Owen Sound resident Emma Jane Hogbin will represent the Green Party in the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound riding in the next federal election.
She won the nomination over Lynn Morgan in a meeting on Tuesday night at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre.
Hogbin says she’s excited and proud and looks forward to becoming the party’s first Member of Parliament, whenever the next election is held.
She works as a technical author and website builder and served as a web consultant on two previous Green Party campaigns.
And technology will be a big part of her campaign. Hogbin says she’ll consider many different ways to spread the party’s message while working to reduce the impact the campaign will have on the environment.
Hogbin says she can win Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, where the Greens have performed strongly in past elections.
But it will take work, she says, adding she hopes each person who voted Green last time will do so again and convince two friends to also do so.
It meshes with the words of party leader Elizabeth May, who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting and pointed out the party’s growing strength even as fewer Canadians bother to vote.
The Greens were the only federal party to increase its popular support between the 2006 and 2008 elections, gaining more than 270 thousand votes.
That was despite a record low turnout of only 59 per cent of eligible voters.
Still, the gains were not enough to land the Greens a seat in the House of Commons.
The Bloc Quebecois, with only about 440 thousand more votes than the Greens, ended up with 49 seats.
It’s an issue that must be addressed, May says, noting that Canada is one of very few countries left in the world that still use a first-past-the-post voting system.
But May, who considered running in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound herself before deciding instead to contest a B.C. riding, says local Greens are strong enough to win the traditional way with a homegrown candidate.
Randy Dryburgh, co-CEO of the local riding association, says he doesn’t expect the next election to be held this year.
This is good news for the Greens, who can work at getting Hogbin into the public eye with plenty of time before a vote is actually called.
