Andrea Gunner, Green Party candidate for the North Okanagan-Shuswap, tends to the chickens on her organic farm in Spallumcheen. (photo courtesy of the Green Party, North Okanagan-Shuswap/Facebook))

By Liam Verster

Election 2021

Climate change a key issue for Gunner’s Green campaign in North Okanagan-Shuswap

Sep 15, 2021 | 5:00 AM

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of articles on the North Okanagan-Shuswap federal election candidates, running in alphabetical order.

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Andrea Gunner is looking to bring her knowledge of agriculture to Parliament as she runs for the Green Party in the North Okanagan-Shuswap riding.

Gunner, who is an agricultural economist (agrologist), grew up in Vernon. She and her adopted parents moved to Vernon when she was just 18 months old, and Gunner said her parents were very involved in the arts community and her dad was a teacher at the Vernon School and then at Seaton.

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Gunner left to go to university at the age of 17, but returned to raise a family in the region when she was in her late 20s. She has lived in Spallumcheen for the past 30 years, where she and her husband run their own organic farm. Gunner told Vernon Matters that she is involved with a number of community groups in the region, including one focusing with food access and food security.

Gunner said she has been asked in the past by the Greens, NDP and the Liberals to run in the North Okanagan-Shuswap riding because of her stance on climate change, which she said is the most serious threat to Canada, and only decided to run in the 2021 election because of the Green’s strong stance on climate change.

While it is the key issue for her, Gunner said climate change wasn’t the only policy that attracted her to the Green Party.

“I was an activist for Amnesty International many, many years, and the Green Party’s commitment to social justice and social equality resonates really strong with me,” said Gunner.

“The reason that I said yes (to running) this time, is because I’ve been pretty depressed about climate change for about 10 years until 2018. Then in 2018 I started reading about neurology, new things in brain elasticity and plasticity, trying to understand why as a species we were ignoring the fire on the horizon.”

Gunner said this led her to researching soil microbiology and applying new practices on her farm that has led her to making real headway in soil restoration.

“In Canada it takes, on average, 500 years to make one inch of top soil. In less than 30 years we’ve [her farm] got six to eight inches of top soil on the tops of our hills where we have pocket gophers and voles and moles tunneling because there’s so much soil there. That has given me hope for the future, and the Green Party is the best fit.” (Andrea Gunner, Green Party candidate)

She added the Green Party is a science-based party, and will likely take her practices and try to implement it across the country so other farming communities can restore their soils and improve their crops. Gunner has also stated that healthier microorganisms in soil can lead to better water retention, which will lead to less droughts, and is also a very valuable resource for capturing carbon.

Andrea Gunner, Green Party candidate (Photo courtesy of Green Party of Canada, North Okanagan-Shuswap/Facebook)

Gunner told Vernon Matters that climate change has been a very prevalent issue this summer with the heat dome and the wildfires and smoke, and with the world getting warmer and drier. She said it’s causing a lot of problems, including putting people’s lives and livelihoods at risk, and more needs to be done to combat it.

“We need to manage our urban woodlands much better, in terms of FireSmarting those; we need to reduce the waste in our forestry industry; and we need to look at long range planning that really looks at the ecological changes, changing the diversity in our forest rather than a single species monoculture,” Gunner explained.

She added another key issue that needs addressing is clean water.

“At any one time, there are 160 to 170 boil water advisories in rural and Indigenous communities in B.C. We are a very rich country and that is just not the way it should be, we can, and should be, doing better.”

Gunner told Vernon Matters that affordable housing is another key issue that needs to be addressed in the region, as does assisting the homeless population. One of the ways she proposes addressing that last issue is by decriminalizing drugs.

“Individuals who are using drugs and have got the shame and the societal distrust, mistrust, that really needs to change. The same way prohibition didn’t work 100 years ago, criminalizing drug users is not helping. RCMP and police forces across the country have repeatedly made that call.”

She said decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use will allow police to focus on the bigger issues of drug trafficking and toxicity, adding that the average of six deaths a day in B.C. due to drug poisoning is not acceptable.

Gunner stated that not all homeless people are drug addicts, noting that some have fallen on hard times after losing jobs and then their homes, and others have mental health issues which led them to living on the streets. She wants to see more done to create policies that address these issues, though she does admit that more data needs to be collected on the homeless population so that specific resources can be allocated to deal with the most pressing issues and help get these people back on track or into programs that they require.

“The Green Party has a science-based platform, and the thing about science is you can’t actually make any decisions until you study it,” said Gunner.

“You collect some data and then put all the perspectives all the diversity of perspectives and resources into that problem, looking at what the actual situation is. So not just getting accounts from people, but actually collecting information on a ongoing basis so that you have a bit of a data set to work from to see what the trends are. It’s pretty clear in Vernon that the trend is increasing, it has been increasing for a number of years, where people have insufficient or substandard living conditions.”

Gunner told Vernon Matters the Green Party would look into a guaranteed liveable income, which has been studied by many people including former vice-president of the United States, Dick Cheney, who wrote his Masters thesis on the benefits of a liveable income. She said the Green Party would study that and other peer-reviewed studies, as well as how other countries have implemented guaranteed liveable income, and use those models to shape a policy that would work for Canada.

Gunner went on to say the COVID-19 pandemic has really shown the gaps in the health care system and more needs to be done to address those needs and solve the problems.

The Green candidate said treaties with First Nations need to be honoured, and the nations that have not signed treaties should be helped to identify their needs so they can be repatriated. On the national front, Gunner said the Indigenous nations need to be made equal partners in setting national policy priorities.

“The fact that the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, those recommendations have not been [addressed] … we’ve addressed, I think, ten of those 94 recommendations, and we haven’t addressed those 10 completely, we’ve only started work on it. The other big big thing is a national strategy for housing and for clean water and food security [is needed].”

She added that, as the Green Party does not have a party whip, Gunner would be able to vote for the needs of her constituents rather than along party lines if elected.

Gunner also hopes people go out to vote, but more importantly, that they also voice their concerns to their local representatives so that those issues can be brought to Ottawa and work can be done to make changes for the better.

Other profiles:

Mel Arnold Conservatives

Kyle Delfing People’s Party

Shelley Desautels Liberal

Ron Johnston NDP