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“It could change, absolutely,” Speers said of the riding, where incumbent Liberal Terry Beech is running again, but is dogged by public dissatisfaction that his opposition to the Trans Mountain expansion was overridden by the government that he joined.

Green candidate Lynne Quarmby, an Simon Fraser University biology prof and Trans Mountain opponent, finished a distant fourth in the 2015 election.

May and the Greens are placing their hopes on the idea that voters don’t face the same pressure to vote strategically to unseat a government and that the party has demonstrated in provincial elections that Green candidates can win.

“In the last election, the dominant factor for many Canadians was, ‘How do I vote to get rid of (Stephen) Harper,'” May said. “That’s gone, and we have a split on the right (between Andrew Scheer’s Conservative party and Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada).”

“So there’s a greater likelihood, pollsters talk about it, of a minority parliament,” May said. And in that context, “it gives people the reason to say, ‘I can vote for what I want.’ ”

At the provincial level, the Greens recently won official Opposition status in P.E.I., and in B.C. three Green MLAs hold the balance of power “holding the government’s feet to the fire,” May said, which helps their argument.

“The choice for voters has never been clearer, if you want green policies, you have to vote Green,” May said.

Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Kuttner, who is a political rookie, will also face a challenge with veteran NDP campaigner Svend Robinson, who held the former North Burnaby riding for a long time and has returned to federal politics also looking to win the seat from Beech.