Green Party of Canada
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| Green Party of Canada | |
|---|---|
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| Active Federal Party | |
| Founded | 1983 |
| Leader | Elizabeth May |
| President | Melanie Ransom |
| Headquarters | Box 997 Station B Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5R1 |
| Political ideology | Green |
| International alignment | Global Greens |
| Colours | Green |
| Website | http://www.greenparty.ca/ |
The Green Party of Canada is a Canadian federal political party founded in 1983.[1] As of August 27, 2006, the party has over 10,000 registered members[2] — making the Greens the largest federal party in Canada without representation in Parliament. The Greens, as their name indicates, advocate green politics and are the largest party in Canada to focus primarily on green politics, though other parties have included environmental stances in their platforms.
The party's support has ranged between 4.5% and 13% since the 2006 federal election and has not polled below 7% in any opinion poll in 2007.[3] In the 2006 election, the Green Party of Canada received 4.5% of the total vote but did not win any seats.[4]
Elizabeth May is the current leader of the party. She was elected on the first ballot by 65% of voting party members on August 26, 2006.
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[edit] History
The Green Party of Canada was founded in 1983. In the 1984 federal election, the party ran 60 candidates (out of a possible 282 ridings).
Until 2003 the Party had little capacity to organize itself between elections, and as late as 2000 the party had no persistent infrastructure, and was based out of the same office as the Green Party of Ontario. It received substantial loans from Wayne Crookes, a BC businessman who had previously also made large donations to the Green Party of British Columbia.
A leadership vote was held at the party's August 2006 convention. On April 24, 2006, Jim Harris announced his intention not to stand for re-election as party leader.[5]. Three candidates officially entered the leadership race: David Chernushenko, Elizabeth May, and Jim Fannon. May won the leadership with 65% of the vote on the first ballot.
[edit] Policies
The GPC had originally adopted a form of the Ten Key Values originally authored by the United States Green Party.
The August 2002 Convention adopted the Six Principles of the Charter of the Global Greens, as stated by the Global Greens Conference held in Canberra, Australia in 2001. These principles are the only ones included in the GPC constitution.
An emphasis on a green tax shift in the 2004 platform which favoured partially reducing income and corporate taxes (while increasing taxes on polluters and energy consumers,) created questions as to whether the Green Party was still on the left of the political spectrum, or was taking a more eco-capitalist approach by reducing progressive taxation in favour of regressive taxation.
As early as 2000, the party had published platform comparisons indicating the reasons why supporters of any of the five other Canadian federal political parties should consider voting Green. The Greens have always had right-wing, leftist and centrist factions that have been ascendant at different times in the party's history. Many Greens also claim that this traditional left-right political spectrum analysis does not accurately capture the pragmatic ecological orientation of an evolving Green Party.[6]
The ecumenical approach (expressing affinities with all Canadian political tendencies and making cases to voters on all parts of the left-right spectrum) has been advocated by those who believe their success can be measured by the degree to which other parties adopt Green Party policies. It has however not been discerned the degree to which this process has contributed to phenomena like the Liberal Party of Canada adopting several key items which also appear in the Green program, such as accelerated Capital Cost Allowance deductions restricted to sustainable technology only, and the adoption of the ecological and social indicators and green procurement rules Greens have long advocated. Neither have the relative degrees of influence been discerned which non-partisan environmental groups and the party's own Green wing have in developing the policies of the Green Party.
[edit] Leadership
Long-time environmental activist and lawyer Elizabeth May won the leadership of the federal Green party at a convention in Ottawa on August 26, 2006. She won with 2,145 votes, or 65.3 per cent of the valid ballots cast and the second-place finisher David Chernushenko, an environmental consultant, collected 1,096 votes or 33.3 per cent of the total.[7]
On November 21, 2006, May appointed outgoing Green Party of British Columbia leader Adriane Carr and Quebec television host Claude Genest as Deputy Leaders of the Party [8]. David Chernushenko, who ran against Elizabeth May for the party leadership, is currently the Senior Deputy to the Leader.
Previous leader Jim Harris was first elected to the office with over 80% of the vote and the support of the leaders of all of the provincial level Green parties. He was re-elected on the first ballot by 56% of the membership in a leadership challenge vote in August 2004. Tom Manley placed second with over 30% of the vote. A few months after the 2004 convention, Tom Manley was appointed Deputy Leader. On September 23, 2005, Manley left the party to join the Liberal Party of Canada.
[edit] List of Leaders (Past & Present)
- Trevor Hancock (1983–1984)
- Seymour Trieger (1984–1988)
- Kathryn Cholette (1988–1990)
- Chris Lea (1990–1996)
- Wendy Priesnitz (1996–1997)
- Harry Garfinkle (1997) (interim)
- Joan Russow (1997–2001)
- Chris Bradshaw (2001–2003) (interim)
- Jim Harris (2003–2006)
- Elizabeth May (2006–present)
[edit] Federal Election Results
| Election | # of candidates nominated | # of seats won | # of total votes | % of popular vote |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | 79 | 0 | 55 583 | 0.4% |
| 2000 | 111 | 0 | 104 402 | 0.8% |
| 2004 | 308 | 0 | 582 247 | 4.3% |
| 2006 | 308 | 0 | 664 068 | 4.5% |
Source: Elections Canada
[edit] Electoral status
The Green Party fielded candidates in all 308 of the nation's ridings in the last two federal elections. In the 2006 federal election, the Green Party received 4.5% of the popular vote, only slightly more than in 2004, despite having received public funding (over $1 million CAD per year) for the first time and receiving more media coverage.
