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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Friday October 12, 2007 - 15 Schaffer leads Green Party past NDP in Oakville By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF She may not have won the election, but Oakville Green Party candidate Marion Schaffer is enjoying a victory, nonetheless, after her party beat out the NDP for the first time in the riding's history. In one of the more surprising electoral results of Wednesday night's election, Schaffer received 3,912votes while Oakville NDP candidate Tony Crawford received 3,178 votes. This total means the Green Party got the third highest number of votes behind Progressive Conservative candidate Rick Byers, who received 16,666 votes. Despite such a large gap between the number of votes the Green Party received and the number required for victory, Schaffer was not upset about the results. "I don't feel badly at all," she said. "I'm very pleased that people saw a difference between what the Green Party was saying and what the NDP was saying. Also, a lot of people phoned me or emailed me who have never been involved in politics before, so I think we really stirred the pot up quite a lot." Schaffer said the Green phenomenon was not contained to Oakville, but instead spread province wide with votes for the Green Party more than doubling since the 2003 election from 2.8 per cent to 8 per cent. Schaffer also noted that in a mock election at Iroquois Ridge High School she was elected, receiving 39 per cent of the vote from the 936 participating students. "People are waking up and saying, `Okay, change is difficult, but if we're going to save what we have this has to happen.' It's as fundamental as that," said Schaffer. Despite this surge in support, not a single Green Party representative was elected to the provincial legislature with Ontario Green Party Leader Frank de Jong enduring defeat in his own electoral district at the hands of the Liberals. "The Green Party is very aware of the fact that we've got a long way to go to connect with people in ways that help them see how vital (environmental initiatives) are," said Schaffer. "The place where the Green Party wants to go just isn't on their plates yet. Also, there are a lot of people who aren't sure the Green Party is strong enough to make a difference." The amount of headway Schaffer made is further astounding given the sudden way in which she was thrust onto the campaign trail, taking over from Andrew Chlobowski almost a week after the writ dropped. "There was no group of people working behind me. I was mostly working on my own because it was a very last minute thing," said Schaffer. SWI Marion Schaffer "Frank de Jong wanted a candidate in every riding to show that there was a great deal of interest, which there is. So I didn't have a lot of people working with me, I didn't have a great big Green machine working behind me. I didn't have a lot of money, in fact I'll probably end up paying out of my pocket, but that's okay." As far as campaign regrets are concerned, Schaffer feels she could have worked harder to keep the environment more front and centre during the debates. "Everything got wrapped up in the whole faithbased school funding issue. That really took over and the environment took a backseat," she said. "I might have dealt with that differently, but I was only involved in this for a little under a month. I have never been a politician before. I have been a minister and I have done a lot of preaching, but the political arena is a very different place for me to be in." One area where Schaffer did express disappointment was over the public's resounding refusal of the MMP system, which would have given smaller parties like the Green Party proportional representation within the legislature. "I don't think the design of the posters or the information that went out to the general public was very cleverly done," said Schaffer. "It just became so convoluted that people couldn't understand what they were voting on, which is unfortunate because I don't thing people got that everybody would get more of a vote, especially women, if the MMP had gone through." Although Schaffer says she probably will not run for public office again, she also says her days of advocating are far from over. "I'm at a stage now where I want to help young people have more of a voice so they can get out there, speak up and shake people up," she said. 2007 ZERO DOW N! FT ZER DOW O N! 99 5 BI-W K 2007 AUTO XL7 J 2007 WITH X 25,999 219 CPP AIR $ OR O NLY $ BI-W K Gran PD WITH AIR d $ 20,99 Vitar a COMP $ LIMEN 179 5 LU B E TARY L /OIL/ F I LT E I R with a FETIME ny new v CPP 5S ZER DOW O N! OR O NLY BI-W K ehicle purcha se! Oakville voters reject MMP Voters in both the Halton and Oakville ridings served the MMP system referendum a double dose of defeat on Wednesday opting instead to keep the Ontario electoral system the way it is. The Halton riding voted 63.2 per cent in favour of keeping the first-past-the-post system while 36.8 per cent voted for the Mix Member Proportional (MMP) system. Oakville's desire to keep the existing system ranked slightly higher according to official reports from Elections Ontario with the Oakville riding voting 67.2 per cent in favour of the first-past-the-post system while 32.8 per cent voted for the MMP system. The MMP system was lauded as a way to more accurately reflect the popular vote; if implemented, Ontarians would have had two votes with one for a local member and one for a party. The legislature would have had 129 seats with 90 for local members and 39 for list members, with the largest number of seats forming the government. This referendum follows failed attempts to switch to the MMP system in both B.C. and P.E.I. in recent years. Suzuki of Oakville 2219 Wyecroft Road, Oakville, ON L6L 5L7 905-469-2429 Toll Free 1-866-229-3897 Fax 905-469-4562