GREEN CANDIDATE SAYS TIME FOR ACTION IS NOW
Thaila Riden is a farmer at heart and thinks the Green Party can best represent the interests of a rural riding like Glengarry-Prescott-Russell at Queen’s Park.
“I am very aware that, geographically, 80 per cent of the riding is agricultural,” said Riden, during an interview at The Grand
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and for the farmers.”
Riden, 40, has lived in the Prescott County
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to the area when he was six and he attended
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tute. After graduation he went to Ottawa to attend Carleton University where he earned
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degree in integrated science, with a focus on genetics.
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and is in the process of transforming the family farm into a large-scale community garden site open to any community groups, school classes, or individuals who want to set up a community garden project.
«It was never a dream of mine to get into politics,» he said, regarding his decision
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Glengarry-Prescott-Russell in the June 2 provincial election.
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ject two years ago soon after the pandemic
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how the pandemic was interfering with supply chains for some products and he thought that turning some of his unused farmland over to other groups to start community
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local families deal with their food needs.
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garden space. There are now six garden
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other groups and individuals have adopted garden plots at The Grand Barn, for a total of 20 small community gardens.
After getting the community garden
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dedicated to fostering awareness of climate
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regional governments to create and enforce their own action plans to address potential
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«I want to go door to door now,» Riden said, adding that he wants to explain to local voters how the Green Party would address
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coverage under the provincial health insurance program, and promoting support for
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is the need for action,» he said. «»The word from Science is that we have to do something meaningful now to deal with climate change issues. I am here to say that we can do it
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More information on Riden and the Green Party is at https://gpo.ca/candidate/ thaila-riden/.