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The Green Party Candidate in Kelowna-Lake Country said it was some tough times that awakened him politically. Travis Ashley admits his party is on the outside track in this riding, but he believes that every green vote sends an important message. He paid us a visit at KelownaNow to tell us about his candidacy.
Ashley said it was his personal experience with poverty, abuse, death and suicide that shaped his thinking. "It makes you realize how fragile this life is and how every day, every decision matters," he said.
"I was 14 when I saw Elizabeth May, and I thought, "Man! She really stands up for us Canadians and is she very qualified," he recalled. He said he was generally apathetic about politics at the time. "I was constantly tired of listening to the lies, the lip service, the needless rhetoric, the politician stuff."
He's supportive of the Green Party agenda for proportional representation and a younger voting age.
"If we let corporations and the one percent control the agenda then we leave everybody behind and we leave the environment behind and it's all tied together," he said. "We have a million species at risk of going extinct around the world."
Ashley said the Green plan will generate jobs while we break our dependence on oil. "We have a plan to transition oil workers to the renewable sector. But what we need to do is end the fossil fuel subsidies so we can subsidize the green technologies."
He said the incremental changes that get debated between the Liberals and Conservatives are over incremental changes that don't make much difference. "We need real change and we need it now," he argues.
Voting day is October 21.
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