Green Party of Canada
The Green Party of Canada is a federal political party. In the 2000 Canadian federal election, it fielded candidates in 131 (one third) of Canada's 301 ridings.
| Table of contents |
|
2 History 3 Leadership 4 Policies 5 Affiliations 6 Provincial Wings 7 External links |
The federal party was founded and originally promoted mostly by members of the largest provincial green party, the Green Party of British Columbia. There are now affiliated Green Parties registered in seven of the ten Canadian provinces. The federal and provincial parties remain closely affiliated, while no joint memberships are issued, the affiliates elect representatives to the federal council, and many officials and candidates in the federal party have positions in the provincial affiliates. The Green Party of Canada has its headquarters in Ottawa, Canada.
About one month before the 1980 federal election in Canada, 11 candidates, mostly in Atlantic province districts, issued a joint press release declaring that they were running on a common platform which called for a transition to a non-nuclear, conserver society. Although they ran as independents, they unofficially used the name "Small Party" as part of their declaration of unity-a reference to the "small is beautiful" theme in Green politics. This was the most substantial early attempt to answer the call for an ecologically-oriented Canadian political party.
Three years later, North America's first Green Party was born in British Columbia, and later that same year the Ontario Greens were formed. The BC Greens leaped right into elections, running Canada's first Green candidate. Later that year, the founding conference of the Canadian Greens was held in Ontario. Close to 200 people from 55 communities attended, coming from every province except Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island.
The birthing process was difficult, with deep divisions between those arguing for a national structure and those in favor of a process that would build from the regions. Trevor Hancock, the party's first registered leader, was eager to get Green politics up and running in Canada. However, a more cautious form of anarchism prevailed. Eventually, an uneasy agreement was reached for a federation of regional parties, with strong support for building upwards from the bottom.
"Is the priority to redefine politics from the ground up, or to play the electoral game according to the present rules? Or both?"
The Green Party of Canada contested its first federal election in September 1984. A little over 1% of Canadians voted Green. Unfortunately, the ongoing discussions about the party's modus operandi became so exhausting that at one point in the mid-80's there was a near collapse of the party. It was kept alive-if not particularly active-for almost a decade under the stewardship of the BC Greens.
In the 1988 federal election, the Green spotlight was on Quebec, where le Parti Vert ran 29 candidates (up from just 4 in the previous election). Les Verts received higher results than Green candidates anywhere else in Canada, polling an average of 2.4% of the vote. The Quebec wing hosted the 1990 Canadian Greens conference in Montreal. But soon after that, Canada's constitutional problems interfered, and many Quebec candidates abandoned the Greens in favor of a separatist party. Quebec only ran six Green candidates in the 1993 election.
In the summer of 1988, the BC Greens tried to get the Green Party of Canada onto its feet by hosting a conference-the first federal gathering since the founding meeting in 1983. The main accomplishment of that conference was the acceptance, after five years as a registered party, of a constitution. The party continued to field candidates at the federal level, and provincial parties were organized in a few other provinces, led by consistently strong efforts in British Columbia. In the spring of 1996, although the hopes of electing a representative to the BC legislature proved premature, one candidate in the interior of the province received over 11% of the vote and overall, the party's proportion of the popular vote surged to a new high. At the party's 6th annual gathering in Castlegar, BC in August of 1996, major constitutional amendments were passed, and policy was agreed to in a wide variety of areas. An important step forward was the structuring of a Shadow Cabinet, whose mandate is to create a platform for the next election, which was held in 1997.
The sixth annual gathering in Castlegar, BC marked the beginning of a new era in Canadian Greens history, and a somewhat uneasy one at that. In spite of a concern about the nature of leadership in a decentralized party, the Greens' first leadership campaign had been underway for the previous six months. Four candidates contested the leadership; a mail-in ballot was held; and when the votes were counted Wendy Priesnitz had become the leader of the Green Party of Canada.
Dr. Joan Russow, formerly leader of the National Party of Canada, became leader of the Green Party of Canada on April 13, 1997 and served until 2001. Russow won 52% of the ballots cast in the 1997 leadership race, surpassing Jim Harris (39%) and Rachelle Small (8%).
In the 2000 federal election, the party nominated 111 candidates, in nine out of ten provinces (all but Newfoundland and Labrador) and in one of three territories (Nunavut). These candidates collected 0.81% of the total popular vote.
In the 2001 Quebec City protest against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, Russow was the very first person thrown in a jail built specially for protesters, for taking a photograph of it from outside.
Russow experienced a rift with the BC wing of the Green Party. Russow stepped down as party leader and left the party. Volunteer efforts were substantially absorbed in provincial campaigns between 2001 and 2003, and the Federal party became dormant, as was typical in the past, between elections. Chris Bradshaw served the party as interim leader from 2001 to February 2003.
With over 80% of votes cast in the 2003 leadership election, Toronto management consultant Jim Harris defeated John Grogan of Valemount, British Columbia and Jason Crummey of the Northwest Territories and previously Newfoundland. Harris claimed the support of all provincial Green Party leaders.
The present leader of the Green Party of Canada is Jim Harris, a management consultant who describes himself as a green conservative. His election reflected a desire among the members to "become serious" in achieving electoral progress, and to steer away from being a protest party. An internally contentious year in 2003 came to a close with a vocal minority of fundi councillors resigning, which made way for the more pragmatically oriented realo majority to begin rebuilding the party across the country, with a more affirmative focus on green politics and green economics. Under his leadership, the party managed to conduct its first modestly sucessful fundrasing campaigns and acquired a core office staff to prepare for a possible 2004 election. The party's policy formation continued to be developed along decentralized principles, at arm's length from the party executive.
The GPC supports the Ten Key Values originally authored by the Green Party of the United States.
The GPC is a member of the Federation of Green Parties of the Americas and recognized by the Global Greens as representing Canadian Greens federally.Relation to provincial parties
History
Leadership
Policies
Affiliations