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Federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May visits Nanaimo for downtown rally

Apr 21, 2017 | 5:38 PM

NANAIMO — A federal party leader visited Nanaimo for likely the only time in B.C.’s 2017 provincial election campaign.

Federal Green Party leader and Saanich-Gulf Islands MP Elizabeth May courted voters at Diana Krall Plaza on Friday, April 21 alongside local Green Party candidates.

She said she was there between other MP matters to help with a recent Green Party support surge.

“The chances of electing a lot of Green MLA’s to really improve the quality of government we get is tangible and there’s momentum,” she told NanaimoNewsNOW.

According to the latest Mainstreet Research poll, the party has pulled ahead of the NDP with 38 per cent of the vote.

May said allegations and criticisms of vote splitting caused by Green candidates are inaccurate since it relies on the idea there’s only a set number of voters in the province.

“The reality is, in the last election 59 per cent of British Columbian’s voted, which means 41 per cent of people didn’t vote.”

She said the Green Party has capitalized on gaining voters who have become disenfranchised by the options provided by the traditional main parties.

“We get some Liberals, we get some NDP but the main thing is we’re getting people who otherwise wouldn’t vote at all,” she said.

In the 2013 provincial election, Nanaimo NDP MLA incumbent Leonard Krog won with 46 per cent of the vote and garnered roughly 2,300 more votes than his Liberal party opposition. In that year, the Green Party secured 2,500 votes.

 

spencer.sterritt@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit