Traditionally I am a Liberal supporter, but this time I’m voting for Vancouver Centre Green Party candidate Adriane Carr. How traditional, you may ask? Well for starters, I am even a blood relative of one of Canada’s most famous Liberal Prime Ministers, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the guy on our five dollar bill. What’s more, I’ve worked on Parliament Hill for several Liberal Senators, among them, the late Sheila Finestone, a feisty champion of women’s rights. So voting for someone who belongs to another party isn’t something I treat lightly. But there are times when devotion to democracy’s integrity supersedes blind allegiance to a party, any party. Such a moment arrived for me some two weeks ago.
After lobbying within the Liberal Party for substantive reforms to our democratic system and then seeing the Liberal election platform which offered so very little in this regard, I came to the sad conclusion that unless I spoke up and publicly declared my intent to vote Green in this election, nothing was apt to change and our democracy would remain in peril. And if I may say, Liberal MP Hedy Fry had 18 years to help correct the problem, but did little to distinguish herself in this regard. So will voting for Adriane only help a Conservative to win in Vancouver Centre? No because Adriane is in a tight second place battle with Hedy Fry, while the Conservative is in third and the NDP candidate is in a distant fourth. If anything, voting for the NDP in this riding actually helps the Conservative cause. So don’t allow yourself to be taken in by the spin that says voting anything but Liberal will help a Conservative win in Vancouver Centre. It is simply not true. Voting for Adriane can both help to fix our failing democracy while also preventing Stephen Harper from obtaining a majority government. That’s more than good enough for me.
Paul H. LeMay,
Independent science writer, Vancouver Centre
See my piece on our Canada’s need for a democratic upgrade in this month’s Common Ground.
I’ve spent almost a week in Vancouver Centre helping to elect Adriane Carr as one of Canada’s first Green Party MPs. Here on Vancouver Island, polls indicate that the voters of Saanich-Gulf Islands are ready to send Green Party leader Elizabeth May to Ottawa. Both Adriane and Elizabeth are in tight races with Liberal or Conservative incumbents.
I am thrilled to be supporting Adriane’s campaign. Over the last six years, I have worked with Adriane and witnessed her tireless commitment to her work on the front lines of the campaign and against the odds. Finally, this election, the race is so close in Vancouver Centre that residents in this riding need to understand they have the exciting opportunity to change the way we do politics on the Hill by opening the door to views beyond the three-way party system currently restricting us, for a broader spectrum of voices to represent all Canadians in Ottawa. 