No Green Party candidate has yet been elected to the federal or provincial level of government in Canada. Members of the party have achieved municipal offices, though most were elected as individuals and not on Green Party slates or labels in local (at least officially) non-partisan municipal elections. However, some people have been elected with a Green Party affiliation identified directly on the ballot. The first two were elected in the 1999 municipal elections (20 November, 1999):
- Art Vanden Berg, elected as a City Councillor in Victoria, British Columbia, and
- Roslyn Cassells, elected to the Vancouver Parks Board on the same day.[9]
Current Greens in office include:
- Mayor Ken Melamed of Whistler
- Councillor Jane Sterk in Esquimalt, BC
- Councillor Rick Goldring in Burlington, Ontario
Andrea Reimer was elected as a trustee on the Vancouver School Board in 2002, and Sonya Chandler was elected to the Victoria, BC, council as a Green. Former Councillor Elio Di Iorio was narrowly defeated in his 2006 reelection bid in Richmond Hill, Ontario and former Councillor Rob Strang did not run for reelection in Orangeville, Ontario. The late Richard Thomas served as reeve of Armour Township, Ontario from 2003 until his death in 2006. There are about 16 other Greens elected to local governments in BC.
[edit] Exclusion from debates
In the 2004 election, the consortium of Canadian television networks did not invite Jim Harris to the televised leaders debates. The primary reason given for this was the party's lack of representation in the House of Commons. There were unsuccessful legal actions by the party, a petition by its supporters to have it included, and statements by non-supporters such as Ed Broadbent who believed it should be included.
The Green Party was also not included in the leaders' debates for the 2006 election.[10] The same reason was given[11], although some also believed the party's lack of visibility and meaningful input into Canadian federal budgets and bills was a factor.
The Green Party continues to campaign for these measures.
[edit] Internet innovation
The Green Party was the first Canadian political party to use the Internet, with almost full party contacts across Canada for provincial and federal purposes through e-mail and FidoNet back in the late 1980s.
While the organizing and election planning was centralized, policy development was to be decentralized. In February 2004, the Green Party of Canada Living Platform was initiated by the Party's former Head of Platform and Research, Michael Pilling, to open the party's participatory democracy to the public to help validate its policies against broad public input. It also made it easy for candidates to share their answers to public interest group questionnaires, find the best answers to policy questions, and for even rural and remote users, and Canadians abroad, to contribute to Party policy intelligence.
[edit] Membership exclusions
In 1998, the party adopted a rule that forbids membership in any other federal political party. This was intended to prevent the party from being taken over.
In the past, some Green Party members have been comfortable openly working with members of other political parties. For instance, GPC members Peter Bevan-Baker and Mike Nickerson worked with Liberal MP Joe Jordan to develop the Canada Well-Being Measurement Act that called upon the government to implement Genuine Progress Indicators (GPI). While the act was introduced into the House of Commons as a private members bill, it never became law. A small number of Greens who advocate the more cooperative approach to legislation object to the new rule not to hold cross-memberships, a tool they occasionally employed.
[edit] Peace and Ecology Party of Canada
In 2005, some members of the Green Party of Canada who disagreed with what they considered to be the right-wing direction taken by leader Jim Harris founded the Peace and Ecology Party of Canada. This left-wing political party was devoted to issues such as labour, the environment, and bioregionalism. The party was never registered with Elections Canada, did not run candidates in the 2006 federal election, and no longer maintains a website. [12]
| Part of the Politics series on Green politics |
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| Topics |
| Organizations |
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Global Greens · Africa · Americas · Asia-Pacific · Europe |
| Principles |
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Four Pillars |
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[edit] References
[edit] General references
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ History of the Green Party of Canada, www.greenparty.ca
- ^ GPC Leader Elizabeth May on CTV Newsnet (video clip), August 27, 2006
- ^ Canadians want Green Party leader in debates, poll shows
- ^ Official voting results
- ^ "Harris to give up on Green leadership," Globe and Mail, April 24, 2006.
- ^ Martin, Chip. Left, right support Green London Free Press
- ^ Canadian Press, May wins Green Party leadership
- ^ Elizabeth May Announces Prominent Greens Adriane Carr and Claude William Genest as Deputy Leaders of federal Green Party Green Party of Canada press release, November 21, 2006.
- ^ City of Vancouver, Election Summary Report November 20,1999
- ^ "Leaders' Debate," Green Party of Canada press release, November 30, 2005.
- ^ CBC ombudsman's review, 2006
- ^ Google cache of the PEP website.
[edit] See also
- List of political parties in Canada
- Young Greens of Canada
- Green Party candidates, 2006 Canadian federal election
- Green Party candidates, 2004 Canadian federal election
- Green Party candidates, 1997 Canadian federal election
- Green Party candidates, 1993 Canadian federal election
- Green Party of Canada leadership conventions
[edit] External links
- Green Party of Canada official web site
- Green Party of Canada on YouTube
- Green Party of Canada on Google Video
 Green parties in Canada |
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| Federal: Green Party of Canada | |
| Provincial: Alberta - British Columbia - Manitoba - Newfoundland and Labrador Nova Scotia - Ontario - Prince Edward Island - Quebec - Saskatchewan |
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