The environment is one of the significant issues for voters this year when they go to the polls.

That does not ring truer than for the Green Party of Canada and their candidate in the Cypress-Hills Grasslands election, Bill Clary.

"Probably the main focus, the most important thing for the Green Party as far as I am concerned is climate change and climate disruption," he said. "I don't think that the main political parties have taken it seriously and I think scientists have laid out a pretty rough picture of what it is we are going to be dealing with if we don't take our 1.5-degree commitment seriously."

Clary said that the Green Party is ready to make a dramatic system-wide change in the way climate change is engaged. 

"The two main political parties have set the direction of our country for the last 40 to 50 years. It seems like a dramatic or a radical shift, but according to what the science is demanding, this is a modest shift," he said. "The two main political parties haven't taken it seriously on the issues, and we have got to deal with it. There has been no serious attempt to shift us to renewable energies. Now we find ourselves in a situation where the scientists are saying we've got 11 to 12 years if we keep up our carbon output, in 11 to 12 years we are going to be higher than that 1.5 percent and that risked us tipping into uncontrollable or completely unpredictable weather patterns."

He noted that the weather the southwest experienced earlier this year that has caused farmers to trouble with the harvest is a possible example of uncontrollable and unpredictable weather patterns.

Clary said that people should vote for himself and the Green Party because they are ready to make a change regarding climate change.

"I think that we have a realistic assessment of where we are right now, and that other political parties don't currently address the situation in any way that seems to take it as seriously as it is," he said. "I would recommend folks support the Green Party because we have a plan in place to shift our economy from fossil fuels completely onto renewable energy sources, as rapidly as humanly recourses."

He added that he is just a concerned Canadian citizen about the welfare of his family.

Clary is up against William Caton (Liberals), Maria Lewans (Independent), Lee Harding (PPC), Jeremy Patzer (Conservatives), Trevor Peterson (NDP) in the upcoming election on October 21st.

Profiles on the five other candidates can be found on Swift Current Online in the following days.