Nanaimo-North Cowichan Green Party candidate Mayo McDonough is taking her first crack at politics.
McDonough, 60, who moved to Ladysmith from Victoria with her husband in 2012 to be closer to his parents, comes from a background in communications and marketing in Toronto and Victoria. She also served as executive director of B.C. WorkInfoNet and the Better Business Bureau.
McDonough, who suffers from Crohn’s disease, also places a high importance on how B.C.’s medical system deals with chronic disease and mental health issues.
Why the Green Party? McDonough, who considers herself a conservative in some respects and a socialist in others, said the Green Party takes a pragmatic approach to the environment, health, jobs and the economy.
To be healthy one has to live in a healthy environment, so that environment has to be protected to maintain a good lifestyle and sustainable economy.
“I believe individuals should have property rights – that’s the conservative side of me – but I don’t think the property rights of individuals should eclipse the value to everybody of something like watersheds. That’s our drinking water. That’s something we share as a group that shouldn’t be owned by private companies, like it is now. I would let the public right eclipse the private right in that case because it’s water. That’s like somebody owning the air. We can’t have that.”
McDonough said the main issues for the riding centre on water safety, especially protection of watersheds and aquifers, improving public transit between major centres such as Ladysmith and Nanaimo and protecting local food production.
“Transportation’s huge in this area because there really isn’t a public transportation alternative that works,” McDonough said.
“When I hear people saying, ‘You’ve just got to leave your cars,’ that can work in a more urban setting, but here it’s unreasonable.”
For more information, please visit www.greenparty.bc.ca/mayomcdonough or e-mail mayo.mcdonough@greenparty.bc.ca.
Also running for MLA in Nanaimo-North Cowichan are Amanda Jacobson (B.C. Liberal), John Sherry (B.C. Conservatives) and Doug Routley (NDP).