Mason Sisson, Green Party of Canada
Age: 21
Occupation: Production manager at Drummond Brewing Co. Ltd.
Residence: Red Deer
Family: Single
Political science student Mason Sisson is moving onto the political stage as the Green Party candidate for the Red Deer riding.
Sisson said he decided to run for the Green Party because of the scandal and unethical behaviour he’s seen in Canadian politics during question period in the House of Commons and in the news.
Ethics is missing in federal politics and the Green Party wants to bring it back, Sisson said.
“There needs to be a change in the Canadian political culture. There needs to be something different,” said Sisson, who has been the production manager at Drummond Brewing Co. Ltd. in Red Deer for three years.
Sisson, raised on a cattle farm in Flagstaff County, has been attending Red Deer College to earn his bachelor of arts degree.
He said after watching Green leader Elizabeth May during the televised 2008 leader’s debate, he was inspired to join the Greens.
With the federal government’s health care accord with the provinces expiring in 2014, he has found health care is an important issue for voters, along with economy, he said.
“(Greens) recognize that the government has to work its way out of this deficit, has to make money if we want to be able to solve this health care crisis in 2014. We need to have a stable, budgetary plan to get us to that point.”
Rolling back corporate tax cuts is a major part of the Green’s plan to reduce the deficit without raising taxes, or relying on spending cuts that Canadians have seen, he said.
Sisson said health care is one of the Green Party’s “most passionate” issues and the next federal government has to have its financial house in order.
And to boost the economy, the focus should be on “increasing the green manufacturing base, increasing green technological base, as well as forcing industry to finally make the investments into efficiencies that we need in order to get the most product out of the least of our resource.”
The Green candidate said it’s about progress and switching to new economic opportunities.
“Because we don’t have these new manufacturing industries in place, we’re going to be playing catchup with all the rest of the world,” Sisson said.
“The world is changing whether we like it or not. We just need to be ahead of the game and change with it.”
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com