 Thank you so much, Peter. Can I just check before I go any further that you can hear me? Okay. Hi, can can you hear me? All right. Yeah, great. Thanks, Harneet I'm gonna start off by just by doing a land acknowledgement of where I am speaking to you from I live in the Hamlet of Bonchon, which is right in the middle of the province in which I live Abaguit, which is the Magmagi name for the Colonial place we now call Prince Edward Island, but the original name of This piece of land this very special beautiful piece of land is Abaguit and it's one of seven regions of Magmagi which make up the eastern region of Turtle Island and it's a very beautiful place to live and work and I feel very blessed to be here I'm going to pick up on a couple of things that Peter said while while we were waiting for people to gather for this meeting I wasn't aware actually that Peter lived in Barry and my first ever exposure to Canada was as a 16 year old young high school Hormone driven musician Who had come from Scotland, which is where I was born and brought up with a band that I used to play with a jazz band and We did a reciprocal agreement with Barry North music and actually when I came over I thought that Barry North was the name of a gentleman who who happened to live in Ontario But I realized obviously when I got there that Barry North is the name of I don't even know if it's still there or not But was or perhaps is the name of the high school in Barry and I had the most wonderful time I was introduced to all kinds of Things exotic things that I had never experienced in Scotland Hot summers was one of them. We were here in August and it was delightful exotic Canadian women Food I had never come across before Burger King I remember the smell of going into Burger King quite Distinctly anyway, I had a wonderful experience in Barry and it's just funny that I no idea that was back in 1978 that I would end up spending the majority of my life here in Canada It was a it was a trip that I I took to again to make some music and meet some friends and Ended up coming back to Canada eight years later As a dentist moving to Newfoundland and here I am in in Prince Edward Island all these all these years later funny how life takes you where it does Peter also talked About climate change and our difference or climate catastrophe Climate emergency climate unraveling call it what you like And I remember in my first ever Green Party meeting which was in 1990 in Ottawa Back when the Green Party was very much a fledgling organization I was asked what my top three concerns were and and I said Climate change climate change and and climate change even back then it was clear that that was going to be an existential threat to humanity and It was from there that my first Green Party exposure led me 30 years later to actually finally be elected as a Green Party member never imagined in my life that I Would do that. I always felt that I was laying the groundwork for the next generation of Green politicians But again life takes you where it does So a little bit by the way, I should tell you that our legislature opens tomorrow I get sworn in at 11 o'clock tomorrow morning is the MLA for New Haven Rocky Point District 17 on Prince Edward Island and So life has been a little hectic as you might imagine for the last few weeks and tomorrow afternoon We have the speech from the throne. We will elect a speaker and we get down to business. So as Peter alluded to in his introduction When the last session of Parliament opened here on Prince Edward Island, it was a very different situation for the Greens typically if you have two Greens elected particularly in a Small diminutive legislature like the one we have here on PEI. We only have 27 seats in our legislature Two Green members would be cause for celebration and indeed it is But it's a far cry from what we had four years ago when we had a caucus of eight fully a third of the seats of the house and We formed the official opposition So It's a little bit shocking and it's been a period of adjustment to realize that we're going in as the third party We lost official opposition by one seat the Liberals have three we have two But it's you know, our voice is still there We got 23% of the popular vote 24% of the popular vote. Excuse me and We are still very much alive and very much a force to be reckoned with here on in island politics I realized I talked a lot about the Green Party here this evening And I know that this is not a Green Party event my apologies Peter for for doing that But you I think you did when we corresponded a few weeks ago You wanted to know about some of the work that our caucus has done Since becoming official opposition here on Prince Edward Island So I'm gonna go through a couple of the the achievements that we did as they relate to the journey to Diversity and the goals and the principles and values that the organization that I've just heard the it was part of the AGM for Is promoting in society? When we were official opposition we entered the Parliament and it was a minority situation So we had an enormous amount of influence and our fingerprints the green fingerprints can be seen all over Policy and budgetary decisions that were made over the last four years one of the areas where we by the way, we passed 18 pieces of Private member legislation, which is unprecedented in our in our legislature, and I'm not sure How that stacks up against other legislatures in Canada, but never before had an opposition party Brought forward anywhere close to that number of pieces of legislation never mind passing that number So we have 18 pieces of legislation which we passed on a wide range of topics We we have the strongest climate change goals in Canada And those are accompanied by a piece of legislation that mandates that government actually live up to that as you will well know in Canada we are We have no problem setting goals for ourselves when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions But we've never hit a target once never ever ever ever going right back to Rio