Adrian Visentin isn’t a musical person, but as you click on to his Web site bio and hear the Man of La Mancha theme playing in the background, you might think otherwise.

The song’s lyrics of “To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe,” are fitting. In this race, the Green Party candidate will be running against what seems like the unbeatable Liberal member of Parliament in Maurizio Bevilacqua, who has won in Vaughan, Ont. the past four elections.

“When I first started running, people said I’d have no chance,” Visentin says. “I believe that if you believe in yourself, you can accomplish anything.”

But choosing the song to represent his campaign had nothing to do with his competition, Visentin says. It was about reinforcing why entered politics in the first place.

“This isn’t about getting a new job, I have a job,” says Visentin, also president of AAV Portfolio Management. “It’s about changing the world.”

The urge to stand up for environmental issues hit Visentin 10 years ago. He had watched a PBS special in which scientists had discovered that chemicals in plastic mimicked estrogen in the human body and could also cause cancer.

“So, here we are using plastic for 50 years and scientists found this out by accident,” he says. “There are more dangers in our economy and we are doing very little about it.”

Initially, Visentin had decided to run as a Canadian Alliance Party candidate in the 2000 election due to its debt-reduction platform. The thought of joining the Green Party didn’t cross Visentin’s mind until 2001, when party officials invited him to lunch.

“We sat down and I inquired about all their policies,” he says. “After more research, I found that the Ontario Green Party was thinking exactly the way I think and from there I made the leap.”

While campaigning for the Green Party is a recent change for Visentin, he’s no stranger to politics. He made first entered the political arena as a Reform Party member in 1990.

“I used to read the papers for the budget deficits,” Visentin says. “Sometimes, I’d think to myself, I could do a better job.”

Born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ont., Visentin’s instinctive knack for numbers led him to do his Bachelor of Applied Physics at Waterloo University in the late 1970s. However, after three years of working in nuclear physics, he realized the field wasn’t for him.

“I saw myself going nowhere,” Visentin says. “After that, I decided to pursue a more ambitious path.”

In 1986, Visentin says he was “lucky enough” to get accepted into the MBA program at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western. Upon graduating in 1989, Visentin moved to Ajax, Ont., with his wife, to begin his financial career.

Over the next 14 years, Visentin grew his career from a Bay Street trader to vice president of correspondent trading for the institutional equity trading department at RBC Dominion Securities Inc.

Behind movie stars, rock stars and athletes, Visentin says, he chose the fourth best career in the world.

“You may not have the fans,” Visentin says. “But you sure do make the money.”

Part of his success came from putting clients first and working hard, Visentin says.

“I plan to work just as hard in politics,” he says. “Regardless of what people think about politicians.”