Going green once again

By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express

Stacey Leadbetter is no stranger to politics.

For the fourth time since 2011, Leadbetter will be running for the Green Party, hoping to get out her party’s message.

“I’m very passionate in what I believe in, and what I believe our community needs to do in respect to jobs and climate change and Hydro One,” Leadbetter tells The Oshawa Express. “There’s so much we can do and so much we need to do in order to make our community sustainable, so that our youth have jobs, so that we can make sure we have food and water secure and make sure that our hydro costs are under control so that we aren’t pushing businesses away.”

Leadbetter, who sits as the Green Party’s shadow cabinet member for community and social services, first ran for the party in the 2011 provincial election in Oshawa, followed by the Whitby-Oshawa riding in 2014. Leadbetter also ran federally in the Durham riding last year.

Leadbetter says that a vote for the Green Party is a vote for strong community representation.

“Well, essentially I would be treated as an independent in the legislature,” she says. “I’d be able to drive the points home for Whitby-Oshawa, whereas the other three (major party candidates) are likely just going to become backbenchers. They’ll also have to come back to this community and say, ‘This is what my party wants to do’ and stay on that party line. I don’t have to do that. One of the biggest benefits of being a Green Party person is yes, we have policies and we have plans, but as long as things don’t go against our core values, we are free to vote our conscious and, more importantly, we are free to vote how our constituents want us to vote.”