Why I think Donald Galloway is the best person to the next MP for Victoria

There are several reasons why I am going to vote for Donald Galloway and it is not because I agree with him about everything or that I agree with the Green Party on everything.   My decision is really based on knowing that he has the sort of qualities that make for a good representative.

There are some basic qualities about him that appeal to me:

• He is a decent and intelligent man that listens to information and makes well thought out decisions based on data 
• He represents a change to politics in Canada not only because he is running as a Green but because he sincerely wants to do politics differently
• He is in my opinion the best placed candidate to be  an effective MP because of his work
• He works hard and sticks with what he is working on
• He speaks his mind
• He is a positive person
• He is not possessed with a large ego
• He is pragmatic and not dogmatic
• He would make a good dinner guest

None of the other candidates meet all these same qualities.

There is also one major policy issue which is very important to me and is a strength of Donald Galloway's - immigration and refugees.   Canada needs an internationally recognized expert on immigration and refugee law to be in our parliament.

Canada has made it too hard for people to come to this country.   We treat refugees like crap and honestly do nothing to proactively help them around the world.   We have had ongoing Liberal and Conservative governments that had done nothing to ease the restrictions on people coming to this country. We live on one planet and countries should not be using the arbitrary lines on maps to increase human suffering.

Donald Galloway helped to form the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and is involved with the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies.  This is the man Ottawa needs to make this issue more important.

I am passionate about this issue because it is personal,  I am the son of immigrants.   My parents were allowed to come to Canada in 1951 and 1952 but would never be allowed to come to Canada now.   They were DPs at the end of the war because they had been expelled from their homeland in 1939.   Displaced Persons was a convenient term invented after World War 2 to avoid calling them refugees.  They both were allowed to come to Canada in the early 1950s because Canada was willing to accept unskilled people coming from Europe.

Donald Galloway will make a very good MP for Victoria and I hope to see that he one that wins on November 26th.

(an offer to anyone else out there in the Victoria riding - if you want to write something about who you want to vote for and can do so in a positive manner, I will post it here unedited.  Email it to me at bernard@shama.ca)

Those that know me may know that my mother did manage to get herself declared a UN refugee in 1950 when she was 20 so she could get a Nansen Passport and go on holiday to Sweden.   My mother always thought laws were really only guidelines and should not get in her way if she wanted to do something.