Green Party candidate for Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing touting benefits of green economy

At 20 years old, Max Chapman is making a run for federal office in Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing.

The Queen's University political science student says he has always been politically engaged, and sees his age as a benefit to his campaign. He grew up in Little Current, Manitoulin Island.

"I don't really look at it as 'should I be trusted with this massive riding,'" he says. "I'm a person who is young, energetic, engaged and ready to meet people and ready to learn and listen."

Being left behind

Closing the divide between urban and rural populations is a country wide issue that Chapman identifies as a primary concern in Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing. 

"A lot of rural Canadians feel that they're being left behind, they aren't being given the same attention as urban centres," he says.

He wants to ensure that rural Canada Post locations stay open and believes that expanding the Ontario Northland bus service in the region would be part of the solution. 

The other major issue Chapman hears about as he goes door to door is climate change. He says it's no longer a question of whether we can stop climate change, it's a question of whether or not we can stop the worst effects of climate change. 

He's in line with the Green Party's platform on reducing greenhouse gas emissions — a 50 per cent cut to emissions by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050. 

While Chapman admitted that it "may sound clichéd" for a Green Party candidate to talk about climate change as a major issue, he ties the environment into other issues that differentiate him from his fellow candidates. 

"We talk about how our industries can be more environmentally sustainable, and how we can grow them at the same time," he says. 

"We will need to increase mining and make it more sustainable so that we can build the new electrical grid."

Becoming Green

Chapman says that after a brief stint with the NDP in the last election, he re-joined the Green Party in March. 

"When it came to the federal NDP and looking at what they offered this time, their climate goals alone, they were calling for well under what the science says we require in cutting our greenhouse gas emissions," said Chapman.

He says that he had been an active Green Party youth member in high school, but fell away in his senior year. 

"I wasn't too engaged in the 2015 election because I was trying to graduate grade 12 at the time."