Election notebook
Green Party names candidate
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Monday, September 14, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Green Party of Canada will indeed have a candidate in the Northwest Territories for the Oct. 19 federal election.
Twenty-one-year-old John Moore of Inuvik describes himself as an entrepreneur who recently ended his position as executive director of the Inuvik Youth Centre. He is also a volunteer firefighter in the community. Moore said his candidacy came about rather suddenly when party officials told him just over a week ago they didn't have a potential candidate who lived in the riding.
Moore, who has been in the NWT for less than a year, is originally from the Toronto area and just completed his third year studying philosophy at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. He said food security and mental health are his two top election priorities.
"I was a student looking for a job and I was shocked coming up here ... I went to the store on my first day here and I realized just how much it would cost to make a sandwich, never mind a salad with that sandwich and it was shocking," Moore said. "That's not to say, however, that local food production is impossible. We have a booming greenhouse here. That's a huge piece of the Green Party platform is moving towards local food production."
He had no specific campaign plans for this week but added he will be announcing campaign stops as soon as possible.
Eli Purchase, who ran for the Greens in the NWT last time, finished fourth out of five candidates in the 2011 federal election with 477 votes out of 15,577 cast.
Campaign travel revs up
The NDP's Dennis Bevington was scheduled to leave Sunday morning on a plane for Inuvik. According to Bevington, he intends to campaign all week in communities in the Beaufort Delta. Bevington was campaigning in Yellowknife and his hometown of Fort Smith last week.
Liberal candidate Michael McLeod will also be in the Beaufort Delta campaigning most of this week. He will be in Fort McPherson on Sept. 13. On Sept. 15, McLeod will address the Gwich'in Tribal Council's annual general assembly in Aklavik.
He will remain in Aklavik on Wednesday before heading to Inuvik Sept. 16 and then return to Yellowknife the next day. Last week, McLeod campaigned in seven different communities in the Deh Cho and South Slave regions.
Conservative candidate Floyd Roland is campaigning in Yellowknife this week. According to his campaign team, he'll be spending the week meeting with local residents. Roland will be attending a luncheon Sept. 18 at the Explorer Hotel hosted by the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines and the NWT Chamber of Commerce. Roland was in Fort Smith this past weekend, where he held a meet and greet Saturday night at the Wood Buffalo Inn.
McLeod talks Wood Buffalo National Park
Liberal candidate Michael McLeod issued a policy statement last week on Wood Buffalo National Park.
"A Liberal government will restore funding to Wood Buffalo National Park," McLeod stated in a news release. "Conservative cuts to Parks Canada have slashed over $25 million from programs and services, killing jobs in Fort Smith and hurting our tourism industry."
A Liberal government will work with gateway communities like Fort Smith to develop their eco-tourism industry and invest in tourism infrastructure, McLeod stated.
McLeod plans to be releasing another policy statement on Sept. 14, which is to deal with the federal government's transparency legislation and funding for aboriginal governments.
