A number of people have now approached me with the idea of entering the provincial NDP leadership race. This is so interesting. All I have ever done is try to protect the people and wildlife of my home in the Broughton Archipelago. My goal in life is to be out in my boat as a field biologist. For this I have won your trust.
Some in the NDP and over 1000 of you think I am a serious contender for MP of the Northern Vancouver Island. This has caused a collision of thoughts and emotions which I am trying to boil down to why I would do this. The wisdom and encouragement all of you have offered has added immeasurably to the depth of my considerations.
I am considering becoming a part of government to attempt to shift the course of politics back to serving us. We want towns that are content and flourishing, not being rapaciously devoured as we hope for crumbs. I watched political decisions destroy my town of Echo Bay so that today we are largely a ghost town surrounded by corporate feedlots. The salmon, bears, whales and people are suffering, government lost our taxes, Port McNeill lost our steady commerce 12 months of the year and BC has lost part of its culture. Who is benefiting from this? Not us. When I walked Vancouver Island and traveled through the interior 100s of people described a similar experience.... Afraid to lose jobs we have allowed a non-human, inhuman economy to grow, which is now pushing us aside. We pay to care for our forests and so should be benefiting from them, but raw logs are being shipped oversees. This hurts our environment, the economies of our towns and destroys our children's future.
International businesses will never be content as by their own constitutions they have to show growth, not best local yield from each tree cut down. They have no alliance to us. As soon as we have nothing left they leave. The current economy is gouging holes in the places we call home to the benefit of people we don't even know. But can we bring government back to us, by electing us if we use the existing political parties, or are these parties too entrenched in corporate and other relationships, hinged on too many compromises to be able to come back to us? We are frozen in fear of vote-splitting, but is there another option? How many of you would stand with me as candidates to re-ignite local economies? Wilderness tourism is a 1.5 billion dollar local industry that the province is pretending doesn't even exist. Why? Likely because it requires the same intact living world that big business has laid claim to. When I speak to bureaucrats they complain small businesses require too much paperwork. They would rather work with one big company. Well that is wrong we are paying their salary. No one need fear this. Look at the condition of our small towns province - wide, are they thriving under this type of management? We will never save the salmon, the trees or the whales unless we save ourselves. We need to learn how to come into ecological compliance. We need to learn how to prosper because no balance will be struck until we move past this desperate half-starved, hand to mouth, over-consumption of our world and relearn how to be content.
Can this change be done from within existing parties? Who are these parties?
The BC Liberals say:
"commitment to achieve a fair-minded and prosperous society by means of a sustainable, competitive and compassionate free enterprise system, in which individual initiative is balanced by protection of the rights, freedoms and dignity of all individuals,"
That sounds great.
The NDP say:
"Sustainable BC is our vision. We believe it offers a way forward for all British Columbians"
Excellent
The BC Green Party says:
"committed to a competitive and green economy. Creating a green economy will create new industries and tens of thousands of new jobs"
They all sound good, so why are we at this junction where the two dominant parties have no head, the Green Party cannot get anyone elected and the concept of corruption in government is widely accepted?
Several people have asked me to consider entering the provincial NDP leadership race. This is pretty huge, but the idea of entering the provincial NDP leadership race is fascinating. I think we need to know who the NDP are and this might be a way for someone to find out.
On the other hand what about a rise in independent candidates, each answerable only to their constituents that run only in ridings that need this?
I will continue to try to read all your answers, because YOU are brilliant and you know your communities and are teaching me so much. I remain undecided on all fronts as there is so much to evaluate and please remember I am just a field biologist.
alexandra
