Frank de Jong is a Canadian politician, environmentalist and elementary school teacher. He joined the Green Party of Ontario in 1987 and became the party's first official leader in 1993 – a position he holds to this day.

[Newsletter] You spent your childhood on a dairy farm north of Guelph in Ontario. How do you think that growing up in the country in this way influenced your current views on the environment?

[Frank de Jong] As a child on a dairy farm it was clear to me that the financial health of our family depended directly on nature. Droughts, too much rain, insect infestations, the death of a cow, etc. all cause my parents to be glum or depressed, but in good times we saw them happy, confident and relaxed.

[Newsletter] Is there a particular incident or issue you can remember from this time that made you consider politics as the best means for you to protect your environment? Or did this come later?

[Frank] Becoming politically active came years later and was unrelated to my upbringing. My parents, relatives and most of our farm neighbours were Dutch immigrants who were glad to be alive after World War II; they had no pretensions to being in positions of responsibility in our community, province or country. My parents had no political involvement at all, short of voting. I think they voted Liberal, but they never said, nor did I ever ask. As a child I had no worries about the planet or local ecosystems. We assumed all was well.

[Newsletter] You joined the Green Party of Ontario in 1987 and then became leader in 1993. What is the most dramatic change that you have seen in the party during this period in terms of its approach to the environment??

[Frank] The principle change in approach to the environment in the Ontario Green Party is that we now place our economic program at the centre of our program. We never talked economics for the first 10 years and never considered the impact the tax structure or subsidies had on the environment. We assumed the economy was eco-neutral. By 1997 we had become more economically literate, always arguing the benefits of full cost pricing, internalizing externalities and tax shifting off incomes and onto resources and land.

[Newsletter] Green Parties in other parts of the world have sometimes been perceived as being fairly radical. Can you draw any brief comparisons or contrasts between Green Party activities in Canada and those of Green Parties in other parts of the world??

[Frank] Yes, most Green Parties in the world are left wing, and this is how we started in Canada as well. But unlike most other counties, we already had a strong left wing party in the NDP, so there was no more room on the left. It became clear that we should position the Green Party as a centrist party. We settled on a slogan that we are socially-progressive, fiscally-conservative and environmentally-aware. Our economic program placed us right of centre since it endorsed the market, albeit a green market. Our program treated the tax structure as a policy tool. The left in Canada continues to distrust even a green market, preferring a command and control economy, which we reject.

[Newsletter] Climate change is largely an energy issue in that the burning of fossil fuels is generally believed to be responsible for a large portion of greenhouse gases. How would the green party encourage energy efficiency for Ontario businesses to help mitigate the impacts of climate change??

[Frank] Addressing climate change is more than an environmental necessity; it is also a tremendous economic opportunity. As a manufacturing powerhouse, Ontario should be leading North America on this front, and making a profit in the process. Instead, our government is standing by while other jurisdictions take action to ensure their long-term viability.

Quebec has introduced a carbon tax and will adopt California Standard auto emissions, while B,C.'s finance minister, Carole Taylor, recently announced plans to shift taxes off incomes and onto resources. Ontario's government, meanwhile, has failed to step up to the plate, the GPO maintains.

If Ontario did away with direct and indirect subsidies and required businesses, governments, institutions and individuals to pay the true cost of energy, land and resources, we would have a much-needed incentive to become leaders in greenhouse gas reductions rather then continental laggards.

[Newsletter] The recent restructuring of Ontario’s electricity market under the current government has received both criticism and acclaim from various members of the province’s commerce sector. What are the Green parties views on the evolution of Ontario’s market as it stands today and what change would the Green Party make if it were become the government??

[Frank] Ontarians are currently paying for electricity three times: on our electricity bill, through subsidies to nuclear power, and in our health care budget (smog induced asthma, 1800 premature deaths in Ontario, leukaemia). If the price of electricity was closer to it's true cost, encouraging health care cost would decrease.

