Jan Norris, Green Party of Canada

Personal details. Name, age, hometown

Jan Norris, 67, Saskatoon.

Tell us about yourself

I’ve been an environmentalist for 35 years or more. I was born in New York City to Canadian parents, grew up in Ontario but have lived in Saskatoon for 31 years. I met my husband at the Zen Center of Los Angeles — have meditated for 40 years — and we’ve turned our garage into a meditation space where we welcome people every Saturday to come, sit quietly, and then share a little food and a lot of good conversation.

I’m the mother of two grown sons, have a degree in philosophy and another in fine arts, have taught art and managed buildings but only on a part-time basis. Lots of volunteer work, now with Climate Justice Saskatoon, planned for the rally and march on Friday Sept. 27. What I’d really like to do now is start a tree-planting company — an urban one — to green our city.

What’s a little-known fact about you?

I don’t have a clothes dryer.

Why should voters hire you?

I’m thoughtful and not attached to right or left. I favour local free enterprise but not big corporations that take money out of the local economy. I’d do anything to help curb greenhouse gas emissions, including taking a vow not to get into a car for a year, which I did (ie. didn’t).

Who should we call for a reference?

Karen Farmer.

What is your greatest strength? What is your greatest weakness?

Not sure … I’m a lousy liar. Is that a strength or weakness? I’m frugal. I’m not always tactful, tell it like it is sometimes when I really shouldn’t.

Where do you stand on:

Gun laws? I believe there is a big difference between urban and rural gun ownership. People in cities do not need guns (except for police) and I would work to ban assault weapons and handguns in cities — except for legal supervised target sport (handguns). I would set up a plan to pay people for turning in these weapons, and increase resources to border agents to find and confiscate illegal guns. I’m undecided about the long gun registry — perhaps maintain it in cities and let it go in rural areas — but would like to hear from police, gun owners and victims of gun violence in order to decide on that.

The need for more pipelines? Given the urgency of the climate crisis and the resources demanded to change from a fossil fuel-based economy to a carbon-free one, the Green Party would spend no money building new pipelines. We would put the billions Trudeau has promised to spend on pipelines into apprenticeships, retraining, hiring tradespeople (including oil and gas workers) to cap depleted or unused wells, retrofit millions of buildings across the country, install solar, wind, tidal and geothermal energy, and build an east-west electrical grid.

Western alienation? We would set up a “Council of the Governments” which would replace our current meeting of First Ministers and consult on all major issues. By meeting with premiers, territorial leaders, First Nations, Metis and Inuit leaders on a regular basis we hope the concerns of the West could be heard and acted upon. Personally I would support a motion to demand the prime minister live for a certain period of time (four months?) during their tenure in the West, to better understand our issues.

China? What should our approach be with some of our markets blocked? Democratic countries like Canada make a mistake when they sign trade deals with lawless dictatorships like China. We should have known better. China is a country full of corruption that has no respect for human rights or the rule of law.

I am very concerned with the trade agreement the Harper government signed with China that gives their corporations — many of them state-owned — power over our governments for 31 years. At least with NAFTA we can get out in six months if we want.

I believe we had no real obligation to arrest Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive, because what she was accused of — trading with Iran — is not a crime in Canada, only in the U.S.A. I would try and get this case to court as soon as possible as I expect her extradition will not go ahead — and then we can let her go — and presumably the Chinese will lift their sanctions against us.

Are we facing a climate change crisis? Is carbon tax the answer? Anyone who thinks we are not facing a climate crisis is not paying attention to the thousands of scientists who say we are.

Absolutely there must be a price put on greenhouse gas emissions, especially on carbon dioxide as that is the biggest contributor to global warming, though methane and nitrous oxides must also be curtailed.

The Green Party would institute a “fee and dividend” system, in which the producers of coal, oil and gas would be charged a fee at the source (the wellhead etc.) and this money would not go into general government revenues but would be distributed to Canadians, to compensate for (presumably) higher gas prices, making it revenue neutral.

Carbon pricing (as a tax or in some other form) is an important part of the action needed, as it is the most direct way to influence behaviour in a capitalist society and has been advocated by many economists, including the most conservative (like Milton Friedman).

Also we should understand  countries that allow carbon emitters to pollute the atmosphere for free will soon find themselves facing trade barriers from countries that force them to pay. This was advocated by the Nobel-winning economist (also a conservative) William Nordhaus and is most definitely in the works.

But pricing carbon is certainly not the only thing that we can do.

We must immediately begin implementing every energy efficiency measure we can think of. Canadians waste lots of energy and we have to stop — and of course we must invest heavily in renewable energy of all kinds. Our transportation system must be transformed from one based on the internal combustion engine to one based on renewably sourced electricity and, in cities, on cycling and walking.

Every political party and every sector of our economy must come to the table, express their ideas and concerns, and work on this mammoth task together.

It’s a day off and you can do anything you want. What would it be?

Walk along the riverbank with my dog.

Who inspires you?

Greta Thunberg, Elizabeth May, Nettie Wiebe, Emma Goldman, Ann Coxworth.

What is your hidden talent?

I love to draw and paint — and play the piano.

What do you wish you could do but can’t?

Speak French.

Who are the three people, dead or alive, that you’d love to have dinner with?

Virginia Woolf, Abraham Lincoln and Wangari Maathai (African woman who won the Nobel Prize).

How do you take your coffee?

Mostly black, sometimes can’t resist cream.

What’s the one album you’d take with you on a desert island? What embarrassing song do you admit to on your playlist?

Joni Mitchell, Blue, or Cat Stevens, Tea for the Tillerman. I’m not embarrassed by any I can think of.

What is your guilty pleasure?

Dark chocolate.

What is the last book you read?

Civilization Critical, by Darrin Qualman, a brilliant local author.

What is your favourite TV show?  What are you binge watching?

I don’t have a TV and never watch anything. Sorry.

What is your all-time favourite movie?

Spirited Away (Japanese animation by Hidao Miyasaki).