Why Joe Byrne keeps fighting for a voice in the legislature

Joe Byrne started knocking on doors to talk politics when he was 17.

Forty years later he still hasn't won an election, but Byrne is in the middle of another campaign, this time as the leader of the P.E.I. New Democratic Party.

"I love knocking on doors. These are windows into our community. We see our neighbours, our friends, family members," said Byrne.

"But what you also hear, and it sometimes it just breaks my heart, because we get to see the struggles of people for whom the system just isn't working."

Byrne traces his activism back to work he did in the Dominican Republic. He met people who had been tortured, or whose family members had been killed, because of their politics.

"I saw that people were prepared to stand up and say, 'If we don't include everybody then politics doesn't work.' And so I started life as an as an activist on all kinds of issues," he said.

Historic opportunity

With the party bouncing around single-digit support in the polls, campaigning for the NDP might seem futile, but Byrne believes Island politics are ripe for change.

He said he has no illusions about forming government, but with the possibility of the first minority government in well over a century a couple of New Democrat MLAs could have a real impact.

"There's a lot of people that are rejecting historical voting patterns now and they're open to engage in ideas. They're open to listen to alternatives," he said.

Part of that change is more community-mindedness in the people he's talking to, he said.

For example, he said, he's talked to lots of homeowners for who say housing is an issue that is important to them, even though it is not in any way a problem for them.

'Ideas take time'

The NDP has a long history of alternative ideas that eventually become mainstream, he added.

"This idea that we're talking about now of a land bank, as New Democrats we were talking about this in the 1970s when the Lands Protection Act was first developed," said Byrne. "Sometimes ideas take time to germinate."

It can be frustrating to see long-standing ideas adopted without getting the recognition of elected office for it, but there is also gratification in seeing these ideas come to fruition, he said.

That gratification, however, only goes so far.

"You know, we're a political party and we need to get elected," he said.

CBC P.E.I. will be speaking to all four leaders of P.E.I.'s political parties between April 8 and April 12.

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