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The Green machine was revving up Friday in Halifax.

“We’re coming and look out,” said Lil MacPherson as she and four other Halifax-area Green candidates joined national party leader Elizabeth May at a news conference at Dalhousie University.

“It’s the only platform that I really agree with,” said MacPherson, the founder and co-owner of the Wooden Monkey restaurants who ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Halifax Regional Municipality in 2016.

“It’s a no-brainer for me. It’s calling and I can’t say no. I really can’t.”

MacPherson will contest the Dartmouth-Cole Harbour seat. HRM councillor and metereologist Richard Zurawski will challenge Liberal Geoff Regan for the Halifax West riding and longtime journalist Jo-Ann Roberts will run in Halifax. Thomas Trappenburg, a professor of computer science at Dalhousie and president of the provincial Green party, will vie for the South Shore-St. Margarets seat and Anthony Edmonds, an aerospace engineer, will seek the Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook riding.

Current HRM councilor Richard Zurawski is running for the Greens in Dartmouth-Cole Harbour. - File

Zurawski, who recently brought regional council on board for a declaration of climate change emergency in the municipality, said he is not concerned about defeating Regan.

“I will do the best I can,” said Zurawski, who is already proud to be a climate changer on May’s shadow cabinet. “I am running to make a point. Climate change is existential. The Liberals and the NDP have done nothing. I am going to push as hard as I can. There isn’t any other issue that is more important than climate change.”

Connecticut-born May’s family moved to Margaree Harbour in the early 1970s when she was in her late teens. Now the MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands in British Columbia, she agreed that the time has come for Nova Scotia to join neighbouring New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island with elected Green politicians.

May said the Greens have a full platform that advocates universal drug coverage, more affordable or free post-secondary and trade school education and affordable housing.

Still, she realizes that many think of the Greens as simply a climate-change party.

“I say look, if you are going to be accused of being a one-issue party, if the issue is survival, OK,” May said.

“That’s what we are dealing with. We are dealing with the question of are we committed to making sure that our kids have a livable world. I am. That has to be fundamental. It’s not our only issue, but without it, nothing else matters.”

May has no illusions of forming government but she would like to top 12 seats to become an officially recognized party.

“Depending on what kind of Parliament we get, it’s not so much how many Green seats we get as a number, but in terms or our ability to exercise influence. If we get a minority Parliament, we work well with everybody.”