By Stela Susic
“You don’t skate to where the puck is; you skate towards where the puck is going to be.”
Whoever said you can’t mix hockey with politics? The Wayne Gretzky quote about Canada’s national game is being adopted as a metaphor by one of the country’s peripheral parties — the Greens.
David Chernushenko, the party’s nominee in Ottawa Centre, uses it to explain its vision.
He points out that unlike mainstream federal parties, the Greens have a nip-in-the-bud approach to issues.
“Instead of spending so much money on treatments, for example, we would deal with environmental pollution and labour issues that add stress at work. These are all things that harm the individual’s health.”
Chernushenko’s zeal for preventive measures will confront voters in the upcoming federal election, widely expected this spring, when he will face the Liberal and NDP heavyweights Richard Mahoney and Ed Broadbent. “Oh, I’m very much the underdog,” he says of his chances to win the riding.
At the age of 40, the underdog is a relative newcomer to politics. Replacing Chris Bradshaw as the Ottawa Centre Green Party nominee, he says his lack of experience is an asset.
“The public is tired of people who’ve spent their lives in politics. I’ve worked in the private and the public sector. . . I have a good sense of what people need, what people want and what’s possible,” he says.
Bradshaw, who didn’t seek the nomination for personal reasons, agrees. “He’s the right person to lead the Green Party to new heights.” He says he has confidence Chernushenko will garner the “growing support of the party.”
“The (party) memberships have doubled in the past year. . . We are hoping to get around 15 per cent of the vote,” Bradshaw says. In 2000, the Greens got three per cent of the vote in Ottawa Centre. The numbers will keep on going up, he insists.
The party has hundreds of members in the riding, though, it pales in comparison to the thousands of memberships both the NDP and the Liberals have amassed so far. “We just don’t have the resources,” says John Calvert, Chernushenko’s campaign director.
A sheer lack of funds is one of the main challenges the Green Party has encountered during the campaign, Chernushenko confirms.
“We don’t have a well-oiled publicized campaign machine like the other parties,” he says.
Broadbent, by contrast, says he has individual people taking care of different aspects of his campaign. “I have great people working for me who update our website and arrange media appointments so we can get our platform out there.”
This disparity in different parties’ resources gets in the way of gaining ground on the mainstream contenders, Calvert says.
The Greens’ approach to finding new support in the riding, though, is in line with the vision and the values at its core. “We have a community-based campaign and rely on a word of mouth to gain the support of voters,” he says.
“We are not just about the environment. That’s just our starting point,” Bradshaw says, adding that the party has a strong position on other issues important to Canadians, such as health care, the economy and transportation.
There are three “grey” parties and “three sets of mush coming from the other parties that only promise what will get them elected,” Chernushenko says.
“We don’t promise quick fixes; we provide long-term solutions. We tell it like it is and Canadians appreciate that.