{"id":31366,"date":"2022-05-26T17:42:29","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T21:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=31366"},"modified":"2022-05-26T17:49:34","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T21:49:34","slug":"newmarket-aurora-votes-2022-time-is-running-out-for-meaningful-change-says-green-party-candidate-rodriguez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/newmarket-aurora-votes-2022-time-is-running-out-for-meaningful-change-says-green-party-candidate-rodriguez\/","title":{"rendered":"Newmarket-Aurora Votes 2022: Time is running out for meaningful change, says Green Party candidate Rodriguez"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Time is running out for the change we need, but a vote can help us get closer to where we need to be, says Carolina Rodriguez, and this is what inspired her to represent the Green Party in Newmarket-Aurora in this spring\u2019s Provincial election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Rodriguez wants to make a meaningful contribution to her children\u2019s future and those of her grandchildren, and in doing so, she says she found a perfect fit within the Green Party of Ontario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cClimate change is getting scarier and scarier as we move on and we\u2019re not changing the way that we behave here in Ontario and the way our policies are in regards to energy production and fossil fuel use,\u201d she says. \u201cWe are in one of the most privileged places in the world \u2013 we have the technology, we have the funds, and the capability of moving beyond fossil fuels, but for some reason we have not been able to do that. I want to contribute to the movement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being part of the movement includes a well-thought-out environmental plan, and that is why she was attracted to the Green Party. It\u2019s a platform, she says, that not only has the right \u201csense of urgency\u201d but looks at the environment and policy from a holistic perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Green Party is kind of seen in the general eye as [just] conserving things \u2013 conserve the environment, conserve the trees, don\u2019t build, don\u2019t develop \u2013 but it is really not true,\u201d says the 22-year-old Newmarket resident. \u201cThe Greens want to grow and expand into various different aspects than just planting trees or putting boundaries on lakes and rivers; we look at society as a whole and we see the different things that the environment has on every single aspect of society, and that\u2019s what makes us different from so many other parties. It\u2019s not that we ignore the other side, but we actually include the environment in everything and we want to make a holistic society that has the environment within social policy as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going door-to-door this election campaign, Ms. Rodriguez says the top issue she is hearing from voters is housing and affordability. As a recent student, she says she \u201cknows we will not be able to afford homes if things continue this way\u201d and if the government doesn\u2019t do anything \u201cthan just build homes \u2013 because that is the policy of four years ago and it only got worse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making sure communities like Newmarket-Aurora are as efficient and accessible as possible is a top priority for Ms. Rodriguez should she be sent to Queen\u2019s Park on June 2. This, she says, includes the development of transportation options for the community \u2013 and ensuring communities are as complete as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHighway 413 and the Bradford Bypass are not needed by us,\u201d she says. \u201cWe already have a lot of cars on the road every single morning and going back home every single night and those commutes will not change in length because of the 413 or the Bradford Bypass \u2013 maybe by 60 seconds maximum, while costing $10 billion to the taxpayers. We don\u2019t need to look outwards, we need to look inwards. We need to make sure Aurora and Newmarket has the public transportation infrastructure in place and has that to be able to be affordable for so many people. We need that to be our first option. We also need people-powered transit; we need to be able to commute in our own communities for 15 minutes for everything, from work, school, play, relaxation and socialization. We need that to be in our communities and not outside of them. That is not only how we decrease our greenhouse gas emissions but it is also how we improve our own community cohesion and how we build safety in our communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe really need to focus inward, we need to focus on Newmarket-Aurora and what they specifically need. We need to build small businesses to make sure people have a source of income here and don\u2019t have to look outside. We need to be able to look at affordable housing so people can live where they work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The voting system, she says, is \u201cnot representative of the people who live within it\u201d and that could be an uphill climb for Green candidates like herself. Making people feel genuinely represented at Queen\u2019s Park is something she says that needs to be earnestly tackled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur leader, Mike Schreiner, was the only Green Party MPP in the last four years and the amount of change he made is significant,\u201d she says. \u201cHe put himself out there, he stood strong for the people who voted for him, and he made sure Green values were heard throughout Parliament. When I talk to people who want to vote strategically, I talk to them about the importance of voting for what they actually believe in regardless if it is Green or not. It is important for our democracy to be able to vote for what you believe in and even if let\u2019s say I am the only one who goes to Queen\u2019s Park with Mike, I know we can get a lot done together, especially seeing what he has done for the last four years and I know the people of Newmarket-Aurora will be adequately represented with parties that they actually believe in that will have their best interests in mind and genuinely cares about them as a community not just their own power-grabbing expansion of everything model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs [an immigrant] I know what it is to be an outsider and make your way here and what it feels like to completely leave a big part of your life behind. I think that gives me a lot of compassion for a lot of others who have led difficult lives, difficult stories, and the ways we all come to Newmarket-Aurora because all of us are immigrants here in Canada and we need to be able to hold that compassion with each other and be able to represent each other as adequately as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time is running out for the change we need, but a vote can help us get closer to where we need to be, says Carolina Rodriguez, and this is what inspired her to represent the Green Party in Newmarket-Aurora in this spring\u2019s Provincial election. Ms. Rodriguez wants to make a meaningful contribution to her children\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/2022-05-26-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-89U","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 09:26:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}