Leader says Greens ready to work with other parties as N.S. 'lurches from crisis to crisis'

The Green Party of Nova Scotia had lined up more candidates to run in a 2025 provincial election, but leader Anthony Edmonds said Tim Houston's decision to move away from his fixed election date meant many of those people were unable to run this fall.

He told about a dozen people gathered at a community centre in the constituency where he's running — Waverley-Fall River-Beaver Bank — that a snap election is problematic for a smaller party with no elected members.

"Our aspiration on the fixed election date was to run a full slate of candidates," Edmonds said Friday.

He said many potential candidates "weren't able to drop everything that they were doing in their personal lives and careers in order to run."

Greens have 23 candidates in N.S.

The party has fielded 23 candidates, 11 in the Halifax area, four in the Annapolis Valley, two in Cape Breton and the rest scattered across the province.

He warned voters not to count on seeing a Green candidate on their doorstep. 

"Zero of us have a full-time, paid job that allows us to campaign," said Edmonds. "Many of us are balancing our careers, our families and our political activism."

Unlike the other main parties that have been taking shots at each other during the campaign, Edmonds used the Green campaign launch to say his party would work collaboratively with any or all of them on the province's most pressing issues.

"We find ourselves now lurching from crisis to crisis," said Edmonds, pointing to affordability, public health and well-being, education, trust in public institutions and the climate.

"These problems are bigger than our differences, bigger than any political party," said Edmonds. "And that's why we need to come together, like all good Nova Scotians do in a crisis, and solve it together as a community."

Hoping for a breakthrough

Although the party has received meagre support in past elections — less than three per cent of the vote in each of the past four general elections — Edmonds hopes for a breakthrough this time.

"Things can turn on a dime and it's entirely possible that we could see one or more Greens elected," he said.

Election day in Nova Scotia is Nov. 26.