It looks like an orange tsunami is about to sweep over Nova Scotia. If the polls are to believed – and that’s a mighty debatable if – then the New Democratic Party is about to grab virtually every riding in the province outside of the Valley and Cape Breton. A prevailing sense that it is simply the NDPs turn is in some measure responsible for this wave of support, but profound disenchantment with Rodney MacDonald’s Tories has much to do with it as well.
The seeming inevitability of such a strong NDP showing on election night has convinced me more than ever that the Green Party has a necessary voice to add to the political spectrum. I am going to give Darrell Dexter the benefit of the doubt, and hope that he will not govern from as far to the right as he has campaigned. I am assuming that, sure of support from the NDP base, Mr. Dexter abandoned addressing social issues in this campaign for fear of putting off small-c conservatives and small-l liberals, who might come to the NDP camp if Dexter hammered home the point of fiscal responsibility. Plus it isn’t a bad point to hammer. It’s important.
But social responsibility is just as important, and here is where the Green vote counts. Every vote that is pulled away from the NDP that lands in the Green column will remind Mr. Dexter and his band of new New Democrats that Nova Scotians want socially responsible legislation. That it isn’t all about the budget for everybody. That, for some of us – a lot of us – it is about the people. Every vote that lands in the Green column reminds Mr. Dexter that Nova Scotians are looking to make a better province for their children and their grandchildren, not just an HST cut on electric bills and a few new emergency room beds. That we want our government to make ethical decisions, like getting out of the VLT business. Every vote that lands in the Green column reminds the new government that our physical environment is something we care passionately about. That our health care system should be the greatest in the world and that it can be if we take a holistic approach and listen to the nurses and nurse practitioners and other health care professionals in our province. Every vote in the Green column reminds Mr. Dexter he cannot take the voter for granted and that he must craft a vision that looks beyond the next election or two.
And so I return to the theme with which I started this campaign: 500 votes to increase the voice for sustainability, self-sufficiency, and social responsibility. We’re in the last days of this campaign (and I admit that I’m looking forward to some quality time with my boys when this is done), but the real work for the Green Party starts after the election. The real work starts with us standing and using our small but growing voice to speak to the government, with the citizens, with the wonderful people who do so much good work with the province’s non-profit organizations. The real work begins with connecting with the disenfranchised; with poverty, health, education, and environmental activists; with the working and the non-working poor.
The other parties will stop campaigning when this election is over, but that is when the Green Party should really begin.