in 1992. So The legislation we passed here, not only does it have the strongest most ambitious targets for GHG Emissions, there's also an obligation for government to meet those targets So we are in many respects far ahead of the rest of the country when it comes to insulating properties here to Installing heat pumps to having To having rebates for electric vehicles to having despite the diminutive size of our province and the So very spread out population a pretty decent public transit system Which as we know in Canada particularly in rural areas is a rare thing So there's lots of things that we are doing here well and again That's one of the fingerprints of the Green Party. We've done a lot of work on anti-poverty here We have a poverty Elimination Act, which again sets some very specific Targets that government must reach and government is obligated to do that Eliminating child poverty for example by the end of 2025 a very ambitious goal But I think it's something that is entirely achievable and we will and we will make sure that government is held to account In order to do that One very interesting piece of legislation and this one really does relate to journey directly to journey to diversity is A novel piece of legislation on non-disclosure agreements that was brought forward by my colleague Lynn Lund now sadly Lynn is one of those Green Party members who was a part of our official opposition caucus She is an extraordinary human. She was the deputy leader of the party for many many years Lynn is Incredibly smart Incredibly hard-working as a beautiful kind huge heart and Became an extraordinarily skilled legislator one of the things that as a leader It was lovely to watch was the people that I gathered around me and who ran as Green Party Candidates and eventually became MLAs in our legislature many of them ended up being far more Effective legislators than I am and that was a beautiful thing to watch and Lynn was one of those people she introduced Non-disclosure agreement legislation which limited the use of non-disclosure clauses when it came to settlement agreements in in certain cases cases Involving harassment and and that would include sexual misconduct The way things are in most of Canada including Prince Edward Island up until this bill was passed was that anybody Who signed such an agreement a non-disclosure agreement in cases of harassment sexual misconduct? The victim was not allowed to talk about it at all and And end of story they could not speak to their family. They could not speak to a counselor. They could not speak to the police It was a blanket Prohibition on any sort of disclosure any sort of discussion regarding case Which of course was an awful thing for the victim in terms of their their journey and Hopefully their healing following whatever trauma happened to them but it also protected the perpetrator because there was never an opportunity to scrutinize what had happened nobody was allowed to talk about it and consequently we ended up with serial sexual harassers and And and people who would move from one place to another with literally no history of the problems that they had caused in their Previous place of employment because nobody was allowed to talk about it. So Lin's bill removed certain aspects of that that a Non-disclosure agreement if it was to have that sort of gag order in it It had to be something that the victim was willing to sign and had had a choice of what the parameters of that were and That if they did not want that in there then It was it was absolutely all right for them to talk with you know with within certain Limits is about the case and and to to other people Very groundbreaking piece of legislation which is now being copied in I think Manitoba and British Columbia are currently Have sister bills in their provincial legislatures, which will mimic mimic the work that Lynn did like extraordinary work Another green MLA Lynn Trish Altisly in London and Trish had Were in seats next to each other in summer side Trish did tremendous work on behalf of workers. She did a paid transparency act again I'm I'm trying to tie this into the work of of journey to diversity and in workplaces and The paid transparency act mandated that employers put salary ranges when they Advertise positions and as we well know women do not receive the same amount of work for the same quality and Type of work The same I'm sorry the same rate of pay for the same amount of work and same quality of work that men do That's that's well documented. The data is absolutely clear I'm one of the ways that we can eliminate that and close the gap is to have to transparency on what on what Salaries are offered regarding particular jobs and Trish's bill did that She also brought forward a piece of legislation mandating ten paid sick days for all workers So that so when they are sick They can do the right things right thing for themselves for their families actually for their business for their company And for society in general by staying home Unfortunately that did not pass in our legislator our legislature, but it was a it was a again a groundbreaking piece of Legislation the federal government has done ten days ten paid sick days for people and we were the first province to try and Institute that at a provincial level. Unfortunately. We we were not successful One of the things I I'd like to talk about regarding a journey to diversity Is a bit about my own work life experience for 30 years prior to becoming elected? I was a dentist and Whether you like it or not if you're a dentist you are not only caring for your patients and Helping people get out of pain and do all of the things that dentists do you are also running a business and you get Absolutely no training in that at least I didn't in dental school. Maybe that's changed a little bit now But the idea of creating a culture of inclusivity of acceptance of embracing diversity was something that was an entirely foreign concept to me when I opened my first dental office again many decades ago and It was only through trial and