News Release
Brant-Haldimand Byelection '92
LETS get communities working
COMMUNITIES ACROSS CANADA, INCLUDING THOSE
OF BRANT-HALDIMAND, ARE
FACING DESPERATE ECONOMIC TIMES DURING
THIS RECESSION. Unemployed
people still have skills, talents and
a desire to help each other and
the community but under the current economic
structure, they have no
way of putting them to use. But there
is an alternative. It's a
program called the Local Employment Trading
System (LETS) and it
allows communities to help themselves.
The LETS is a
sophisticated barter system that enables people to
trade their skills with other local people
to obtain goods and
services they require. In a traditional
barter system, one person may
wish to trade their clothing repair skills
in order to get their
bicycle fixed by another person. A strict
barter system is limited in
its usefulness as the trade falls apart
if the bike repairer has no
need for clothing to be mended.
The LETS system
encourages many people with a wide variety of
skills to participate in the system where
they list their skills and
products that they offer. Trading is then
conducted in LETS points,
called green dollars. Each service is
allotted a certain value in
green dollars and transactions are reported
by telephone to a LETS
manager who keeps track of members' credits
and debts for what they
buy and trade, on a computer database.
Since green dollars represent
real work and talent, they are unaffected
by inflation, interest rates
and monetary debt. Fifty green dollars
in 1992 will be worth fifty
green dollars in 1999.
In the above
example, LETS would solve their problem. The mender
would get his bicycle fixed, he would
be debited points and the
repairer would be credited. The mender
could then mend the baker's
pants to build up points. Meanwhile, the
bike repairer has spent her
points to purchase toys for her children
and so on. Members can trade
using all green dollars or a combination
of cash and green dollars
depending on their particular needs.
The LETS system
was designed by Michael Linton, an engineer from
Courtenay, B.C. Linton has successfully
launched several systems on
Vancouver Island and LETS has since spread
to several North America
communities as well as Australia and New
Zealand where it has played
an important role in revitalizing the
standard of living. And it will
work in Brant-Haldimand too!
Ella Haley is
a firm believer in LETS and is offering to help
Brant-Haldimand communities set up LETS
systems as an economic
strategy -- giving them a locally empowering,
dignified, self-help
economic lifeline. Several LETS systems
could easily be set up in
Brant-Haldimand to promote prosperity.
After all, when layoffs occur,
businesses fail, and the three other political
parties can not come up
with solutions, we all still retain our
skills and desire to be
productive. LETS helps us put these skills
to use, regardless of
economic events beyond our direct control.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Ella Haley,
MPP Candidate,
Campaign Manager Jim Harris.