Scott Haig

Scott Haig is a self-employed taxi owner/driver in North Bay Ontario. He has had a lifelong interest in wilderness landscape photography, and enjoys canoeing, hiking, and cross-country skiing – whatever it takes to get to those special places where spectacular scenes can be found. Scott has rafted the upper Colorado River, hiked the Grand Canyon, and canoed the pastoral upper Missouri River in the United States, and lived for a while in Jasper, Alberta, where he first discovered how much he enjoyed driving a taxi for a living. Scott paid for his studies in Business and Psychology at Queen’s University by driving a cab in Kingston, and when he retired as a group home manager, he decided to return to the taxi business, and came to North Bay, where he now resides with his two college-aged sons. Scott has visited Algonquin Park almost annually since high school days, but surprisingly, has never ventured into the Temagami area back country. “I probably would have gone this year, “Scott says, “If it hadn’t been for this election thing!”

Scott first became interested in the Green Party when he heard former federal leader Jim Harris speaking on television during the 2006 federal election campaign. Scott was impressed with Mr. Harris’ blend of fiscal conservatism with social activism and environmental awareness. “This was an approach I had never seen before in Canadian politics, “Scott remarks, “and for me it was a eureka moment. Other parties had always been lacking in at least one of the three elements, but this combination, I knew, was what I had always been looking for in a political party.”

Scott has been helping the local Green Party get organized to contest both federal and provincial election campaigns, and currently serves as President of the Green Party of Ontario Constituency Association for Nipissing and as CEO of the federal Electoral District Association for Nipissing-Timiskaming. “My management background has given me the ability to pull things together and deal with the paperwork, but it is my fondness for the beauty of nature which motivates me to do it,” Scott says.

Scott believes that the most important decision facing the Ontario government over the next four years is whether to proceed with the multi-billion-dollar refurbishment of nuclear power plants, and the even more costly building of new ones. Scott finds it odd that such a huge investment of money could be contemplated with so little discussion about it. Scott observes that the Liberals and Conservatives are in favour of more nuclear; but they seem to want to talk about it as little as possible during this election campaign. The NDP say they are against nuclear, but they don’t seem to have a solid alternative plan to offer. The Green Party does have a plan; we know the path to a power generation system without both coal and nuclear, methods which create far too many health problems to make either of them a safe, wise choice for our power needs. Scott believes a lively discussion on power policy is urgently needed during this election, and he looks forward to putting it on the public agenda.