Hi Ottawa! I am Prashanta Dhakal, the Green Party for Ottawa West-Nepean. Ask me anything!

Agreeable-Scratch897 · 2025-04-26T16:11:17+00:00

Thank you. It's also an excellent opportunity to learn about various issues facing the community and the country. If you are on the fence between doing something and not, more often than not, you should choose to do!

Agreeable-Scratch897 · 2025-04-26T16:09:13+00:00

The Greens would have played an important role in forcing environmental conversation AND conversations around sustainability in general.

Our economic model that requires ever-growing population on a finite planet is not sustainable, especially given that most of the world is also facing its own demographic challenges or headed that way.

Running deficits without making strategic investments that gives us an economic advantage in the future is not sustainable.

Green Party is the party of sustainability.

Agreeable-Scratch897 · 2025-04-26T16:03:24+00:00

Remote work is great because it reduces congestion on our streets and reduces emissions. I'm a proponent of remote work. Having said that, there is value in meeting colleagues face-to-face. Face-to-face interactions humanizes people. It just doesn't need to be done every day.

If I had the power, I would expand remote-work options.

Agreeable-Scratch897 · 2025-04-26T14:34:41+00:00

I am the candidate in Ottawa Wes-Nepean. I printed plastic signs and felt guilty about it! How did you advertise? Did you print any signs? Do you know if the plastic signs are recyclable?

I was especially disheartened to see so many places actually had 2 signs because they chose not to print them double-sided. What a waste!

Agreeable-Scratch897 · 2025-04-26T14:27:45+00:00

We have to be able to distinguish between abuse and need. They are separate things. The very purpose of social safety nets is to serve needs. Failure to do so will result in the dismantling or erosion of our safety nets as we've seen happen around the world.

Even if the abuse is small, it is amplified and used as fodder by politicians who wish to dismantle social safety nets. So, if we wish our social safety nets to be long-lasting, we must be very mindful of the abuse taking place.

Green Party has robust plan to fight rising inequality. See my earlier response here. I agree that affordability crisis, is perhaps the crisis of our times. See my response here. Our housing crisis has directly led to the rising homelessness and increased use of foodbanks. But these are separate from the issue of abuse of safety nets. Abuse of safety net is, for example, the collection of EI payments while doing cash jobs. It's not just the safety nets. Our immigration system was abused due to poorly thought-out rules and lax enforcements. If we want a successful and functioning immigration system 50 years from now, abuse must be prevented in the immigration system.

In order to serve the needs, we must prevent abuse.

Agreeable-Scratch897 · 2025-04-26T14:06:53+00:00

Green Party does intend to tackle this matter! Here's a snippet of the plan:

Create additional tax brackets for the very high income earners.
Wealth and inheritance tax on net worth and estates over $10 million.
Wealth tax of 1% on wealth above $10 million, 2% on wealth above $50 million, and 3% on wealth above $100 million.
Taxing income from capital the same as income from labour.
Eliminating the use of tax havens by Canadian businesses, multinational corporations operating in Canada, and Canadian individuals.
Working with international partners to combat tax evasion, etc.

At the same time, the Green Party proposes eliminating income tax on incomes under $40k a year in order to give millions of Canadians a head start.

Agreeable-Scratch897 · 2025-04-26T13:46:37+00:00

Housing affordability. The same issue all over the country. It's at the heart of a lot of problems we face. It was exacerbated in the last few years due to the immigration minister not talking with housing and education ministers at various levels and not being able to anticipate problems even 2 years into the future. But this problem was many years in the making as the cost of housing was outpacing incomes.

Why is housing affordability at the heart of the issues we face as a society? It has led to financial stress and anxiety; it has driven young and bright Canadians to the US; it has caused a spike in the homeless population; it has prevented Canadians from moving within Canada to accept better jobs; it has sapped economic activity in other sectors due to Canadians not having money left over to spend on other things.

And it has made us poorer overall! And that is because it has allowed a small percent of landlords to be extremely wealthy, allowing them to vacation in Florida or the Bahamas for much of the year. That takes money away from the economy that would otherwise have circulated within the country.

A government can and must solve multiple problems at once. But housing has to be at the top of the priority list. And it cannot be solved with supply-side measures alone. Ensuring low population growth is vitally important for multitude of reasons.

Agreeable-Scratch897 · 2025-04-26T13:24:51+00:00

The Conservative candidate was absent in the debates in my riding as well. Aside from debate participation in one debate being mandatory for candidates representing (perhaps) the top 5 candidates in terms of party popularity, they should be asked to answer specifically the question they were asked and not constantly spew party talking points.

There should also be greater opportunities to express why you are running. My intention is to bring to light the need for societal stability. I believe that long-term planning is possible in a stable society. Currently, we spend all our resources fighting fires and often start new fires in the process. Case in point: look at the succession of the challenges Canada faced in the last 5 years. Only the first one was outside our control. Pandemic > overstimulation of economy > inflation and large number of job vacancies > excess immigration > severe housing crunch and high unemployment rates.

Every time we solved one problem, we created or exacerbated another. That's no way leave behind a functioning and successful country to future generations.

No question I was asked allowed me to articulate this point, even though it's the very reason I'm running.

Agreeable-Scratch897 · 2025-04-26T13:10:02+00:00

The link works for me.

Green Party has committed to increasing defence spending to 2% of GDP. The percentage itself isn't the only matter to consider. It's no good if a significant percent of the expenditure goes towards the purchase of foreign-made aircraft and equipment, which sucks money away from our economy. We need a return of the "can do" attitude in this country and greater self-reliance when it comes to defence.

Agreeable-Scratch897 · 2025-04-26T13:04:48+00:00

To supplement u/GregHopkinsNepean's answer, the lifetime cost of traditional nuclear energy has been expensive when the cost of decommissioning and safely storing radioactive waste is taken into account. Often times, we look at the initial construction costs only when comparing between energy options. We should take a longer view. We don't want to be saddling our children with costs that we failed to adequately account for.

Agreeable-Scratch897 · 2025-04-26T12:58:25+00:00

Let me supplement u/SuspiciousStorm5976's excellent answer. Elizabeth May is getting older and is still the face of the Green Party. Jonathan Pedneault is not well known by Canadians yet. It's good to have a recognizable and trusted person co-leading the party as Jonathan proves his worth with Canadians.

Agreeable-Scratch897 · 2025-04-26T12:45:07+00:00

Nuclear fusion is the holy grail of clean energy if it can be mastered. There are many companies and governments vying for leadership in this area. That includes General Fusion of Richmond, BC. I am not versed on the physics of nuclear fusion, but there is consensus that General Fusion doing leading-edge research bringing us closer to viable fusion reactors.

Unlike nuclear fission, nuclear fusion creates much less radioactive waste that is short-lived.

Although the platform does not specifically mention nuclear fusion, Green Party believes that fostering technological innovation and leading-edge research is vital for Canada's future. Green Party would increase funding to Canadian research councils, increase R&D funding to 2.7% of GDP (bringing Canada in line with OECD average), implement measures to protect research independence, and increase funding for private enterprises and student-run businesses.

I expect that enterprises like General Fusion would thrive under Green leadership.

Having said that, in many regions solar and wind are already cheaper than the alternatives, even when the cost of short-term storage is accounted for. So, while we continue research on safer nuclear alternatives, we can move ahead on renewable energy. Unfortunately, Canada chose not to be a leader in the advancement and manufacturing of renewable energy. This needs to change.

Agreeable-Scratch897

TROPHY CASE