Lynne Quarmby launches Green campaign in Burnaby North-Seymour

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      SFU professor Lynne Quarmby describes her entry into politics as a candidate for the Green Party of Canada as “a sacrifice”.

      “It’s one that I feel moved to make at this time because we really need to be taking urgent action on climate change and on restoring our democracy, and I think those two things go hand in hand,” the long-time scientist and climate activist told the Straight by phone.

      Her history of activism recently culminated in getting arrested on Burnaby Mountain to protest Kinder Morgan’s pipeline expansion plan.

      “I think the experience on Burnaby Mountain really demonstrated to me that I had taken my citizenship as far as it was possible,” she said.

      “I felt that all my letters and all my protesting, and even my civil disobedience, was just not being heard, that political power has become so concentrated in a...very small, homogeneous group of people around Harper, that the only way to really make change, the only step that was left, was for me to stop complaining about the politicians and to get myself to Ottawa.”

      That’s what she’s aiming to do by running as a Green party candidate in Burnaby North-Seymour, a riding where she believes the party has an “excellent” chance of winning.

      She's competing for the seat with Conservative candidate Mike Little and Liberal candidate Terry Beech. Declared candidates seeking the NDP nomination for the new riding include former judge Carol Baird Ellan, Trevor Ritchie and Michael Charrois.

      Just as it propelled her to enter politics, Kinder Morgan’s proposal to nearly triple the capacity of its Trans Mountain pipeline will also be a focus of her campaign, which she is launching today (January 22) with Green MP Elizabeth May.

      Quarmby's concerns about the company’s plan include “the fact that we do not have a national energy strategy that considers greenhouse gas emissions, that science is telling us that we need to be leaving a large amount of unextracted fossil fuels in the ground, and instead of doing that, we are accelerating our rate of extraction from the tar sands,” she said.

      “And so my very first reason is that we need to pause and consider this before we steamroll ahead, and then the second concern is that there’s no real environmental review of this—nothing substantive at all.”

      She also plans to tackle issues including investment in clean tech, affordable housing, employment for youth, childcare, and funding for environmental science.

      “I’m very concerned that we have lost so many of our environmental scientists, that the government basically downsized environmental science hugely, and that the few environmental scientists we have left are muzzled,” she said.

      “As a scientist, I’m very keen on making a lot of noise in Ottawa about returning support to basic science research—basic, fundamental, curiosity-driven research, and in particular restoring environmental studies.”

      She believes that even with a small representation in Parliament, the Greens will be able to “hold a lot of power” after the federal election.

      “The Greens are quite happy to work with either the NDP or the Liberals in order to form a balance of power, and if we were to do that, we would negotiate on the basis of two things: support for proportional representation, and real action on climate change," she said. "We don’t need very many seats to be pretty powerful.”

      Comments

      7 Comments

      Good Luck, Lynne!

      Jan 23, 2015 at 10:59am

      Even though I'm a die-hard NDPer federally, I always vote Green provincially because I still remember Moe Sihota and Glen Clark. Also, Elizabeth May has American citizenship and I don't believe that anyone with allegiance to another nation should be allowed to hold an elected position in Canada (same goes for Stephane Dion & his French citizenship).

      I wish you every success, Lynne!

      Update

      Jan 23, 2015 at 7:28pm

      I wrote above that I objected to Elizabeth May retaining foreign citizenship while in elected office. However, I just learned (Wikipedia) that she did NOT retain her former citizenship when she became Canadian.

      I am very pleased to be wrong, because she is clearly an impassioned leader.

      Jan Slakov

      Jan 24, 2015 at 12:42am

      I consider Lynne and Elizabeth to be exceptional leaders, more comparable to Martin Luther King, Jr., James Shaver Woodsworth or Ursula Franklin than to most other politicians. I was thrilled when so many fellow citizens of Saanich Gulf Islands recognized Elizabeth's exceptional qualities and elected her - by over 7000 votes, more than the margin of victory in the 14 closest ridings which gave the Conservatives the false majority we are paying so dearly for.

      400 ppm

      Jan 24, 2015 at 11:43am

      From the brutal conditions in her own lab (http://quarmby.ca/people/), to the grueling life of a Canadian MP (http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/42m-glass-dome-approved-for-parliament-1...) yet another Gore-Texed Boomer rails against the system after a lifetime of privilege, a different flavour of Chicken-Hawk.

      And an enormous yawn to you lazy pendevils and your tired left/right, good/bad, us/them advertiser-funded typing, masquerading as reporting.

      Here, you bourgeois foreign-film-funding-phonies, look up from your technology at real activists...

      http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2014/sep/09/amazon-tribes-fight...

      and real journalists...

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabel_Hern%C3%A1ndez

      Silent Centrist

      Jan 25, 2015 at 11:58am

      I am a big fan of the Greens. I hope May is re-elected in Saanich. I also wish Bruce Hyer the best of luck.

      BUT I cannot get behind Lynne Quarmby. Lynne set out to breach a court order by trespassing on Burnaby Mountain. She was arrested for contempt of court. She has shown no remorse for her actions. Now I don't support the pipeline expansion but I expect people to abide by the law. Lynne's disdain for the law (even well intentioned) is unacceptable in someone seeking public office. I will be supporting those running against her. Unfortunately, the Green Party's association with her, reflects very poorly on them.

      Neither Silent Nor Centrist

      Jan 25, 2015 at 4:58pm

      “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
      ― Martin Luther King Jr.

      AlbertaGuy

      Jan 29, 2015 at 9:52am

      I think it is great that she is putting her time where her mouth is. I don't agree with any of her policies but admire the fact she is willing to put herself out there for hers.