Stuart Mackinnon, prominent Green Party Park Board Commissioner and 2013 Fraserview Green Party candidate, endorsed NDP’s George Chow with a direct message for his neighbours in his South-East Vancouver community.

"We can’t afford another 4 years of Christy Clark and the BC Liberals. On May 9, I’m voting for the candidate in my riding that best reflects my values and believes in a better British Columbia.

In Vancouver-Fraserview, this means I am voting for George Chow this time. For British Columbia, this means I am voting for John Horgan and the NDP this time."

Mackinnon, a secondary special education teacher and Vancouver-Fraserview voter has seen first-hand the negative impact of Christy Clark’s BC Liberal government and his Liberal MLA Suzanne Anton.

“It was Ms. Anton’s decision to appeal lower court losses of the contract stripping of teachers’ collective agreements,” said Mackinnon. “Despite lower court decisions that contract stripping was illegal, Ms.Anton, on behalf of the Christy Clark BC Liberals, chose to go to the Supreme Court of Canada, where she lost in a unanimous bench decision.”

“15 years of chronic under funding of education and the priority of the BC Liberals was to spend money on court fees. In those 15 years, BC became the 2nd lowest per-student funder of education in Canada.

15 years is an entire generation of students who lost out,” said Mackinnon. “Bigger, more complex classes, fewer librarians, fewer music and art specialists, and fewer opportunities for special needs students. Meanwhile the BC Liberals were increasing funding to elite private schools.”

In 2008, both George Chow (Vancouver City Council) and Stuart Mackinnon (Vancouver Park Board) were elected for the first time.

Mackinnon and Chow worked together to make Vancouver a more ecologically sustainable city.

“I’m honoured to receive Stuart’s support in this campaign,” said Chow. “As we know from previous elections, Vancouver-Fraserview will be one of the closest races in BC. We have to stick together and work to mobilize every vote to elect a government that works for everyone.”

“Each election we must make a choice,” said Mackinnon. “A choice of who will best represent our values and will work for the greater good. We need to vote for candidates whose priorities are in the best interests of all of us. We need to vote for the candidates and party that will represent our values and work for a better British Columbia.”

Read the full endorsement letter here and watch a short video from Stuart below: