Elizabeth May will seek seat in B.C. riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands
Green Party leader Elizabeth May kicks off her national election campaign bright and early as the sun rose at Sea Cider Farm and Ciderhouse in near Victoria, British Columbia.
SAANICH, BRITISH COLUMBIA—The Green Party’s Elizabeth May, the only party leader without a seat in the House of Commons, said she would focus her campaign on once again trying to become the country’s first elected Green Member of Parliament.
In the Greens campaign launch in the pastoral setting of a cider house winery at sunrise, May set out a two-pronged message that her party could change the negativity coming out of Ottawa and that voters on B.C.’s west coast could make history by voting her into a federal seat.
“Across Canada, Canadians look at Parliament and think we’ve had enough, we have enough of attack ads,” said May to a crowd of about 250 supporters who arrived before dawn. “We cannot stand by and allow our democracy to be abused.”
Residents who choose not to vote because of the negative ads are only rewarding the people whose cynical tactics have been devised to keep voters at home, said May, encouraging voters, especially young voters, to vote for the Green Party.
May, who lives in the riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands after moving to the west coast in 2009, had unsuccessfully run for a seat in the 2008 election when she faced off against Defence Minister Peter MacKay, in a Nova Scotia riding and in an earlier by-election in London, Ontario in 2006.
In this campaign, she is trying to unseat Conservative Gary Lunn, the current Minister of State for Sport who first won his seat in 1997.
Hampered by less funding than the Conservatives, the Bloc, the Liberals and the NDP, May said the Green Party will run a campaign using social media tools. She will do whistle-stops by rail for some cross-country campaigning but will spend most of her time in the riding, a vast area where some parts are reachable only by float plane or by ferry.
May will have a tough fight for a seat in the diverse Saanich-Gulf Islands riding which is located on Vancouver Island and on islands located between Vancouver and Victoria. Lunn won handily with 43 per cent of the vote in 2008.
“We are in one of the greenest ridings in the country,” said riding resident and Green Party supporter David Haughton who showed up at the campaign launch. “I think most Canadians would like to see a Green Party MP and we can do that here in this riding by sending Elizabeth to Parliament.”
In 2008, nearly 1 million Canadians voted for the Green Party, slightly less than 7 per cent of the popular support.
The Green candidate in 2008 won about 10 per cent of the vote in the riding with much of the environmentalist vote cast for a well-known Liberal candidate who took 39 per cent of the vote.
While the Gulf Islands may be territory where May could grab votes away from Lunn, the mainland seaside community of Sidney in the riding remains staunchly Conservative, according to a campaign worker for Lunn.
The volunteer, who asked not to be identified, showed polling numbers to the Toronto Star indicating that the riding’s heavily populated areas on the mainland of Vancouver Island will vote Conservative.
“This remains an area with many retirees who moved out here from Alberta. They are going to stick with the Conservatives,” said the Conservative volunteer.
May is counting on voter cynicism to make inroads into the riding and promises that the Green Party will not use negative ads to divide Canadians. The party is launching what May calls a space for other parties to agree on the things they have in common.
“Let’s replace fear and mistrust and cynicism with hope and compassion,” said May. “Let’s replace self-interest with the common interest of service for the common good.”
May said there are things in common that all the parties can agree to and she thanked Prime Minister Stephen Harper for calling an election on May 2, a strategic date for her which has already become part of her slogan.
“He has given me a gift,” said the Green Party leader. “In May, vote May.”
