Tough week for P.A.’s Green Party supporters
-
Share on Facebook
-
Share on Bluesky
-
Share on X
- Copy Link
It has been a week to forget for Green Party followers in the Prince Albert riding. First came a move that some might perceive as a defection, and then came the withdrawal from the race of the local candidate.
On Monday, it was announced that Byron Tenkink, the Green Party candidate for P.A. in the 2015 election, had joined the Liberal ranks. In confirming his endorsement of Estelle Hjertaas he said the election was a two-horse race between the Liberals and Conservatives, so he wanted to lend his environmental weight to the Liberal cause. He noted the Greens couldn’t have an effect on the election outcome without a proportional representation voting system. It will not only be some Green supporters who see the irony in Tenkink’s move, given Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s broken promise to get rid of the first-past-the-post system. Proportional representation may well have produced more Green MPs in this election.
In a double-blow for the Green faithful in P.A., paNOW learned on Wednesday that Arborfield-based candidate Miranda Friske had withdrawn from the race for personal reasons. In a write-up on the Green Party website Friske said, among other things, that she was committed to the rights and freedoms of the everyday person and wanted to see companies held responsible for the waste they produce, including the over-packaging of goods.
A spokesperson for the Green Party told paNOW that all they knew was that Friske had resigned her candidacy and it was not immediately clear if a replacement would be found ahead of the Sept.30 deadline.
