Its hard to ignore these past few years. You see it in almost every commercial on TV. Its on every piece of material we get in the mail. RECYCLED this or GREEN that. Its now a part of our every day life.
Halton lawns are lined with the green bins every trash day with more and more people taking part in it. The question is how many but as far as I can see in Hawthorne Village, the participation rate is quite high.
Its even moved to politics now with the Green Party of Canada getting more and more noticeable as a federal election gets closer. Many years ago when someone brought up the Green Party ones thoughts would move to someone wearing sandals, long hair and a pony tail carrying a SAVE THE PLANET sign like someone straight out of the 60’s.
Not any more. Jim Harris took the Green Party from the fringe status and made it a household name. Combined with societies change to environmental awareness, we are now hearing about the Green Party with every political poll and hearing of the growing amount of support.
A couple of years back, Elizabeth May took over as leader and well…something changed. Some for the good and some for the bad.
Having a woman as leader of a federal political party never hurts. I’m sure she wasn’t chosen leader because of her gender as only hearing what she has to say proves she knows her stuff. She has continued where Jim Harris left off in raising awareness of the Green Party and what it stands for in the eyes of Canadians. Some have said that Jim Harris legitimized the Green Party sounding more like an accountant than someone talking about the environment. Many of the Green’s policies sound like they belong in the Conservative Party platforms as they discussed tax cuts for using environmentally friendly products.
Can May bring her party to that next level? The level of where each of the candidates in all the ridings could be taken seriously with that MP qualifications. Sadly many of the GP candidates in ridings are volunteers with no real desire to serve in the House and whos job is mainly to raise awareness of the Green Party.
The only problem is the stunts they’ve had to pull off to get even more notice.
Elizabeth May and Stephane Dion had made an arrangement where as if she herself runs in a Nova Scotia riding (against former Conservative leadership candidate and now cabinet Minister Peter Mackay) the Liberals would NOT run anyone against her. This would ensure May gets the advantage of not running against the GREEN SHIFT directly and almost making it a 2 horse race. That’s like taking one of the favourite horses from a race and then calling it fair.
If they were looking to become legit in the eyes of Canadians, let them stand in a fair race and may the best candidate win.
As many pundits have pointed out, the strength of the Green Party is not out east; its not in central Canada. The strength of the Green Party lies in the west. Out in BC the Green Party out polls the Liberals almost 2 to 1. As a strategist, that’s where I would put my strongest chance at a seat in the House of Commons. Having a Green MP makes it impossible to ignore. They would be part of every leaders debate in a federal election and their voices would be heard. Some would argue that more people in a leaders debate is bad.
I mean 9 provinces and 3 territories have to listen to a leader (BLOQ) that they cant vote for…so why crowd the stage because they poll high. When they start getting elected to the House of Commons, THEN we can put the leader in the debate. Thats a discussion for another time.
The fact is that if a political party is represented in the House of Commons, they should be represented in the leaders debate. This leads me to stunt #2.
Recently former Liberal MP Blair Wilson crossed the floor to join the Green Party after leaving the Liberal party due to some election finance issues. Apparently he didn’t appoint an official agent before raising funds and incurring expenses. Its something that most people running for office would know if they were paying attention, but alas he didn’t and while under investigation from Elections Canada he quit the Liberal caucus until it was over. Quoted in an article back in July his first priority was to rejoin the Liberal party and get re-elected in his riding.
That didn’t last long as Elizabeth May and the Green Party woo-ed him over. So fast that he hasn’t been able to change his website yet www.voteblair.ca
Now from July 20th until recently, Blairs priority was to re join the Liberal party. What changed? Did political opportunism rear its ugly head and change his mind? Having someone cross the floor to the Green’s isn’t a new idea seeing as recent as a few years ago, former CPC now Liberal MP Garth Turner even considered joining the Green Party.
Does the Green Party need this kind of stunt to be “relevant” in Canadians eyes? Can the Green Party take that next step without the help of political arrangements and floor crossings to get its message out?
