After a reshuffling of its critics’ responsibilities in late May, the Green official opposition caucus saw the assignments of the Justice & Public Safety and Fisheries & Communities portfolios to Deputy leader Lynne Lund.
New Responsibilities
The Green Party of Prince Edward Island assigned new critic portfolios to its caucus members on May 25th 2021. As a result of the reshuffling, deputy leader Lynne Lund picked up the Justice & Public Safety and Fisheries & Communities portfolios as an official opposition critic.
To help constituents and the public understand the new roles of the Green Members of the Legislative Assembly, the party decided to host a series of virtual meetings titled “Meet the new Critics”. The first of these meetings was held on June 10th, 2021 featured the new roles of Lyne Lund.
In the discussion that lasted an hour, Lund who is the MLA for District 21 Summerside-Wilmot in P.E.I., was very welcoming during the meeting and explained her ideas for these new critical roles. Attendees were also encouraged to participate and to give suggestions on how to approach various issues that fall in the scopes of said portfolios, at hand.
Main issues
The issues discussed by Lund in regards to her new roles were diverse. However, the deputy leader spoke passionately about tackling the difficulties associated with access to justice. She explained how the inability to access justice is a frequent topic among constituents. Particularly, Lund highlighted the inequality of access to justice that disproportionately affects women. She stated how she is eager to make a change:
It is something I am very excited to have the opportunity to dive into.
Deputy leader of the Green Party of P.E.I. Lynne Lund
Lund further explained how the justice & public safety portfolio has about 150 pieces of legislation under it, while as the critic of fisheries & communities, she will only have to focus on five pieces of legislation.
Additionally, the topic of participation and public opinion is important to Lund. In her mind, fostering relationships with constituents across party lines is the key to successful legislation:
I would never have a conversation about a piece of legislation for the very first time on the floor.
Deputy leader of the Green Party of P.E.I. Lynne Lund
By reaching out and having discussions with both other party members and residents of P.E.I. in private, Lund expects her bills to be successful.
Projects and challenges
Lund confirmed that she has been working on two main pieces of legislation since she picked up the new critic portfolios. To note, P.E.I.’s legislature as explained during Lund’s discussion has equal party representation in all committees. This entails that opposition parties can be successful in passing legislation while P.E.I. governments have trouble blocking it.
The two current projects Lund is working on are; non-disclosure agreements (NDA) and finding solutions to the issues that surround them. Lund stressed how NDAs silence victims of sexual assault, sexual misconduct and discrimination. Thus, she has had numerous legal and local communities reaching out to her in hopes of addressing the problems surrounding NDAs.
Lund is further working on legislation to address cyberbullying. She is currently conducting research across all the Canadian provinces to identify potential effective solutions. Two constituents have reached out to Lund to express their support for solving the problem of cyberbullying as their families have been direct victims of such acts.
The main challenges that Lund expects to find are related to the scope of the justice portfolio. Due to the large scope of this file, Lund is diving deep into research and working with various actors as a goal of truly doing justice to the justice portfolio.
Another significant challenge identified by Lund was working with the Municipal Governments Act. without going in depth, Lund expressed how a lot of work is expected to be done in the communities section under her new role. Lastly, anyone wishing to access the full discussion with Lynne Lund is welcome to find the recording of the conversation on YouTube.
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