error and through Understanding the importance of fostering respectful loving mutually Caring relationships within my dental office That I learned how important it is for the success of the business that you have Really truly deeply caring relationships with all of your employees and And it was an absolute eye-opener for me to understand that leadership involves Giving responsibility to people allowing them to be the their best selves Allowing them to have freedom to do the job in the way that they want to do it Of course within you know within the values and the philosophy of the business that you are that you are running And when that freedom was offered to my employees without exception they flourished They loved their work and I one of the hardest things after I got elected was leaving my office where I had spent so many years gathering a wonderful group of people around me a dedicated list of of patients and clients in my office My wife and I had bought an old church in our community Which was quite literally falling down and we renovated it turned it into my dental office in the community hall And it was it was a very special place And it was a lot to give up, but I can tell you that the lessons I learned about leadership In my dental office stood me in really good stead when I became a politician I understood the importance of good human relations and what they look like and how critical they are to the success and the well-being of both the individuals within an organization and the organization itself And I know that journey to diversity and workplaces is talking about the collective It's talking about creating these spaces these workplaces Where people do feel safe where people feel respected where they feel valued Where they are truly loved and cared for And in politics, that's a very difficult thing to achieve It's difficult to to achieve in a little tiny rural dental office. I I didn't have a fancy office It was beautiful, but we didn't do much fancy work We had we had most people without you know, didn't have dental insurance So it was it was a lot of sort of bread and butter dentistry But my goodness we had a we had a wonderful workplace In politics, it's much more difficult because you're living and working in what is Very often a hostile environment You have your colleagues so-called in in the house representing other parties Who for some of them their their Main purpose is to trip you up and make your life miserable and Do awful things and say awful things about you So creating That sort of supportive environment and culture that I talked about in my dental office is is You cannot translate that into the political sphere. However You can and we did Create a little safe haven and oasis if I can put it that way within our legislative office Where you knew that you were going to be supported and upheld and hugged and cried with and supported and listened to And I can't tell you how important that was in terms of our effectiveness as a legislative office Um and also on the well-being of the individuals within our caucus That they knew no matter what happened on the floor of the house or what the media were saying or any of the Any of the trials and tribulations related to the day-to-day life in politics They knew that when we came back to our caucus office, it was a place where you could feel Um absolutely accepted um and that was something that we we all Really dedicated and committed ourselves to and what a difference that made um that that Idea that you you absolutely need to have a refuge Where you know, you are loved and you are accepted for you for who you are And I think when it comes to diversity and and our journey to diversity, we have a collective um thing that we're trying to achieve together in my case it was a political party and a caucus office Where we respected each other and where we we did the work we had to do But I think we're also individually on a journey Towards understanding diversity. I spoke a little bit about how I came into this absolutely blind but through Through largely trial and error and probably more errors than anything else Understood the importance of of acceptance of embracing other people and particularly people people who were not like you and That I think we're here on this earth to learn I think that's the purpose of life and There is no Better place to exercise your option To expand your knowledge and your understanding both of yourself and of the world around you and of human relations Than in the world of politics And again, I I I learned a lot in my life as a dentist. I I brought a lot I think into our legislative office, I'm not Typical I'm not sure what people out there think what think What a a political leader could or should look like But I'm not an authoritarian person. I create space for people I actually speak very little in our caucus meetings. I'm much more interested in listening to those around me and all of those things I think And and gathering the right people around me knowing That I wanted people who were similarly Gentle and quiet and thoughtful Um, because politics is not any of those things most of the time Um, it's loud and it is provocative And it is often thoughtless so Finding a sort of antidote to that within my workplace Our caucus office was absolutely essential for me And I and we had a great diversity In our caucus and we were just blessed. That's I mean you can you can choose the staff in your office But you really can't choose the people who are going to be elected the citizens of your province Of course do that in their various districts We had a lovely diversity of people with lived history And we worked very well together took a little bit of time to understand each other and to and to Come together as a cohesive unit But we did and I know that I will look back and my political career is not over yet I'm still an elected member in our our parliament But I know I will look back at those four years particularly When we were official opposition and I I will look back with enormous pride Not just