Passion for community fuels Green Party candidate

Residents of Provencher won’t see physical signs from the Green Party but that doesn’t mean local candidate Blair Mahaffy won’t be hard at work.

Because the signs are not recyclable, Mahaffy said he avoids waste by not putting them up. Instead, he focuses on his door-to-door campaign.

His first attempt to win the Provencher seat, Mahaffy does have some experience on the campaign trail. He ran for the Green Party in the 2023 provincial election in his home riding of Lac du Bonnet where he said he knocked on over 1,000 doors.

A lifelong resident of southeastern Manitoba, Mahaffy was born in Winnipeg, spent summers in the Whiteshell, raised a family in Lorette and now lives at West Hawk Lake.

A software developer working with small independent retailers across Canada, he has a history of volunteerism at community events, cohosts a weekly music jam, and moderates a monthly conversation café to bring people together.

He’s also looking for new challenges and recently took up horseback riding, working as a trail guide in his spare time.

Mahaffy also has history of volunteering with the MS Society, the nursery school and Scouts in Lorette.

“I have a sense of community and volunteerism that drives my political views,” he said.

Active in the Green Party since 2014 and founding member of the Provencher Green Party electoral district association, Mahaffy said his roots weren’t in his current party.

“I was actually a lifelong Conservative and supported Reform for a while because I really liked Preston Manning’s take on sustainable democracy,” he said.

Mahaffy said he’s not expecting to take the seat from Conservative incumbent Ted Falk.

“I think it’s really important that we are (running), even in this very Conservative riding, where we know what the outcome is. It’s not going to change. I’m very aware of that,” he said. “I think it’s important to give a voice to people.”

Mahaffy said when parties start earning five to 10 percent of the vote, the major parties take interest, adopting policies for themselves in an effort to reach those voters.

For Mahaffy, securing five percent of the popular vote would be a win.

Since they started running candidates in Provencher in 2004, the Green Party has surpassed that goal twice.

Janine Gibson earned 5.79 percent in 2008 and had her best showing in 2019 with six percent. However, the last federal election in 2021 resulted in the Green Party’s worst showing in Provencher as they earned 2.6 percent of the popular vote.

But it’s not all about the five percent for Mahaffy.

“I would love to hit that, but that’s not the most important thing,” he said. “What I find really satisfying is to stand on someone’s doorstep and have them actually say, ‘Oh, that’s a good idea,’ to be engaging with people.”

“Climate crisis is not going to go away,” he added. “We have an equity problem that is not going to go away quickly, and we need to keep talking about the issues.”

The Green Party has a number of priorities including the creation of a nationwide defense corps that could respond to climate change disasters. And he said while non-violence is a core Green Party policy, Canada should be ready.

“You definitely don’t want to go out and start wars and conflicts, but you have to be prepared for the fact that they may happen to you.”

Building and maintaining relationships with blue states and others in the U.S. is also important, as is establishing new trade relationships with Europe, Asia and South America.

He said the 51st state controversy has had one benefit.

“If it means that we’re going to spend more money at local businesses I think that’s really positive,” he said.

The Green Party will not be building pipelines.

“The world is in trouble environmentally and we can’t ignore this,” he said.

Instead Mahaffy said we should explore renewable energy options, like solar panels in parking lots of large commercial developments, geothermal in new residential developments and incentives for people to switch from fossil fuels to heat pumps and from gas operated vehicles to EVs.

While he agreed the carbon tax is politically untenable, Mahaffy said Canada must end subsidies for the energy sector and hold them accountable for the damage caused.

He also called for more affordable housing, defined by the Green Party as housing that can be paid for with 30 percent of the person’s salary.

With the highest wealth inequality on record, currently 20 percent of Canadians hold more than two thirds of the country’s wealth. At the same time, more than 33 percent of Canadians earn less than $44,000 annually.

The Green Party would recognize that disparity by ensuring nobody pays income tax on the first $40,000 earned.

He said caring for Canadians has an economic benefit.

“It’s not just because it’s nice and fluffy to care about people because it actually builds better economies where people are healthy and secure,” he said.

Mahaffy said the Green Party is focused on long-term planning.

“A kid born today is going to be 75 in the year 2100,” he said. “What kind of world are we leaving for them?

“If we don’t care about the environment, if we don’t care about sustainability it’s going to be pretty miserable.”