Making a Difference: What a Green Vote Did in Saanich

Do you remember your first vote? 
I remember mine.
 
It was the federal election of 2006 in my home riding of Pitt Meadows–Maple Ridge–Mission, in British Columbia. 
 
I didn’t know much about politics, but I knew enough to vote Green. Building a strong economy around environmental policies? Yes, please!
 
In those days, people said I was throwing my vote away. No Green candidate had ever won an election. Not in Mission, not in BC, and not in Canada.
 
And let’s just say that 2006 wasn’t our year either.
 
For some reason, even people who wanted to vote Green didn’t. They were afraid of giving their vote to an underdog with no chance of winning. I can still hear my 18-year-old self complaining, “Yeah, but if we all threw our votes away together, we’d actually make something happen!”
 
Funny how things have changed.
 
Voting Green no longer means throwing your vote away. Green politicians are no longer underdogs. They’re fast becoming favourites.
 
This is history in the making.
 
Across the country, Canadians are voting for a different kind of politician. They’re asking for honest, responsible, environmentally aware people who stand up for our country’s future.
 
In 2011, we elected Elizabeth May, Canada’s first Green Member of Parliament.
 
Two years later, we elected Andrew Weaver, BC’s first Green Member of Legislative Assembly.
 
Now, we have a chance to elect Mike Schreiner as the first Member of Provincial Parliament in Ontario.
 
The people of Guelph know how fortunate they are to have a candidate like Mike. I heard him speak for the first time tonight, and he is the real deal. He is the type of person Canadians want to vote for.
 
And I should know.
 
In 2009, I left Mission to study at the University of Victoria, where I was lucky enough to settle in Elizabeth May’s riding. I’m so proud to have been one of the people who elected her. And I’m equally proud to have been able to elect Andrew Weaver a few years later.
 
Now that I’ve moved to Ontario, I have a chance to be part of Canadian history all over again. I have a Green party sign on my landlord’s lawn, and I’ll be out knocking on doors this Saturday to share my experience with the people of Guelph.
 
I’m know that Mike is going to make history this year, but he needs the whole community behind him.
 
Will you be there?
 
Cameron Butt