KENTVILLE, N.S. — She firmly believes that our future and national purpose will be best served by a re-elected Liberal government in Ottawa.
Pauline Raven, a two-term Kings County councillor, is the latest candidate to declare intentions to seek the Liberal nomination in Kings-Hants.
When it comes to her decision, Raven said that she discovered somewhere along the way that it’s “what I do anyway.” She has always been involved in community work, raised funds for worthwhile causes and helped bring projects together.
Raven said she enjoys it. She began at age 14 with a “War on Want” anti-poverty campaign and said she never looked back.
Raven authored the Nova Scotia Child Poverty Report Card for 10 years. She has campaigned for environmental protection, the fight for women’s rights and racial justice and the preservation of agricultural land through fundraising for the Annapolis Valley Farmland Trust.
Raven said that countries that do well with farmland protection and food security tend to be those that have national policies. She said she has a lot to learn when it comes to exploring the issue at the federal level.
Raven said that during her first term as a Kings County councillor, it was “a difficult chamber to be in.” She immersed herself in work to help community members so that they got value from her service as councillor. She also forged valuable contacts within the provincial and federal governments.
“I feel I’m well situated to be up and running at the job quite quickly if I’m successful with the nomination and if I’m then successful in October,” Raven said.
It came as a big surprise when former Kings-Hants MP Scott Brison stepped down. She thought about waiting to see who stepped forward to seek the nomination before throwing her hat in the ring but then decided that “this was for me at this point in time.”
Raven said she is going to get along with the other candidates, the best person is going to win the nomination and they’ll then move forward together. She knows the “Liberal family” in the Valley. She likes them and feels that she can work well with them.
Raven has worked with different Liberal candidates over the last eight years, including Brison. She also ran Kings North Liberal candidate Geoff Turner’s campaign in the 2017 provincial election.
She anticipates that it’s going to be “a difficult time on the doorsteps” for candidates as politics has taken on “a bit of a nasty demeanor.” Raven said Kings-Hants is anybody’s seat to win in this kind of political environment. She believes that being a seasoned campaigner on the doorstep will help keep the seat Liberal.
“In the context of Canada as a whole, I think that’s important,” Raven said.
She describes herself as a “feminist woman” who is “strongly pro-choice” and she sees her values aligning with Liberal Party policy. She sees climate change as one of the biggest issues to address. It’s a priority for our young people and should be a priority for everyone.
In Kings County, she’s excited about a four-megawatt solar array that could soon be established at the former Meadowview landfill, which is in Raven’s municipal constituency. She started working with Brison on the project in 2014. Council is also working toward an industrial wind energy farm in the municipality’s southwest quadrant.
“It takes time, it takes patience, it takes waiting until you’ve got the right momentum to get it done,” Raven said.
Controversy in Ottawa
Raven said the controversy in Ottawa surrounding allegations by the Conservative Party that Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau interfered politically with the SNC-Lavalin trial has come up as she speaks to people about supporting her nomination.
Raven said local municipalities, provincial governments and the federal government sometimes contract consulting work to SNC-Lavalin. The company is a large part of Canada’s framework when it comes to getting consulting and engineering work done. Regardless of the outcome, she believes the firm will remain part of the country’s corporate landscape.
She said the media and opposition will “grab onto something” regardless of which party is in power. She doesn’t believe that we can be “totally distracted” by that.
“I think we have to work with provincial and federal counterparts regardless of who’s in there to try to bring the kinds of things that we need to the Valley,” Raven said. “I think I know how to do that. For me, that’s what it’s about and that’s what I will be saying to people.”
Her feeling is that change is required within all of our political parties to make Ottawa a friendlier, more collaborative workplace. It can’t stay as oppositional as it has been.
GO ONLINE:
For more information, visit www.paulineraven.ca or email [email protected].
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