The message is out there beyond a shadow of a doubt. Now in many cases you can lose business if your company isnt green enough for consumers. Hybrids, eco friendly this and that, recycle, green bins, composting, carbon taxes. The Green Party can be relevant if it only stuck with what got it to the dance…policies and awareness. Will they win a seat in the upcoming election? Maybe not. Will they be on the minds of voters as we head to the polls in October (maybe)? You bet they will.
Maybe they need a few more steps in the evolution of a political party to get them to that next step. Jim Harris took them to point A…Elizabeth May has taken them to point B…who can take them that next step to having their first ELECTED Green MP in the House of Commons.
Comments
4 Responses to “Green Party Stunts”
I’d like to support the Green Party but I can’t get my head around the proportional representation and how its fairer.
Many of the policies are very “conservative” which appeals to me but pulling these stunts as you call it remind people that they are not ready for prime time.
May is not the leader that will take them to the next step. I can’t support Dion and the green shift as its a taxation policy and not an environmental policy.
The only partys to consider is the NDP and the Conservative party. It’ll come down to who the local candidates are.
Its going to be a tough pick this time around. Rumour has it that the election will be called by next Sunday so get prepared. I agree with you that Dion’s Green Shift policy is not about the environment, its about taxes. Thats why it will fail. With all the faults of the attempts by the CPC at environmental policy, at least it was directed at the reduction of emissions (whether fast enough or too slow is up for interpretation) and taxing this while cutting taxes on that is not what people want to hear. This is about the pocket book. Thats why the governments cut of the GST worked well…we could see it, however small it was, we could see the reduction.
The Green Party however needs to shed its sandal wearing, granola eating image it has and talk about more than just the environment. The media paints them into this corner and its going to take a leader to say “HEY…its not just Green issues we talk about.” Jim Harris started that process and May seems to have dropped the ball. As many times as shes changed her image in the last year, its going to take more than a new pair of glasses and wardrobe to change Canadians minds.
In Halton the Green Party candidate is Kyle Griece. I know him pretty well, and on the good side he doesnt look the the candidates in other ridings which resemble that 60’s hippy character. There needs to be more changes at the party level in order for the Green to become the mainstream party it wants to be rather than the fringe party it is. – Mike
(Via email). The Green Party candidate lat election did a pretty good job in Halton but really didn’t have the desire to be MP.
The Greens need to attract quality candidates and not just fillins to have every riding represented. As much as the party makes up the biggest part of a decision on who they vote for, the candidate can make or break on who wins.
Fair comments Mike.
Fair comments, but I would point out that under the current voting system the lower down a party is in terms of popular vote (the Greens are 5th so far), the more they are discriminated against in terms of seat representation in the Commons. In a nutshell, the winning party always wins more seats than they deserve, and the third and subsequent place parties in terms of votes win much fewer seats than they deserve. This is important, since legislation passes or fails based on a simple majority in the Commons. So if a party has more seats as a percentage than they do votes, they quite literally have more power than they deserve based on their actual support levels, and the other parties have less power than they deserve. Hence the need for proportional representation.
In a sense, a federally-oriented party like the Greens coming up from 5th place has little choice but to woo an independent MP in order to gain the toe-hold they need to get into the leadership debates, which in turn levels the playing field and gives them a fighting chance to win elected MPs. It’s a chicken-and-egg thing really. You can’t get into the debates without an MP, and you can’t win an MP without being in the debates.
The only problem I see with proportional representation is the lack of local representation in the riding. In Halton for instance this issue is very important and voters want an MP or MPP who is local and understands local issues. With PR a representative can be picked from a pool of “approved candidates” to be the MP and that local focus is lost.
Some people don’t want to have a party leader pick who stands up for us in the house of commons who doesn’t understand the issues a riding faces. The problem is people not voting and that should be addressed before we have a minority of voters picking a party to speak out for the majority of the people. – Mike
As we know it…and who knows whats happened tonight so far, but the Halton Green Party was looking for a new candidate at Kyle Griece had to step down. Who will fill his shoes in the battle of Halton?
We should know soon.