Fringe Fancies of the Loonie Left

There’s a running joke at work now, they are calling me “the politician’s wife.”  My friends are calling me Michelle Obama.  Well, some of them are.  Others are asking how we got involved with with The Green Party.  Except they are phrasing it, “how did you get hooked up with these flaky loonies anyway.”  To that I got defensive (as any good partisan and politician’s wife would).

“Have you even looked at any of the Green Party’s stuff?  I mean, before you start calling them loonies, you should probably read their strategy ideas.  Remember it’s the Green Party, not the Pinko party.”

To which he responded he would read the strategy document when it was released tomorrow.

Seriously, we understand the Green Party of Nova Scotia is not in a position to take power on June 9.  This is, after all, only our second provincial election.  Even David has a realistic goal set for the day.  500 votes.  That’s the goal.  We’re asking people in our riding (Dartmouth South – Portland Valley) to be 1 of 500 who place an X in the box by David’s name.  1 of 500 who place an X in the box for an alternative approach to political representation.  1 of 500 who place an X in the box to say, I agree that the envrionment, social justice, community sustainability and participatory democracy are important issues that need to be brought to the table.

Of course, if he gets more than 500 votes, we’ll be giddy, since this riding saw 308 votes for the Greens in the last (and their first) provincial election (the third highest riding in the province). But like the tagline in the Green Party brochure, we are approaching David’s participation in this election with “clear-eyed realism.”

David would be a fabulous MLA.  Although I am obviously biassed, you will probably not find a person who knows David who would disagree with this statement.  Someone with a better grasp of political theatre you will never meet.  And he would certainly make the scrum an interesting and entertaining event.

Even our former MLA from Eastern Passage, Kevin Deveaux, understood David’s grasp of politics during the 2007 by-election in the area (that David was voting in and blogging about).  He commented “Articulate, intelligent and balanced… glad to see there are thoughtful voters who are able to see through the political bullshit and make decisions based on facts.“

David would indeed be a fabulous MLA, because he gets it…

And because he gets it, I have been able to get it.  I credit all that I understand about the political process to David.  I also credit my ability to logically attack complex problems to the late night debates and intellectual sparring which often occur in this household.  Likewise, I think David would credit me with his understanding of human behaviour and social theory, two areas which were beyond his expertise, but thoroughly entrenched in mine.  David and I make a kick ass team when we combine our strengths and mask each others deficits.

In fact if David does, by miracle, manage to get elected, Nova Scotians will be getting a good deal… two brains for the price of one.

We get that there are a myriad of issues facing Nova Scotians today.  We get that these issues are complex and interconnected with our economies and our environments.  From health care to education to the increasing cost of living, we get that Nova Scotians are struggling to cope with the uncertainty of the future, because we are struggling to cope with the uncertainty of our future.

The relationships that exist between our physical environment, our economy, our culture, and our daily existence in rural and urban Nova Scotia need to be disentangled. While our current government claims to “get it”, years of mismanaged policy and finances, coupled with a ‘wait and see’ approach to the effects of the global economic crisis on Nova Scotia, proves they just don’t get it.  While our opposition parties also claim to get it, the platforms released in this current election reveal them to be clinging to 20^th century perspectives in the face of 21^st century complexity.

We really wish our politicians did get it, so that we wouldn’t feel so compelled to set aside the beautiful month of May to actively engage with it like this.  Usually during elections, we snipe from the sidelines.  We ridicule these stale old policiticans and moan about these stale old policies.  We usually hold an alcohol-fuelled salon on election night… not an alcohol-fuelled victory party.

And I have a feeling it will be a victory party.  No matter how many votes David gets in the end.  Because it turns out that this is an exercise of participatory democracy.  We may not be getting proportional representation any time soon – but we are seizing this opportunity to have our voices heard, we are seizing this opportunity to have an excuse to go knock on the doors of our neighbors and chat with them about the things that they need, and we are seizing this opportunity to get our feet wet.

Because when the time comes that Nova Scotians realize that the environment, social justice, sustainability and paticipatory democracy are not just the fringe fancies of the loonie left, but the issues which are fundamental to a truly free and just democray, David, and I and the Green Party of Nova Scotia will have more than just a platform, we’ll have an implementable plan.