IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN
Tough odds don’t faze candidates in Sask. ridings
SASKATOON David Kim-cragg has little doubt about his chances when people across the country go to the polls next month, but he is not convinced that losing in one of the province’s most staunchly Conservative ridings should be considered a failure.
Kim-cragg, a United Church of Canada minister who works as an ecumenical chaplain at the University of Saskatchewan, is running for the Green party in Battlefords–lloydminster, the heart of Saskatchewan’s massive oil and agriculture sectors.
The riding has been continuously represented by conservative politicians since its creation 22 years ago.
A seat projection from 338Canada gives incumbent Rosemarie Falk a greater than 99 per cent chance of winning the seat again on Oct. 21.
Kim-cragg knew all of that when he signed up for his first electoral campaign, which he is running out of Saskatoon. In an interview this week, he said there are other reasons to run for political office beyond simply a four-year stint in Ottawa.
“I have no illusions that the Greens were going to be sweeping through Saskatchewan,” Kimcragg said of his party, which has never elected an MP outside British Columbia and has been polling at around nine per cent nationally this campaign.
Elizabeth May, the party’s leader, has yet to visit Saskatchewan during the election campaign.
The party has run candidates in every election since 1988, but it wasn’t until 2004 that the Greens fielded a candidate in every riding across the country, regardless of whether they had a chance of winning.
While the Green party no longer receives money based on its share of the popular vote after that rule was scrubbed ahead of the 2015 election, the party is still running candidates in all of the country’s 338 ridings.
“I just thought it was important to give folks a choice and put the Green position out there. Every once in awhile you have a conversation and that person might change their mind or start asking questions that will affect the way others think,” he said.
Kim-cragg admitted those conversations have been rare. More common, he said, are difficult interactions with people who are afraid for their livelihoods on the farm or in the heavy oil plants in the face of efforts to reduce emissions.
“I don’t think losing campaigns — campaigns that don’t win the riding — necessarily fail. Good things start small. I think the people … deserve a choice … If I hadn’t run, then there’s a chance nobody would have been on the ballot and I think that’s a shame.”
Not every Green party candidate in Saskatchewan shares Kim-cragg’s views, however. Sarah Kraynick, who is running for the party in the province’s vast northern riding, Desnethe–missinippi–churchill River, said it’s “unfortunate” that people view her as an underdog.
While Kraynick admitted that she contemplated running under another party’s flag before she was asked to stand for the Greens, she said people living in a region where the effects of climate change are more pronounced are open to the party’s platform.
“I think that’s a disservice to voters, to be quite honest, because that’s not my experience in the riding. People have been quite receptive,” Kraynick said of the race in one of very few Saskatchewan seats believed to be in play this election.
Desnethe–missinippi–churchill River is unlike any other riding in the province. It is predominantly Indigenous, economically disadvantaged and extremely remote. Some communities in the far north can be accessed only by air or ice road.
While the riding is the centre of the province’s multibillion-dollar uranium mining industry, as well as a swath of agricultural land further south, Kraynick said the people she has met on the campaign trail are very concerned about environmental issues.
Asked why she chose to enter a race between representatives of the three major parties, all of whom are thought to have a chance at winning the seat, Kraynick was unequivocal: “I think we have a chance. I want to win.”
I don’t think losing campaigns — campaigns that don’t win the riding — necessarily fail.