In the last year, the Canadian Green Party has risen to its position of greatest prominence in the party's history.
Despite being a party largely considered to be unelectable, the Greens received over half a million votes in the last election and elected their leader in British Columbia. Though they did not receive as many votes as other parties, the Greens can proudly say they did not receive any strategic votes. Every vote for the Greens sent a clear message, according to the party
Provincially, the Greens are slated to be the third party in Saskatchewan politics after the Saskatchewan party and the NDP. They have nominated candidates in every riding in Saskatchewan, and candidates say they stand united behind their recently elected provincial leader, Victor Lau.
Owen Swiderski, the Green Party candidate for the Battlefords, brings a breadth of experience to politics entirely different from most politicians. He has visited or worked in almost every state and province in Canada, most states in Mexico, and has travelled through Europe. He has worked a variety of jobs, from when he was 15 years old to the present day, and has lived as both a rich and poor man.
He says the decision to go into politics was not simply a career choice or a way to make money, but a way to secure a future for his children and the children of others.
"Everybody's running out of their own pocket, and we're all going to come up short, and it's all going to cost us thousands, but we all feel it's for the right reasons. These are thousands of dollars out of my kid's pocket, out of my family's pocket, so that we can try to secure a future for ourselves."
The party has taken a number of unpopular positions that have since become widely accepted. The party has always opposed the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which the Canadian public and even the Conservative party have abandoned. Recent public opinion polls have shown that three in five Canadians oppose the Afghanistan war.
For Swiderski, the Afghan war was a key reason to get into politics. Describing the Second World War, he explained,"it took years of fighting to get within a foot of each other where you could look your enemy in the eye and finally realize that it was you, you were looking at yourself in the eyes, and that guy was just as terrified as you were, and he was no different. He was just a human being like you. And it took years to get to that point."
He is not anti-war per se, as he speaks proudly of Canada's contribution to the Normandy invasion; "our boys in Saskatchewan, our boys in Regina, were the first ones to punch through Germany at Juno Beach." But the Second World War was different, he said. It was ultimately the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that gave the war some meaning. To see Western governments torturing or allowing their citizens to be tortured is, to Swiderski, deplorable. Human rights, which we fought for, have been abandoned in the War on Terror, he said.
"That was the meaning that they needed so badly - why did these mothers send their kids to die, why did these women send their husbands to die, why did these children lose their fathers?"
Around the issue of nuclear power, the Green Party has also proven itself to be ahead of the curve. After the disaster in Fukushima and the German government's decision to phase out nuclear power (which currently produces almost a quarter of Germany's electricity), the Green Party can now consider itself to be in good company. Japan, Italy and Switzerland have each committed to reducing their usage of nuclear power.
"The Greens, one thing we have going for us is that we've always stood against nuclear - uranium mining, uranium processing, the Nonproliferation Treaty in the States," Swiderski explained.
This is but a fraction of Swiderski's or the Green Party's platform, but both issues show the Green Party is not to be trifled with. For all of their perceived non-electability, their positions are popular among Canadians. Swiderski is ready to respond to critics who argue the party is too inexperienced to take power. While he understands that it is a fair criticism, he argues that the party is "responsible, united, strong, and ready to take over."
For more information on Swiderski, visit http://www.owenswiderski.com/ or the Saskatchewan Green Party website at http://www.greenpartysask.ca/.
