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He's running for the Greens, but there's something surprising about candidate Rob Mellalieu. The candidate in the riding of Central Okanagan-Similkameen-Nicola says the environment is NOT his top priority!
In our ongoing effort to introduce voters to the candidates in the Kelowna area ridings, Rob Mellalieu paid us a visit at KelownaNow.
"What everyone assumes is the reason is that they want to save the spotted owl, or the striped salamander," observed Mellalieu. But he said he came to the party for a different reason. "The economics of the green party are much more long term," he said.
Mellalieu said the party has seven generation economic plans. "Whereas the Conservative Party that I used to vote for had four year, maybe eight-year plans," he explained.
Yes, Mellalieu made the rarely seen transition from Conservative to Green. "You'd be surprised how many conservative people there are in the Green Party because you can't work on the ecology alone without looking at the finances," he asserted.
Originally from Vancouver Island, Robert Mellalieu works in the information technology sector and makes his home in West Kelowna. This is the third time he's run for public office. His latest effort was a provincial run in the riding held by Premier Christy Clark at the time.
He has a tiny staff and an even smaller budget. At the time of our interview, he had yet to secure signs with his name on them.
As for the environment, he said the facts support the Greens. "We need to trust the science," Mellalieu said. "Whenever we don't trust the science, we screw things up."
He also likes some of the other planks in the Green platform such as a lower voting age and proportional representation. He said it's simply more democratic. "When P.R. is first initialized, what we suddenly see is much more co-operation in parliament," said Mellalieu. He said it forces the different parties to work together. "You come to a consensus."
Election day is October 21.
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