the political work that we did At the legislation we passed But also in the way that we absolutely changed The culture and the environment of our parliament Our first motion in the house was to end heckling Now for those who watch politics one of the most maddening things at least for me was People shouting at each other people shouting when somebody else was talking People not allowing voices to be heard Now I have to say there was a bit of backsliding on that laterally towards the end of the four years But it was a place where we had real debate And that's again That's something which had never happened on Prince Edward Island before it was a two-party system here Absolutely rock solid iron clad two-party system and we really disrupted that in the most beautiful way I would argue So I will look back at the work that we did here on Prince Edward Island that the leadership that our party showed in Demonstrating that politics doesn't have to be this Never-ending downward spiral into misery and mischief It doesn't have to be that way politics can be uplifting politics Politics can be noble politics can be beautiful Um, not always, but it can be if that's how you set out if that's what you want to do Politics can be a place where you can you can lift people up Where diversity can be embraced where it can be where it's something that can be cherished and I'm and I'm so proud of the fact that we managed to do that here on on Prince Edward Island. I realize I'm getting Um towards the end of the time you allocated to me Peter And I know you had you wanted to send set aside a little bit of time for q&a as well So maybe I'll just close by saying how How incredibly fortunate I feel I am and I'm an extraordinarily lucky man Um, I recognize my privilege I grew up in a family where I was loved Parents who were decent thoughtful caring people And I was launched into this world With far far more Benefits than many people are and of course the fact that I'm a cisgendered white male In politics is is an is something which I I do not lose sight of the fact one incredible privilege that is and what what um And how difficult it is for some people the caucus that we had by the way Um, there were five women and three men And I can tell you that the presence of the women in our caucus absolutely changed The dynamic the conversation Then the nature of the conversation the the the way that we listen to each other the less combative nature Of all of the debates that we had And also that the subject matter that we had midwifery endometriosis pelvic floor health um ovarian cancer women's health issues all all things which really had never been debated fully on the floor of our legislature before And suddenly with all these women there We were talking about these issues and making huge strides in terms of policy And budgetary allocations to make sure that these issues were properly properly taken care of an island and women Had a voice in legislature. It was a an extraordinarily exciting time and um, there are two of us remaining myself and carla Carla Bernard is a A teacher A counselor a therapist And I get just a wonderful human being. Um, so we have gender balance in our caucus and um, I'm Looking forward to this next session and it will be time of adjustment, but I'm I'm so looking forward to it I think I'll stop now peter and I'd be very very happy to take any questions that people have Well, I can start uh and And peter, you know, I I apologize if somebody Uh Feels that you know, this may not be the right question, but I I am very curious that you know Uh, our leader over here They have been a dentist and they have evolved from that Being, uh, you know in the, uh, politics. These are two different things. How do you manage, you know going from one to another? Yeah Thank you, harnie. Uh, firstly for your kind words, but also for your question. Yeah, they may not seem like related um Jobs, but in many respects they are um I think That what I well, let me tell you what gives me The deepest contentment in my life. It's helping other people And as a dentist I had opportunities every day to help people Whether it was to get rid of a toothache or to fix a broken tooth or to improve their smile or you know They were all kind of clean their teeth so that they Felt good about themselves again Um, there were opportunities there to help people and it was never the fancy work that thrilled me or or Particularly boosted me was when somebody came in in pain And they left my office and they were smiling and happy and out of pain um Politics when practiced well Is also really at its core about helping people the constituency work that we do and I just it's funny About 10 minutes before we came on this call and this is politics and pei for you Somebody knocked on my door And it was a constituent. I know her a little bit but not terribly well She lives fairly close by and she wanted to come in and talk about a post-secondary program that her son was doing At one of the colleges here on prince Edward island She came in she she was here for a political visit and that was out of the blue at 10 to seven She she knocked on my door And it was a great joy to she came into the house. I told her that I had this meeting Well, it was eight o'clock my time seven o'clock your time and I said to her I'm sorry pat Um, I don't have a lot of time to speak because I have to go online and speak to these people in ontario Um, but we sat down. I listened to what her concern was I'm going to follow up tomorrow and hopefully her son who's doing this program will be able to carry on doing what he's doing Um, that's just one very topical example of how politics gives you opportunities to serve other people So they're absolutely very different professions But I found I found a sort of a similar pathway into them and through them and uh using the skills that I have To offer the same thing which is to try and help people and that's again It's what gives me the most the deepest satisfaction in my life Thanks a lot for the answer No, thank you, honey. That's