Chelsea Powrie Castanet has conducted a Q&A with candidates running to represent the Similkameen-South Okanagan-West Kootenay riding. Watch for the Q&A articles every morning this week. Conservative candidate Helena Konanz declined to participate. Interviews have been edited for clarity and brevity. CASTANET: To start off, a roughly 15 or 20-second pitch: Why are you running to be our Member of Parliament? PHILIP MANSFIELD: Healthy people and healthy communities rely on a healthy environment. Internationally, we know that billions are already suffering from food and water scarcity, disease epidemics and homelessness due to climate change. We're seeing this here at home in my riding of Similkameen-South Okanagan-West Kootenay, climate disasters have had an outsized effect on local industries such as agriculture, forestry and tourism. Extreme temperatures, wildfires and floods have devastated crops, forests, homes and parks. This is why I felt called to public service. If elected, I will dedicate myself to mitigating the damage, protecting your livelihood and building a more resilient future. C: This riding has been NDP since 2015, and you're running with the Green Party. What specific issues in this riding do you think that your party would handle better than what has been done for the past decade? PM: The number one thing that I think will handle better, and the reason that I'm running, is the climate disasters that this riding has faced, those need to be dealt with at two levels, first of all, preparedness, and secondly, disaster recovery and so yeah. Speaking of climate change, obviously a huge issue in this riding, particularly as we head into summer this year, wildfires top of mind for a lot of people. C: The outgoing MP Richard Cannings was a huge advocate for national wildfire fighting force that could be deployed where and when needed. Is that something that you would support as well if you were elected? PM: Yes. In fact, the Green Party has a proposal for a National Civil Defense Force, and it combines disaster preparedness with other modern issues that are facing us to do with security, such as protecting the Arctic and protecting cyber security. So we really need to be prepared in advance by changing our practices with respect to forestry and farming and other industries, and that includes creating a new sustainable, self sufficient green economy. C: You just spoke about a lot of overarching Green Party national visions, but you would just be one MP, and I think you might agree very unlikely that a Geen Party majority government would be formed in this upcoming election. So if you were one MP, one Green MP, what specifically in this riding would be your focus in terms of pushing that climate change agenda? PM: Well, the Green Party has a strong history of initiating bills and working with other parties to support bills that they believe in. The Green Party is not as constrained as some others to toe the party line. So I would be much better able to represent the citizens of this riding, I would plan to go out and listen to the many ideas of people in this riding and bring them to Ottawa with a collaborative approach, making sure that for every policy decision, our local needs were well represented. I have a lot of experience with leadership and teamwork in my previous career, leading to solutions that usually are better than all of the people who came into a brainstorming session. So I really believe in breaking down those party barriers. We have to roll up our sleeves and do the work. C: This is a really big and very diverse geographical type-of-living riding, from cities like Penticton to rural villages and completely rural areas. So what makes you qualified to represent that level of diversity in types of living and geography? PM: Well, I believe in local initiatives to make our economy much more resilient, for example, to external trade tariffs, but also greener, because we would at the same time be consuming fewer greenhouse gasses and rewarding to local residents, because the money flows back into the local economy. So you know, in examples of the kind of industry that I would like to incentivize through federal programs include small regenerative farms, farm to table initiatives that reward the farmers instead of the large grocery chains, renewable energy initiatives and value added processing of our raw materials. All of these are directly relevant to the industry in this riding. C: This riding also encompasses, as you are aware, multiple Indian bands. What specifically would you do to collaborate locally with those bands for their needs and advancement? So there are quite a few recommendations coming from the United Nations Declaration on indigenous peoples, and coming from Truth and Reconciliation Commission, coming from the [Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls] report. And one thing I would like to do is, rather than continue to talk about these things, actually act on the many recommendations that still remain to be addressed. In addition, in respect for the self-determination of indigenous people, I would deal with them in a nation to nation capacity, and make sure that their interests are being represented so that requires close consultation with the many bands that exist in this riding. C: Food insecurity is a huge issue for many Canadians. So in this riding, specifically, what do you believe that the federal government's role is in ensuring that people here have access to affordable food? PM: So I did talk about buying local and local food initiatives, including small regenerative farms. They are far more sustainable because they require fewer inputs, such as large amounts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers and water and fossil fuels. The trade is local, so we're much more immune to outside tariffs and so on. How does the federal government incentivize things like this? Well, the federal government, you know, even though there are many, much, much infrastructure, is built locally, the funds to stimulate new developments come federally, in many cases. Furthermore, I would make sure there are investments in young people and in job transition supports, through education grants through housing. So we have various initiatives