Politicians are afraid of telling the truth. They are afraid of the power of the people, of real democracy.

Elizabeth May is, no pun intended, a divining rod of that motherlode of what people really need and want.

Only for our children and their children, and inspired by the only Canadian politician who displays LEADERSHIP, Elizabeth May, would I enter politics.

Yesterday I also had two interviews with local papers.

Taxing carbon is the key to a liveable world for our children and the way to bring about the next, better phase of the Industrial Revolution.

We could be supporting local and regional business as they design, manufacture and sell green technologies and all the other needs of Ontarians.

But what do we do? We subsidize giant, foreign corporations who care for nothing but profit who drive our local entrepreneurs out of work. They people who used to work for them then can’t pay rent in the apartments in this riding.

The dividends these corporations “pay” are social insecurity and toxin-caused cancer and respiratory diseases.

Is it me or is something fundamentally wrong with how the three stooges in the other parties organized society?

This a follow up to volunteering in a Green campaign. I like to warn people, potential volunteers, that I live for politics. The ones that aren’t totally put off often ask why.  My very simple answer is that its fun and it lets me connect with my community on a level that I don’t usually have a chance to do.

When I first started working on political campaigns over 20 years ago I did it because I burned with a passion for politics. Like a lot of people just out of school I wanted to make a difference in my community and I thought the best way to do that was to get the people elected that I felt could make a difference. All of us who engage in the political process want that same thing. Having recently come to the Greens from one of the old line parties I have reconnected with that passion.

But what makes it fun you might ask. Working on election campaigns is about connecting with your community and hoping to make a difference. It’s about meeting people in your neighborhood and talking to them. Trust me, they are more interesting than you can imagine and they all have opinions worth hearing.

Going door to door canvassing for your candidate is not just about getting your candidate the vote, its about connecting with your neighbors and finding out what they need from politics and from the parties that lead them.

Asking someone if they will put a sign up is not just about your candidate its about your neighbors showing what they think about how they want their world to be and how they think that can come about. It’s about each of you, the canvassers and the electors, showing they care about their communities and displaying their hope for the future.

This year at some point we’ll be going door to door again to get our candidate, Charles Battershill, on to the minds of everyone in the riding and bring the message from the Green Party of Canada and our federal leader Elizabeth May into the minds of our neighbors.

Last night, at the Ralph Thorton Centre, a depressing but quite possibly real future was presented for our community:

• empty (more) storefronts on Danforth, Gerrard, Queen St.E.
• the vibrancy of our community hitting all new lows.
• the average wage in the retail sector falling. Local entrepreneurs of all ethnic groups forced out of business. More pressure on government for social assistance.
• growing numbers of working-poor people who can only afford to shop at Wal-Mart.
• we can’t see them but exploited children and adults, in far corners of the world, work for pennies fabricating the items for sale at “everyday low prices”. We can’t see it, but tonnes of carbon are emitted to bring these items here.
• thousands of cars, bringing their carbon and noxious emissions, to our lovely waterfront in the Portlands.

see www.waltown.com

If you dispute the above, then please explain how ‘is our community different from many hundreds of others in North America and thousands around the world?’

One answer is that together we will force politicians at all levels of government to hear our voices, to see the big picture, say “no thank you”

When I told them I may be the Green Party candidate for the next federal election, they explained what Greeks say about politics: “the pig stinks from the nose”. This artfully expresses the near universal distrust of politicians by regular people.

We have the power to make politics serve us.