right. Yeah. Oh my goodness. That's uh That's a very interesting question and one I've thought about a lot peter um You know politics is baffling bewildering Um, I mean I I said lots of lovely things about the potential of what politics can be but I'll tell you um Lynn lund who whose nda Legislation I've talked about and her friend trecheltas and they're not the only two, of course We have I had a caucus filled with extraordinary people and I'll tell you If you were to do um a sort of a job assessment at the end of of of their term You know if it was a regular job and they were called into the office and they were They were having a review of how they had done All of them would have got gold stars and 10 out of 10, you know in terms of their constituency work their dedication to their constituents to the the work they've done in the legislature They're all of the public things that that you do as a uh an mla and yet almost all of them were unelected um, it politics is a it's a brutal place to be and I mean I I know that I I I knew that logically um, but when you experience it and it hits you in the face just as hard and as Suddenly and as shockingly as it did a month ago. It still takes you aback so we've we It was one of those situations It was a wave of support for a popular premier and a nice guy who had guided us through covid very well and that seemed to be enough for um his party To get the super majority they now have The next four years are not going to be easy years to govern whether you're in ontario or whether you're Pei or whether you're in france or whether you are in new zealand It's going to be a very difficult time The global economy is teetering Uh climate change is a climate catastrophe peter as you refer to it in your opening remarks um is very present and only going to get worse We have a housing crisis here on prince Edward island that I think is replicated throughout the country and around the world We have a concentration of wealth which is making Making it very very difficult for more and more people To simply meet their most basic needs. So it's going to be a very difficult time to govern I'm getting to to your question peter, which is where do you see us in the next election? I think that we have a really good chance because again, we we have had solid 20 Support that's been our baseline of support for the last four years. There's actually more than four years And uh, I don't see that going away So with this government being faced with a lot of very difficult things To to guide us through I think there's a real opportunity because For us if we continue To demonstrate to islanders that we are a mature political party capable Of governing that we have a chance to form government in the next election And I'm not that's not a fanciful thing to say and I'm saying this now a month after we were decimated um But I think we we are we're still held in high regard by the public here in prince edward island And so I would love that my my answer to your question peter is that I think we have a real chance to form government After the next election and I don't think I'm being Pollyanna when I say that That remains to be seen peter um Like most other places, uh health care is Is collapsing here on pei and I use that word advisedly um Wait times here are Are way beyond the national average We have twice the number of job vacancies for frontline health care workers on pei than we do across the country um, there are Fully 20 of the population here that does not have a family doctor or nurse practitioner So our system is stretched to the limit and um in many respects is unraveling So the idea of having medical school in one respect Um science very attractive, you know, if we can graduate our own doctors here on prince edward island and and for the first two years It's a it's a small school because everything we do here on pei is small scale compared to the rest of the country But 10 students each year Um and building up to 20 ultimately um The that and and the first two years would be entirely The intake would be Islanders people who went to high school here and obviously they have to have sufficient marks and all of the rest of it and pre-med degrees That that is going to make a huge difference But the problem is we haven't started to build the school yet Well, we just have we just put the foundation in and then of course it takes five years Of training and then two years of internship before Any of these new docs will actually be seeing patients here on pei and in the interim for the next Probably close to a decade depending on how long it takes to build the school It's actually going to be drawing human resources away from an already Diminished health system because the people who will be teaching in the institution will be doctors here on prince edward island And we already are way short of doctors. We know that So i'm not sure that we actually have the capacity here To build the school or we can build the school But whether we can actually populate it with the Instructors the teachers that we need to do it Um without further Diminishing and compromising the health system which is already in bad shape. I don't know peter. It's it remains to be seen I'm I'm at heart an optimist and i'm really hoping That we can figure this out But my goodness we need we need an influx of frontline healthcare workers including Family doctors here and specialists in order for the school to be up and running and to actually produce the students who will then fit into the system and and give us the the workers that we need but It's it's bridging getting from where we are now to that first graduating class 10 or so years from now that's going to be the real challenge And it remains to be seen whether we actually have the capacity here on pei to do that successfully I hope we do peter, but I don't know that was a long answer to what was probably you thought was a simple question It's been my pleasure. Thank you peter. Thank you. Hard neat. Thank you. Leland. Um, I've really enjoyed chatting with you