STATEMENT
Environment
Voters, a leading environmental group,
campaigns for Brian Innes,
Liberal candidate in Perth Middlesex by-election
29 April 2003: Environment Voters is urging the voters of Perth Middlesex to elect Brian Innes as their next Member of Parliament.
Environment Voters is endorsing Brian Innes, and is conducting an independent 3rd party campaign in the Perth Middlesex federal by-election on his behalf. Environment Voters is campaigning to elect Brian Innes for the following reasons:
1. the recent, positive record of the federal Liberal Party on environmental, wildlife protection, and animal welfare issues;
2. Brian Innes’s own commitment to responsible environmental policies; and
3. Brian Innes’s impressive record, experience, and qualifications which will help him serve the voters of Perth Middlesex.
Environment Voters campaigns in elections to support incumbent parties and politicians who have good environmental records, and to oppose those who do not. “Good environmental record” does not mean solving every -- or even most -- environmental problems in one mandate. It means making progress. It means moving forward, as the Liberals are now doing federally, and not backwards as the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party is doing provincially.
Founded in 1999, Environment Voters is a national organization that is not aligned with any political party. It is funded by over 10,000 individual supporters. In the last five years, Environment Voters has run 21 campaigns at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels.
In the last two years, the federal Liberal government passed Canada’s first federal endangered species legislation, the Species at Risk Act, ratified the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and passed legislation in the House of Commons to improve the animal cruelty provisions of the Criminal Code, Bill C10b. All of these are important steps forward.
For his part, Brian Innes has demonstrated a personal commitment to environmental protection, and an appreciation of the positive economic relationship between “best practices” environmental policies and a strong Canadian economy. It is a critical relation because of the global economy, and it is a relationship that the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada have yet to understand.
Being an effective Member of Parliament, who can properly represent his or her constituents, demands political skill, public policy experience, and knowledge. While all the candidates contesting the Perth Middlesex by election are good people, none have the political experience or personal credentials to match those of Brian Innes. Within political parties and in the House of Commons, Members of Parliament compete with each other to secure support and services for their constituents and communities. Winning that competition takes skill and experience. There can be no doubt that in the political “give and take” that is the House of Commons and the federal government, Brian Innes -- because of the depth of his experience -- will be better able to champion the interests of the voters of Perth Middlesex than any other candidate.
In support of Brian Innes, Environment Voters is placing advertisements in local newspapers, airing radio spots, and organizing volunteers to canvas door-to-door and on the telephone.