Last week, friends, family and Green supporters gathered at the Wellington Gallery in Aurora to help me kick-off my bid to become the Green MP for Newmarket-Aurora.

It was fabulously successful and I am so grateful to everyone who came out to lend their support (both emotional and financial) to our cause.

The local press was present and there was a great article by Sean Pearce in the Era (and possibly the Banner?) yesterday.

The best part of the night, for me, was hearing that I had helped to restore people’s faith in politics and politicians, and that they now saw a tiny bit of light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn’t wish for greater praise than that.

We’ll post the video as soon as it is edited. Until then, here’s the original text of my speech (minus the laughing, crying, and ad libbing!). Hopefully, it resonates with you as well.

“Let me start by thanking you for joining us here tonight. I feel so blessed to be surrounded by wonderful friends, family and supporters. Thank you to Emil for allowing us to use this beautiful space. And thank you to Adriane Carr and Georges Laraque for lending their support to our local group and my Candidacy. I’ve been joking with friends the last few days that this is my ‘coming out’ party. For the last several months I’ve felt like a stealth candidate. I’ve been developing strategy and quietly making connections in the community and learning what issues are important to the people of Newmarket and Aurora. So this is my debut. One of my clients suggested I wear a white dress but I thought that might be going a little too far. I’ll save that for my wedding.

Speaking of which, I have to thank my fiancé Jordon Davidson for his incredible support and ability to help me find balance. Thank you sweetheart.

Tonight I wanted to answer a couple of questions that I frequently get asked.

The first is ‘Why do I support the Green Party?’: I’ll tell you straight out. It’s Green Values. The Green Party is not just Canadian, it is a global network of people who share a common set of values. Social Justice, Ecological Wisdom, Sustainability, Non-violence, Respect for Diversity, and Participatory Democracy. Every decision, every policy that the Greens put forward is based on these six values. It keeps things simple and it makes it easy to answer questions. If I can speak from these values, then my answer will be authentic and true.

The second question is ‘Why am I running?’: The answer is simple. I care about what happens to humanity. I care deeply about what happens to Jordon’s children and my nephew after I am gone. I care about the quality of life that their grandchildren will have. I want them to be able to drink the water, eat the food, and breathe the air. I want that for them. Like you, I care about my family.

And I care about the global family of humanity. I believe that when we throw our trash ‘away’ we are simply making it someone else’s problem.

When we exploit other areas of the globe to feed our consumption, I believe that we are not only harming our global family, but we are harming ourselves.

When we act in anger, or talk about hate, I believe that we harm ourselves a great deal. One of the six Green Party values is non-violence and I believe that we need to look at the harm that we do to ourselves, as well as to others.

That is why I am running. I want people to have something, and someone, to vote for, and not just to vote against.

This has been an exciting year and I have learned a lot about what it means to be the candidate for the Green Party. I have met fantastic people who are working to build community in this area and to get people engaged. And it has been a privilege to help them as much as I could. And I would like to thank them.

The first person is Liz Jefferson. Starting with indignation at the Harper government’s arrogance in proroguing for a third time, Liz has since created a group called Citizens Engaging Democracy that is dedicated to getting us involved. One of the major successes this year was the inauguration of a Fair Vote chapter for York Region.

The second person is Sue McKee. Seeing the changes that are coming and wanting to be proactive, Sue started a Transition Town group for York Region. The goal is to create local, resilient communities and economies so that people can live, learn, work and play in their own community. It is challenging, exciting and fun work and I am grateful to Sue for the work that she has been doing.

A year ago I did not know either of these women and now I don’t like to imagine my life without them. And though I like to think that I would have joined these groups and taken the steps to get involved without being the Candidate, doubt remains in me.

I think that I needed to make a commitment.

I needed to commit to being the Green Candidate and doing the best job that I could.

I needed to commit to building community and reaching out to people in every way that I could.

I needed to commit. And I have. I have committed to being the best Green Party Candidate and serving you as best I can. I have made that commitment. And I want you to hold me to it.

And I want you to make a commitment as well. That is what tonight is about. If we want to build a strong Green presence in Newmarket-Aurora we need your support.

We need your commitment to get involved. To stay involved even when it is hard. Even when you want to turn away from the harm that is being done to our country, to our community and to our families.

I challenge you to stand up and be counted. To engage with democracy in your community and in your country. We need to change the system so that every vote counts, so that every one is represented.

If we had a fair voting system we would have Conservative MPs from Toronto, Liberal MPs from Alberta and a beautiful Green caucus in the House of Commons.

This is our democracy. This is our country. And it is time to commit to taking it back.

Please lend us your support tonight as we work to build the very best campaign that we can. Thank you very much, again, for your support and your faith in me.”

Here is a video of his speech and the text.

“Sometimes I think about how I got involved in politics. I didn’t think of myself as a potential politician when I get out of college. I went to work in neighborhoods, working with Catholic churches in poor neighborhoods in Chicago, trying to figure out how people could get a little bit of help. And I was skeptical about politics and politicians, just like a lot of Americans are skeptical about politics and politicians are right now. Because my working assumption was when push comes to shove, all too often folks in elected office, they’re looking for themselves and not looking out for the folks who put them there; that there are too many compromises; that the special interests have too much power; they just got too much clout; there’s too much big money washing around.

And I decided finally to get involved because I realized if I wasn’t willing to step up and be true to the things I believe in, then the system wouldn’t change. Every single one of you had that same kind of moment at the beginning of your careers. Maybe it was just listening to stories in your neighborhood about what was happening to people who’d been laid off of work. Maybe it was your own family experience, somebody got sick and didn’t have health care and you said something should change.

Something inspired you to get involved, and something inspired you to be a Democrat instead of running as a Republican. Because somewhere deep in your heart you said to yourself, I believe in an America in which we don’t just look out for ourselves, that we don’t just tell people you’re on your own, that we are proud of our individualism, we are proud of our liberty, but we also have a sense of neighborliness and a sense of community — (applause) — and we are willing to look out for one another and help people who are vulnerable and help people who are down on their luck and give them a pathway to success and give them a ladder into the middle class. That’s why you decided to run.”

I wish them all the best tomorrow during this historic vote.

P.S. As for the TeaParty opposition, you might want to watch this revealing video on their Fox News educated protest.