This is second post on the state of Canada’s Green Parties, both the national and the provincial parties. I am writing this while I am in Nova Scotia assisting in NS PC Party the weekend before the province votes on Tuesday November 26th. Again the Greens won’t play a part in who forms government.
I’ve received many comments on part 1, if you haven’t read it yet, you can find it below.
Here, today I proposed to offer path for Canada’s Greens to respectability, influence and maybe even governing. I must assume that Greens really want to be in government. However this means that Greens need to be in a position that blocks out the distractions that pull them off that path. These distractions are important distractions, they are political distractions, but they take the greens away from their specific, albeit there ‘niche’ message on the environment and fighting climate.
The big question on achieving success in their message and mission is how. First let me give my perspective of the influence that different levels of government have. It’s always been a belief of mine that provincially an elected official can have influence up and down. That’s the reason I ran twice provincially. An MPP/MLA is a bridge to municipal governments and conduit to federal partners. An MPP/MLA only has two work one level up or down whereas municipal or federal representative jump two levels to work.
I propose that playing on the bigger field isn’t helping, it’s distracting and hindering them. When I look at the players federally, there are two progressive parties already, the Greens, are a third much smaller progressive party – making gains against the Liberals of the NDP is very difficult.
Regarding leadership, Elizabeth May is not the leader the party needs to move up in the rankings. Yes, she ran to save the party following the departure of Annamie Paul – but as respected as she may be, she is not regarded seriously to lead the t party to bigger electoral success. When I look ahead there does not seem to be anyone in the wings to replace her when the time comes – and that could happen as soon as the next federal election.
In Canada’s Parliament, both May and Mike Morrice (Kitchener-Centre) get sidetracked by weighing in on larger national and international issues that take them further to the left than then should be.
So, I propose Canada’s Green focus on the smaller playing fields, the provincial territories and use the influence of provincial success to drive a national environmental platform.
The Green Party of Canada, to have greater success across the country should shutter its doors and focus resources on its Provincial brothers and sisters. The experience of Elizabeth May to lead the Greens through parliamentary procedure cannot be understanded and a true assistance to 10+ provincial Green associations.
I believe there is a good foundation in a couple of provinces, I am thinking of Mike Schreiner in Ontario and David Coon in New Brunswick, and I include this Peter Bevan-Baker, leader of the PEI Greens between 2012 -2013 but more importantly he led the PEI Greens to Opposition Status in 2019. They lost that status in the 2024 elections. I added Bevan-Baker because of the success he had leading the Greens to the best result of any Green Party across Canada and that counts for something.
Looking at provincial governments, they are, generally to be more progressive in nature, yes there are exceptions; Alberta and Saskatchewan come to my mind. this is due to the jurisdictional responsibilities of healthcare, social services, family and child services; the progressive nature of Greens fall nicely here. The environment is a progressive issue, and it folds much easier into provincial regulations than federal where cross ministerial issues muddy the effectiveness any climate plan.
In doing this my point is, how many times can you tear down and rebuild a National Party? Two of the last three rebuilds have come under Ms. May and there may likely be a fourth rebuild of the national party following the federal election next year. Before the go through a fourth rebuild in four elections, they should consider not having a federal party.
I also concede that this is very risky because the of the loss of a Green ‘voice’ in the House of commons, but the question to be raised is, ‘does the green voice of a large lake of issues make sense of the lake is only inches deep?’ Elizabeth May’s speech on last Thursday on the Liberal Bill C-78 on the GST Holiday Tax Break was good, but does it move the needle on Green support? No, it gets lost because of the volume used by the Government and Opposition on the issue.
So it becomes a huge ask the magic mirror question if it is time for Greens across Canada to look in the mirror, focus on doing government differently and extend it to how they do politics differently and do it solely provincially.
Comments
Yes, that’s too extreme and leaves out the fact that the issues at the federal level are different than those at the provincial level because of jurisdiction. You’re right though that they should stay true to themselves. But it’s hard to do because there are many different shades of Green inside the party.
Traditionally, Green Parties are centre, cente-right on the political spectrum because their balanced budget, zero waste and small-footprint policies ensure a Green government will make the most of what they have to work with.
I joined the Green Party because they are the closest thing to a “Pay as you go” political party that exists. Or existed. Elizabeth May has definitely moved the Green Party to the left and hurt it in the process. I made this argument on behalf of David Chernushenko who ran against her in the 2006 leadership campaign.
Former Green Party leader Jim Harris was a businessman and as a result, he was able to make gains at the expense of the Conservative Party. Many Red Tories joined the Green Party when Stephen Harper became leader. But they left a short while later when Elizabeth May became the Green leader.
Elizabeth is very knowledgeable and has raised the Green Party’s profile, but unfortunately for her, the media knows of the many questionable things she’s done to snuff out any opposition internally, even if they don’t write about it. Which is why you don’t see anyone internally able to replace her or many articles about the GPC any more.
The answer lies in building a stronger ground game. The party is far too weak on the ground in almost every riding. Their focus on individual ridings has also hurt them considerably. This was Elizabeth’s strategy. In the 2011 federal election when she was elected, she sucked all the money out of the party to do so. This practice has continued ever since. If you want to win as a Green Party candidate, you need to do it yourself. The party won’t/can’t help you.
This is the same for the Ontario Greens. For Mike Schreiner to get elected, the party used all/most of the money raised in 2018 for his campaign. His promise of ads in areas outside the GTA and 519 belt never materialized because they decided to keep the money for themselves. It’s quite sad really, because it goes against the basic fundamentals of marketing and sales, which is exactly what election campaigns are all about. As I commented on your earlier piece, voters need to be talking about the Green Party in every corner of the country or province if their best candidates are going to be elected. They don’t seem to understand why this is so, unfortunately. Cutting off their nose despite their face in the process.
Great post. Thanks for sharing.