that will reduce the cost of housing and will build public housing that is affordable. If you give young people a head start, then they're in a position to contribute back to the economy, and you can have a sustainable, balanced budget as a result. In addition, they will be much better able to create the new local businesses that are needed in order to create jobs locally and make us a self sufficient community. And again, those jobs, the people who get those jobs, are feeding back into the economy with their own progress. C: Well you fed right into my next question, which was about housing, so you kind of answered that already. So thank you for that. And so we'll turn to a couple of international affairs questions right now. In your role as MP as of a border riding, if elected, what would you advocate for in Parliament to help local businesses who rely on cross border trade and business? PM: I don't think we can predict and, you know, what the US will do next in terms of trade tariffs. It's changing all the time, and I don't think it's in our interests to try to be reactive to the latest changes. I think we need to move quickly and immediately towards building a much more self sufficient economy and towards diversifying both our industries that are allowed to or are able to contribute to that economy, and diversifying our trading partners. So, for example, in the automotive industry, you know, there are these deep, complex supply chains. Well, you know, Mexico is one of the partners that is participating in those supply chains, together with others such as Mexico, we need to fill in the gaps that are created by the US portion of manufacturing having high tariffs and therefore making cars more expensive. We can fill in those gaps by working with our other partners to, in effect, divvy up strategically the areas that we will expand. In doing that expansion, we will have much more control over the nature of the technology being developed, and I've advocated for incentivizing and moving quickly towards greener technologies. So, for example, incentives for electric cars. Now electric cars, luckily, are simpler and are missing some of the components that you need in a gas powered car. So for example, you know, the motors are completely different from engines. Transmissions are essentially not needed. The brake systems are quite different because of regenerative braking. So, this is an opportunity to build expertise in new industries that are needed to make us self sufficient and are needed to address a greener climate future. C: Parts of this riding are, of course, heavily agricultural and rely on temporary foreign workers. What should the federal government be doing to make it easier for those workers to find employment and local businesses to employ them? PM: We have benefited greatly from immigrants and from foreign workers. You know, for one thing, we have an aging workforce, and we need to bring in people with the right skills. For another thing, a lot of people don't have a family doctor, so we need to bring in healthcare workers. So, one way is that we can make sure that the qualifications that come from other countries translate properly to qualifications here in Canada by recognizing them, and we should break down any of the barriers that currently exist to bring in temporary foreign workers, and if they like, integrating them permanently into our economy. We have a chance to be selective and to recruit just the skills we need, which is exactly what's needed in the case where we're trying to create new industries in order to be more self sufficient. C: The US government has made recent policy changes that have caused concern for some Two Spirit LGBTQIA community members, some of whom fear that this kind of trend might spread north. Do you believe that the Canadian government has a role in policing gender affirmation? I believe that LGBTQ2-plus people needed to be treated with respect and equality the same as everyone else, and I believe that they are among the vulnerable and targeted. And hate speech is definitely on the rise in the US. We don't want that to catch on here, so we want to crack down on hate speech with stronger laws. We want to build affordable public housing that isn't just affordable but is also provides shelters for people who are targets and we need to bring security or community supports to the people who need them. C: What's something that you want voters to know about you? PM: Well, I'd like you to know what makes me a good candidate, so I don't think you've heard too much about my background in this interview. So in addition to, living here for more than a decade and having a long history of support for the Green Party and environmental causes, I have a multi-disciplinary academic background, including a PhD from Yale University. I've been a professor at University of Toronto and at Simon Fraser University. I also have an entrepreneurial background. I founded a successful BC company which I sold to Apple. I'm an inventor and research scientist with more than 75 patents and publications. I helped create core artificial intelligence powering both Google and Apple products, and I worked on a number of projects that were helping the environment and advancing the human condition. So my background as a scientist led me to appreciate the urgent need to scale back our environmental impact and restore a healthy ecosystem capable of sustaining human life. My background as an entrepreneur gives me a good understanding of what small businesses need to thrive. My background as an inventor and expert in artificial intelligence makes me well qualified to seed innovation and plan the adoption of new technology. I also have a strong track record in leadership, teamwork and collaboration. I will listen to you and my colleagues in parliament with respect, consider diverse ideas and viewpoints and constructively collaborate to solve today's difficult problems. It's possible to build a fair society with thriving communities based on an economy that is as sustainable as it's ecological footprint. I have the experience and commitment to make it happen. On April 28 I hope you'll consider voting for me, Philip Mansfield, to represent you and your voice. General election day is April 28