The Green Party of Ontario argues for full cost pricing of nuclear and fossil fuel generation to help Ontario toward conservation and renewable electricity without subsidies.

Presently the Ontario Power Authority spends over 60 times more on electricity production than on conservation and efficiency. But Efficiency costs less than 1/3 of new supply, and creates jobs. To get there the Green Party would apply true cost pricing done on electricity costs in Ontario, factoring in the hidden costs and subsidies. If businesses and consumers paid the true cost of electricity they would have sufficient incentives to conserve and build alternative generation capacity.

[Newsletter] So far, various subsidies and rate stabilization mechanisms (eg., the Provincial Benefit, the OPG Rebate and the exclusion of sometimes very high US import prices from the hourly market price determination) have protected Ontario electricity users from the impact of true market prices. While one can understand why this might be done from a political perspective, it nevertheless tends to frustrate the goal of reducing Ontario electricity usage and related GHG emissions. Do you think that a transparent, fully de-regulated electricity market would be more beneficial??

[Frank] Yes, but only if it is a true cost market. And we must be sensitive not to create energy-poverty by introducing rebate programs for low-income Ontarians to ensure that electricity costs do not exceed a maximum percentage of household income. But otherwise we should achieve true cost pricing, with the revenue to be used as part of a tax shift off incomes.

[Newsletter] What in your opinion will it take to encourage Ontario businesses to be more energy responsible and what action should the government take to make this happen??

[Frank] Ontario has lost 150,000 manufacturing jobs and 32,800 forestry jobs in recent years. These losses could have been reduced had the Ontario government started un-taxing jobs and businesses and up-taxing resource use. Green tax shifting would help Ontario business compete with low labour cost countries like China and India. We have unnecessarily priced ourselves out of the market.

To recover lost jobs, to create additional jobs and to reduce pollution-related health care costs this province should immediately begin to unburden the productive economy (manufacturing) by reducing income and business taxes and make up the lost revenue by collecting some of the unearned income that accrues to finite resources like fossil fuels (royalties) and land (economic rent). This tax modernization would give businesses the incentive to increase profits by going green, and employing more people, a truly win-win scenario.

[Newsletter] Is encouraging green power and green generation something that is on the Green Party agenda??

[Frank] Yes, we plan to phase out all coal-fired and nuclear power plants, and natural gas and oil power generation in areas where alternatives are possible. We also plan to invest $16 billion over 15 years in conservation and demand management programs and work with municipalities and the federal government to facilitate small scale wind, solar and other alternative energy generation. Another plan is to create a fund to help farmers implement waste management systems and explore biomass, bio-energy and anaerobic digestion systems.

[Newsletter] How do you propose to help Ontario businesses reduce the environmental impact of their operations??

[Frank] Through the tax structure. Taxes should be designed to conserve resources and energy. Rather than taxing jobs and profits, taxes should be moved to resource use and energy consumption to reward conservation. The community should benefit from the use of commonly held resources. Using resources is a privilege, not a right, and the user should pay for the privilege. Resources must also be shared with future generations and other species.

The GPO would minimize business taxes. Neither the right wing call for corporate tax cuts nor the left-wing mantra of increased corporate taxes will engender a transition to a just or green society. Reducing or increasing taxes on corporate profits is green-neutral (taxes which neither encourage nor discourage greening the planet). If the goal is for businesses to succeed and employ people, it makes no sense to apply business taxes or payroll deductions.

Moving taxes from profits and employment and onto the resources, land and pollution will speed progress toward a green industrial economy. Resource use and pollution are privileges not rights, and businesses should pay for these privileges. While business people would prefer not to pollute the planet or squander resources, the present tax structure gives them little choice. Businesses usually follow the path of least tax resistance and will readily go green if tax incentives pointed the way.

Green production means more jobs, resource conservation, and less pollution. Ecological fiscal reform and green tax shifting are revenue neutral; the collective tax burden paid by business is unchanged, but it will reward businesses that go green and discourage businesses that remain grey.