Eve of Election Day Reflections

Greetings on the eve of election night.

Thank you to the tireless efforts of our team in Vancouver Point Grey and across our province. Thank you to my family, friends and colleagues in Kits and Point Grey and around the world for your words of encouragement disregardless of the long odds we face. We embraced the underdog role in Vancouver Point Grey and do see rays of hope for tomorrow’s election.

Adrianne Carr and Dennis Perry are leading strong campaigns and are challenging for their seats in Powell River Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Garibaldi.

Janek Kuchmistrz has emerged as a Green contender in Vancouver Burrard with Stuart McKinnon, Raven Bowen, Lorrinda Earl and Ian Gregson running strong campaigns in their respective ridings. The future looks bright for the Green Party as we drew a number of articulate and empassionate youthful leaders like Ashley and Cody.

The Green Party of BC continues to mature and history could demonstrate that the 2005 Election will be remembered by the province as the election where Greens demonstrated their electability.

Our campaign in Vancouver Point Grey has been a whirlwind of activity. As predicted, Gordon Campbell maintained his Invisible Man shtick and insulted the ideals of democracy by failing to participate in any all candidates meeting. We were able to capitalize on his absence with events and releases that helped build awareness of the Green Party in Vancouver Point Grey. We have had over 80 stories published on our campaign some calling us vigourous and others calling us savy. We complemented this enhanced public awareness with grass root activities like door knocking and main streeting and the sum of these actions will translate into votes tomorrow.

Surprisingly Mel Leehan was an Invisible Man of sorts as he missed two opportunities to participate in candidate meetings in the riding (April ~ UBC Law School, May ~ Vancouver Real Estate Forum, Planetarium). I do respect Mel for his local community track record and his absence at Candidate Meetings was likely dictated by NDP head quarters who wanted to provide profile to other more electable candidates. Appreciated the kind words of the Georgia Straight but for some reason they failed to grasp the depth, professional credibility and youthful vision of sustainability within a generation that our campaign presented. I must digress briefly and say that the Georgia Straight's editorial critique of STV from a poverty perspective is hard to grasp considering that homelessness has doubled in Vancouver in three years under the current First Past the Post Electoral System.

Certain community leaders continued to lobby us to align with the NDP to ensure Gordon Campbell’s eviction from Vancouver Point Grey. Unfortunately, for the NDP and fortunately for the Liberals this time, the Green Party is a growing global party that thinks globally and acts locally. Interactions with elected Australian Greens and German Greens only cemented my belief that it is not a matter of if but a matter of when the Green Party of BC will be a major elected force in this province.

So after all the sweat, aches and tears of the campaign what will it equate to tomorrow?

Our goal since November 27, 2004 has been to double our vote total and crest the 10,000 vote mark. We entered this race to assume David’s role and remove Goliath from Vancouver Point Grey. If the youth demographic (18 - 40) has a record turnout, if enough of the elders of Vancouver Point Grey vote for their grandchildren and vote Green and if the stars are aligned we just might be able to surprise the public and pundits in Vancouver Point Grey.

Thank you to all those supporters and media outlets that have followed our campaign. We are the little campaign that could and it has been an honor to represent the Green Party of BC in Vancouver Point Grey.

We believe in long term social change and are focused on making history!

Remember to vote Yes for electoral reform and Yes to the Citizens Assembly and STV.

Damian & “The Green Machine” (Metro News, May 16, 2005) of Vancouver Point Grey