The Quebec provincial election is on the horizon, with voting day taking place on Monday, Oct. 3.
According to the Élections Quebec website, there are ten candidates running in the Brome-Missisquoi region for this year’s election.
The candidates are Isabelle Charest (Coalition avenir Québec); Pierre Fontaine (Démocratie directe); Sébastien Houle (Indépendant); Alexandre Legault (Québec solidaire); Lynn Moore (Canadian Party of Québec); Caitlin Moynan (Green Party); Guillaume Paquet (Parti québécois); Stéphanie Prévost (Parti conservateur du Québec); Tommy Quirion-Bouchard (Climat Québec); and Claude Vadeboncoeur (Quebec Liberal Party).
For the next week, CIDI 99.1 FM is sitting down with candidates who will speak about their political platforms and the issues they plan to address in the Brome-Missisquoi riding and at the provincial level.
Caitlin Moynan about her run in this year’s provincial election as she enters politics for the first time as candidate for the Green Party of Quebec (GPQ) in a recent interview with CIDI.
“I’ve worked in different organizations as a special care counsellor, like the Alzheimers Society of Montreal. I’m currently working for Waterloo Elementary as a special education technician,” said Moynan. “(…) The political platform I didn’t see coming, but when presented the opportunity I thought why not since I have been working so hands on with so many different clientele.”
Working directly in the education system, Moynan said that education is an important area of focus of her platform, along with the environment and the health care system.
“I’d also like to focus on rights for people as well. Helping with the rape culture, women’s rights, and even animal rights as well, so banning animal testing I think is super important,” explained Moynan. “I mean, economy can be improved as well. I feel like since COVID we’ve seen where we can improve in terms of the economy; raising minimum wage and helping people in the workplace have more work-life balance.”
In Brome-Missiquoi specifically, Moynan said making changes in the workplace and the way we go about educating children is a priority for her.
“I feel like a lot of people aren’t applying for certain jobs because they know the environment could be improved and have that better-work life balance,” emphasized Moynan. “As well, educating our children simple life skills that we didn’t necessarily learn about when we were kids.”
She also wants to take certain steps to better protect the environment, such as reducing the use of plastics and taxing large corporations that she says have contributed to the environment’s deterioration.
“The Green Party is lucky because we do have a lot of scientists we work with and people who do work in the environment. Just contacting them to go over what we should focus on, what could be improved on from that standpoint, I would definitely reach out to them for more support on that,” noted Moynan.
Addressing Quebec’s controversial language law Bill 96, Moynan mentioned that the GPQ does not stand for it.
“We would be fighting against that and making sure that the bill does not go through. Yes we are bilingual, yes we do support all languages, but we feel like the bill more discriminates against languages,” she added.
Going into this year’s election, Moynan said she hopes that voters will make the choice for themselves.
“The thing that I hear most often is ‘I’m just going to vote for the party I feel like is going to get the most votes’ and not necessarily for the party they feel aligns with their values,” she said. “(…) I always encourage people to go out and vote and not necessarily for the person they feel will get the most votes, but for the party they actually think will have the most positive impact.”
Listen to the full interview below: