Camille Labchuk

Green city councilor Ryan Young

I should be reading about legal ethics and professionalism, but I’m taking a study break to publicly congratulate my good friend Ryan Young, a longtime Green who was elected to city council in the Montreal island town of Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue on Sunday. After coming in only a few votes shy in the last round of municipal elections, Ryan’s and his team’s hard work paid off this year, and residents of Ste. Anne elected the first-ever Green to their city council. Yay!

Ryan’s a documentary filmmaker, radio show host, teacher and community/environmental activist,  He has previously run for the Greens both provincially and federally, and always pulls in strong results. Ryan’s victory on Sunday is huge, and I’ve no doubt he will accomplish great things as a city councilor. We need Greens and green ideas not only in federal and provincial governments, but also municipally. There are many Greens councilors across this country, and their work is doubly important, as they are not only accomplishing things for their communities, but are also helping the Green Party grow and gain profile and credibility on the provincial and federal scenes. As the saying goes, “Think globally, act locally.”

In the interest of wrapping up this post and returning to the books, I’ll end by first congratulating Ryan Young on his new status as city councilor, and all other Greens in Quebec who were elected on Sunday — can anyone fill me in on other successes? And second, I want to thank all Greens in municipal governments across our country for the important work they do.