How Fence Posts Win Elections

On Tuesday the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement was reached. This agreement will see environmental groups end their boycotts of forestry companies in return for a commitment to suspend logging and road building immediately on nearly 29 million hectares (71 million acres) of forest that store billions of tonnes of carbon and are critical to the survival of Canadian wildlife.

The immediate gains for those of us who are concerned about our environment and love our forests include an end to destructive logging in the last remaining forests, protection for the animals and preservation of an important resource in fighting climate change as the soil and trees in Canada's forests store up to 20bn tonnes of carbon.

The immediate gains for those of us who are concerned about the economy and jobs, are that people vote with their money when building their homes and businesses and will be using wood. Having the environmentalist community on side means that there is a huge branding advantage for Canadian wood and wood products who have been hard-hit lately by competition from Asia.

This negotiated compromise is exactly what YOUR Green Party in the Cariboo stands for. I firmly believe we must find a balance between our economic needs (eg. jobs) and our environmental needs (eg. pure air) and we have to do it by negotiating with and talking to each other.

I have been told that here in the Cariboo the Conservatives could run a fence post and win. Well, during the last election campaign that fence post campaigned with some $63,000.00. Our current Green Party bank balance is $0.00. Our CEO and I will be travelling around the Cariboo this summer meeting people, listening to their concerns, talking and negotiating for support.  Please help us by donating what you feel our mission is worth so that come election time (my guess is it will be next Fall) we can buy signs for the highway and newspaper and radio advertising. And hey – maybe that fence post will be in trouble this time.