I’m John Kidder. I’m running in Mission-Matsqui-Abbotsford for the Green Party of Canada.

This election, more than ever before, Canada needs your vote. It will be the most important election we will ever experience. Because of Mr. Trump’s unpredictable challenges, the election is becoming a referendum-style choice between Mr. Poilievre and Mr. Carney. Smaller parties are likely to get squashed between them.

Brad Vis is a fine MP, and an altogether good man. He is the sure winner in Mission-Matsqui-Abbotsford. So there will be a lot of second votes in play.

If you’re not firmly committed to Brad, and even if you are, please consider voting for me. Everyone in Canada deserves a chance to vote Green, so that at least the popular vote has a chance of reflecting the popular will.

I want to finish second, with enough votes to fairly reflect your feelings.

I ran for election as a Green here in Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon in 2019. I know people get the climate crisis. People know we can’t trust the growing divide between the very rich and everyone. And Mr. Trump brings us new, profoundly unconventional problems. We need better than the profoundly conventional solutions proposed by all the other parties.

I suggest that you vote Green. For forty-five years so far, working from the same basic values all over the world, Greens pioneer policies that later became accepted law. Our platform (link here) has new ideas to make the economy work better for everyone, to better share the wealth generated by our enterprises, and to work within our environment in a manner respectful of all beings, of all our relations. It’s not conventional.

I have made my living as a cowboy, a farmer, a range manager, a miner, a fish worker and a warehouseman. I was an environmental economist, an early computer adopter and an entrepreneur in electronic music, software and fibre optics. I have lived around Canada – I was born and raised mostly in the North, in Québec and Ontario. I lived and worked all over the southern interior and south coast of BC for years. My family grew up in Vancouver and Ashcroft.

I know how the land, the air, the water, and human effort and capital, work to give us all our livings.

We all know Canada is one of the most fortunate nations in the world. It’s not broken, but we have surely taken some wrong turns. We have a duty to keep our land fruitful, prosperous, compassionate, and generous, and to make it better when we can.

Please consider voting for me, John Kidder, on April 28. Thank you.