Saturday, August 10, 2019 ~ SAANICH
by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
In a community hall on West Saanich Road on a warm summer Friday night, about 90 people gathered to hear Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and local Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke Green candidate David Merner on issues of the upcoming federal campaign.
Gearing hard toward the October 21 federal election, May — who has been the only Green MLA in the House of Commons in 2015-2019 (other than a short stint by Paul Manly who won the spring 2019 byelection in Nanaimo-Ladysmith) — says she sees strength on the west shore for Merner in Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke as well as for Lydia Hwitsum in Cowichan-Malahat-Langford.
The town hall meeting in Saanich Friday night August 9 was an opportunity to move along the message about Greens representing climate change but also a ‘new way of doing politics’. This is not the first town hall where Merner has had May there for additional promotion.
For Merner this political opportunity is about capitalizing on the momentum of interest in climate change in a riding where as a then-Liberal candidate in 2015 he came in a significantly-placed second behind Randall Garrison, MP (incumbent 2019). And because he is hearing a common thread among people in the community about wanting to see things done differently in politics.
For May it’s about the Greens winning big-time on many levels in the election that fast-approaches. She has almost single-handed led and built the party to a point of critical mass where now suddenly the Greens are a force to be reckoned with.
“We have real potential to win seats just about everywhere in Canada,” said May in an exclusive interview with West Shore Voice News ahead of the town hall meeting. “There is a lot of Green support in places where we didn’t use to have it,” she said, particularly noting Atlantic Canada and Quebec.
“Quebec is a wild card — it could go with a lot of Green seats, or none,” said May. She sees Quebec “in a state of flux”, and compares that to “before 2011 and the NDP wave that has now receded”.
How many Green seats are needed for that balance of power that May has been talking about wanting to achieve in the October 2019 election results? “Enough to be the balance of power, and we don’t know that number. Vancouver Island is obviously where we think we can sweep the whole island. But we are seeing a lot of Green support where we didn’t used to have it,” said Elizabeth May on Friday evening.
May says that BC and Quebec are the two provinces where support for climate change is at the highest level. During the town hall meeting, climate change was the content of most of the remarks by May and Merner in response to questions from the public. May says the challenge of containing the global temperature increase to 1.5°C, in the next 11 to 12 years is “mission possible”, but it won’t be easy.
Merner also spoke about how well Canada does in resettling refugees, and how Canada is experiencing “a generational effort to reach out to First Nations”.
May added that refugees now include ‘climate refugees’ — people who must flee their home region due to the impacts of climate change. Under present projections, apparently there are going to be tens of millions of climate refugees. If the global community misses the mark of containing the temperature rising at 1.5°C, then the number of climate refugees heads into the hundreds of millions within the scenario of a temperature rise of 2°C, said May.
While the Greens are attracting younger voters, the majority of the people in the room last night were over 50 years of age, and some quite elderly into their 70s and 80s. Merner says people are realizing — after lived a long life — that politics of the past hasn’t served well for protecting the planet and that older folks want to leave a better world for their children and grandchildren. They are looking to the Green Party for leadership in that, he said.
Merner impressed the crowd with his fluent French. He brought out some deeper political aspects of climate change nuances around the world, such as perhaps China changing over a lot of coal-burning instead to green tech but that for Canada the larger power to watch is India where a democratic system makes collaboration more feasible in the short term.
West Shore Voice News was the only media in attendance at the August 9 evening meeting. Both May and Merner noted the importance of local journalism, with Merner commenting specifically on how the Liberals brought in tax breaks for larger media that are actually squeezing smaller news outlets to the disadvantage of communities and the service of democracy.
“This election is totally different,” says May. “The last election was about ‘who can get rid of Stephen Harper’. There’s not that sense of ‘throw the bums out’. There’s disillusionment about Trudeau, but not hatred.” she said.
“There’s not any real excitement about (Conservative leader) Scheer, he’s falling flat. His opportunity was when the Liberals were in free-fall in the spring … but the Liberals have broken that. Right now, if things hold, it’ll be a minority parliament. The number of seats we need is unknown, what we need, just enough,” said May.
Where will May spend time in supporting candidates in this election? On the south island she says she will spend as much time as she can with David Merner (Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke), Racelle Kooy (Victoria), and Lydia Hwitsum (Cowichan-Malahat-Langford). “That’s an amazing group of candidates.” Adding: “And of course Paul Manly (Nanaimo-Ladysmith) getting reelected, Sean Wood in Courtenay-Alberni and Marc de Bruijn (North Island-Powell River). I will certainly help them out as much as I can. But I have to also be across the country a lot,” said May. She’s off to Winnipeg next week (Manitoba provincial election is on September 10).
For May the over-riding goal is about building the Green momentum at all levels across the country. Presently at the provincial level there are Greens elected in Ontario, New Brunswick, PEI (where they are the official opposition), and in BC (where three MLAs hold the balance of power).
The Friday night town hall formal portion in the main hall at Royal Oak Women’s Institute on West Saanich Road ran til about 8:30 pm, with many people lingering afterward to speak with May and Merner more casually. Merner says he chatted with almost everyone in the room in the hour ahead of the meeting, getting a good sense of their level of interest in the Greens.
There is a strong contingent of young voters who are helping Merner with his door-knocking. They go out in teams of 10, aiming to cover all of Esquimalt, Colwood, their section of Saanich, Metchosin, Sooke and Juan de Fuca west to Jordan River in their self-assigned 10-month time frame since December 2018.