It was farewell to Nova Scotia and hello Gulf Islands as Green party leader Elizabeth May offered Salt Spring Islanders an election-style speech at Mahon Hall on Thursday evening.

“This time, wouldn’t it be exciting to cast a vote that changed the history of Canadian politics?” May asked an enthusiastic crowd of about 150 people. “What we have to do is make the case to our friends and neighbours that there is only one candidate in the race that has [Conservative party MP] Gary Lunn worried right now — and it’s me.”

The Thursday evening fundraiser marked May’s first official function on Salt Spring since she confirmed her intention to run as a candidate in the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding last month.

May’s rhetoric made clear that she and her party are already gearing up for the quest to make her the country’s first Green member of parliament.

She said her party is prepared to launch a major campaign that will place an unprecedented emphasis on the riding whenever an election is called.

“We are going to run the first really major campaign that’s effective and well organized to defeat the current MP,” May said. “It’s not personal. I’m sure Gary Lunn is lovely, but his decisions and his record condemn him and he doesn’t deserve to be in the House of Commons.”

May specifically criticized Lunn’s 2008 decision to fire the head of Canada’s nuclear safety watchdog.

“Every form of health and safety regulation in this country was weakened [when he made that decision],” she said.

During the two-hour event emceed by island folk musician Valdy, May touched on topics that included climate change, deficit spending, aquaculture, run-of-river hydro projects and the need to resuscitate the country’s ailing democracy.

May attacked what she said was the Conservative government’s failure to promote more renewable energy initiatives as part of the latest round of infrastructure spending.

Even China’s $600 billion in infrastructure spending emphasizes its transition from being the world’s predominant supplier of cheap consumer goods to a leading producer of energy-efficient and renewable energy-related technologies.

May called on her supporters to speak with friends, family and neighbours in an effort to reinvigorate the political process in the riding and beyond.

“Electing anybody else isn’t going to change anything,” she said.

“When I’m in the House of Commons as the leader of the Greens, I’m in a different position than a backbencher for the Liberals or a backbencher for the NDP, or even a downwardly mobile minister of state for sport.”

Despite its leader’s optimistic spirit, the modest Green party machine will have to contend with Lunn’s long-standing popularity in the riding.

Lunn has held the seat since 1997 as a member of the Reform, Alliance and Conservative parties.

In the 2008 federal election, one in which the NDP had no official candidate, Lunn grasped victory with a respectable 43.43 per cent of the riding’s total vote.

The Liberal party’s Briony Penn finished in second place with 39.36 per cent of the vote and Green party candidate Andrew Lewis received 10.45 per cent of the vote.