75%.

So why doesn’t Ontario Hydro or whatever it’s called now – retrofit Ontario homes rather than lobbying to build $40 billion of new nuclear power plants? So is this an issue of bad electricity planning?

Second Approach
Here’s another answer: well if the Green Party is a single issue party – we’d say that issue is about the survival of the planet. And if there is only one issue that’s crucial – wouldn’t being able to live on earth be it?
That single issue pretty much affects everything else.

The old-line parties are unable to address persistent problems – because they don’t approach either the problems or the solutions in an integrated holistic way.

For instance, health care always ranks near the top of issues of concern to Canadians. The solution according to old-line, traditional parties: argue over who will promise more money for health care.

Do you know in Ontario that 46 cents of every provincial tax dollar is already going to health care? How much more can we spend on health care?
Instead the Green Party asks, "Why is it that almost one in every two Canadians will get cancer in our lifetime?"

We think about it and say "Hhmmmmmmm we'd better stop the 18 million kilograms of known, proven cancer causing agents from being injected into our air and water every year!"

So the old line parties are single issue parties -- while the Green Party presents integrated solutions.

While the Green Party supports increased spending on health care we have to have an integrated approach that focuses on illness prevention, reduces and eliminates persistent toxins being introduced to our air and water, and focuses on health promotion.

In this sense other parties are single issue parties -- focusing on just one issue such as health care. Only the Green Party is holistic, presenting integrated solutions that work at the root cause level.

So while some people might ask "Is the Green Party a single issue party?” It is in fact the old line traditional parties that are single issue.