CHMA joined New Brunswick Green candidate for Tantramar Megan Mitton as she and three party volunteers canvassed door to door in a Sackville neighbourhood last week.
“The cool thing about doing doors is that you get to learn so much about your community,” says Mitton. “And I’ve knocked on doors a bunch of times now, so I actually can see how things change and how the issues change.”
Mitton first ran for the NB Greens in 2014, and then won a seat on Sackville town council in 2016. She ran provincially in 2018 and 2020, winning a seat in the legislature both times, representing the former riding of Memramcook-Tantramar.
Mitton says in the past there was more a variety of issues that came up at the door, but in this election she most often hears about health care. (And there’s also the odd person who doesn’t realize an election has been called.)
Another difference for the incumbent MLA is no longer having to explain who she is, and who the NB Greens are. “Now people generally know who I am, know that the Greens are not just about the environment, know that healthcare is my priority and that I’ve been working on it,” says Mitton. “And so we have a different conversation.”
“Generally, I have had really good reception at the door and lots of support,” says Mitton. That said, she is “not taking anything for granted. I’m knocking on doors every day,” says the candidate.
Mitton started canvassing in June, and says she was able to visit hundreds of doors before the election writ was officially dropped on September 19.
As she makes her way through the neighbourhood, Mitton makes a point of telling potential voters about a scholarship program she kickstarted this past year providing tuition support for health care workers who agree to work in Tantramar after they graduate.
She says the key issue this election is health care, but Mitton also has a list of other concerns she says are top of mind: affordability (from property taxes to rents), climate change impacts, roads and bridges, and environmental protections for communities.
“All of these things are complex,” says Mitton, “and there’s not one thing we need to do for healthcare or one thing we need to do for the climate… It’s seeing how they connect, and actually having the political will to do something.”
Mitton says that in the past 10 years her motivations in politics have changed. “In 2014, climate justice was really what was driving me to to enter politics… I didn’t see that being talked about or represented at all.”
But then her dad became ill right after the 2014 election. “In that period, I learned so much about what was happening in the healthcare system, and that became my main motivation. And I see how much health care and the climate intersect, and that [climate change] is a public health crisis.”
“But health care has become the biggest thing that weighs on my heart and that I’m fighting for,” says Mitton.
