Election Day

Well, the 'day of reckoning' is here.

This campaign was a great learning experience for me. I don't envy whoever has to run against me next time, I will be much more prepared!

The all-candidates meetings were one of the more successful aspects of my campaign. I was able to pull decided voters for other parties over to the Green side, which can be tough to do when most people who show up to those already know who they are voting for. We were the strongest sign presence along 12th Avenue and Broadway, but I'll be the first to admit that through the rest of the riding I had to do better.

I was able to pull off a remarkably low waste campaign, using previously used municipal election signs for all of my lawn signs, and making 'informational posters' instead of brochures which allowed me to use 250 sheets of paper instead of 20,000+.

The biggest struggle through this campaign was doing too much on my own. I realised that the Green Party has a long way to go in building the infrastructure to win a campaign. We need to look at things like forming constituency associations. This had a lot to do with me taking on so many roles it was tough to do any of them effectively. If we want to truly compete with the other parties, we need a group of people within the riding who meet regularly and are ready to build an election team from their various networks before the election.

I think in realising how far we have to go, it is important to recognise how far we have come. On Earth Day I had the pleasure of listening to Adrianne Carr and Elizabeth May speak. Hearing about their struggles in the early days of the Green Party when the party was polling a fraction of a percent or a couple of percent, it was encouraging to think that we are now unquestionably seen as BC's third party and are really the party with all the momentum.

We may not do it this time, at least in Vancouver Hastings, but we are laying some excellent groundwork for the future. For now I'll cross my fingers and hope that STV goes through and we are preparing for the next election under that system, but either way the work begins tomorrow.

My rational hopeful prediction is that we can draw 20-25% of the vote in this riding, giving us a solid base to build a win from next election. If all the stars were to align perfectly, the ultimate result for this election would be a win amongst a handful of strong Green MLA's, and a tie between the NDP and Liberals. I'll have to keep the fingers on both my hands crossed for that one though!