Change of Season

This fall represents quite a change of season in my life. After much careful consideration, consultating with the National Campaign Committee, time spent talking to people in the riding, I decided that Saanich-Gulf Islands is the part of the country where most voters really want a chance to elect a Green and change Parliament. So, I have packed up and have made the trek across the country to settle into my new community. The moving van arrives on Monday and I will be in my new house in Sidney British Columbia! While this puts me at the very opposite end of the country from my daughter, she is so happy and enthusiastic about the Foundation Year Programme at Kings College this year in Halifax, that we are both off on new adventures and positive about the change.

Saanich-Gulf Islands is a great place to run for many reasons – the people there embody small ‘g’ values and they are willing to make history (they will always be remembered for electing Tommy Douglas). I have worked on environmental issues in BC for many many years and feel a deep connection to this beautiful coast and its people.

The welcome I have received from the people of my new community have made this transition a positive and exciting time. Many local people have come up to me to tell me they are thrilled to have me and they are ready to work on my campaign. Of course, first I have to win the nomination. Unique to any other political party, there will be a challenger to my nomination and at the meeting on September 19th at Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney, Green Party members of Saanich-Gulf Islands will choose between myself and Victoria resident Stuart Hertzog for their candidate. Yes, democracy is alive and well in the Green Party. (Let me reassure party members that, despite claims to the contrary from the other candidate, my campaign team is scrupulously following the rules surrounding the nomination contest.)

I have been overwhelmed by the positive response from Greens in Saanich-Gulf Islands and from British Columbia in general! The thumbs up from traffic cops, the “good luck” wishes from ferry staff and people in farmer’s markets, all confirm my sense that Saanich-Gulf Islands holds the green key to our future.

An election could soon be upon us soon and so please consider volunteering some time, both to your local campaign and to my campaign, if you can. This election we will make history and have the Greens in the House!

Change of Season

Youth voting

Here’s an antidote to election fatigue. I have not edited this letter. (I did remove the name of the young man at his request before sharing his letter.) I find it inspiring that a 15 year old would reflect so deeply on the nature of democracy.

Dear Ms. May,

Hello! I am a fifteen year-old high school student from Vernon, British Columbia located in the Okanagan Valley. You graciously signed a copy of your excellent book “Losing Confidence” for me in a small bookstore while assisting Jane Sterk and Huguette Allen in their Provincial campaign prior to the 2009 British Columbia elections. You also left me your e-mail address, for which I am very grateful. Afterwards, I listened to your thoughtful and engaging speech about your book later in the evening. My deepest apologies for such a late response to your chapter titled, “What if There Was An Election and No One Came?”

Immediately before attending your book signing, I had just come back from an education project at an elementary school, where we introduced grade six students to greenhouse gas emissions and the important of trees on earth. We also played “CO2” tag, a game where a plant’s gas exchange is introduced to younger students.

To my deepest regrets, the book seemed to slip my mind for far too long, as our school environmental education club (www.kalteamgreen.info) had a surprisingly successful ice cream fundraiser, in which we raised $200 in just three days. Just five days after this, my grandmother took me to Ottawa for my birthday. She knows that I’ve always wanted to learn more about our government and out nation. It was a truly fascinating journey and one that I hope to repeat in the near future.

Since I have seen you, much seems to have happened. I talked to five members of my family about the Single-Transferable Vote for the referendum, but saw STV clearly defeated on election night, to my disappointment. I have also seen our foreign relations worsen along with our nation’s struggling employment insurance program.

After a very busy summer, I decided that I finally must read through the chapter based much on interest in politics and youth voting. I am very excited to be responding to the chapter as I promised to you, Ms. Sterk and Ms. Allen during your stop in Vernon.

As a young person, your statement about parents and families not having enough time together due to hectic schedules seems to make sense. Because of this, like you have said, we do not have time for miniature political debates around the dinner table anymore. In fact, in my family, I have to really work at saying something in order to provoke a discussion about Canada’s politics. However, I do not think that these discussions would cause my peers to become more interested in the workings of our government. Unfortunately, I think that this may simply cause them to leave the table. What needs to happen, in my opinion, is that they need to feel comfortable about speaking freely about government and leaders everywhere, not just at home. Your writings later in the chapter speak of high school clubs, and how no political affiliation is allowed in high school. I agree that this needs to change. In addition, merely speaking of support for a party might land a student in a spot of trouble. This makes things, to say the least, “uncomfortable,” or “awkward.” As a result, students do not want to participate or go near any sort of these activities. This will undoubtedly follow them into their adulthood years. If Canadians at large encourage young people to express what they want from them government, they will feel comfortable with the topic. Canada’s youth need to know what their political opinions are both valuable and accepted. I think that they will be intrigued to learn more about politics if it is in their “comfort zone”, driven by the young mind’s natural drive for change.

On the note of education, the book mentions “civic illiteracy,” which I personally find an excellent expression. I think that if a few changes are made to our education system, that expression will never have to be used in Canada in the future. From my own personal experience, the average student will learn most, if not all, of his/her civic knowledge from school. Although our current high school Canadian curriculum is quite decent, I believe that there are some major gaps. We are often fed non-biased, textbook information. We understand that Sir John A. Macdonald built the Canadian Pacific Railway to connect our country, and that William Lyon Mackenzie King was Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister. Students in my grade may also know that Joe Clark was the youngest Prime Minister, Kim Campbell has been the only female one, and that Tommy Douglas proposed universal health care. Perhaps, however, if students knew the answers questions such as: “Why was Sir John A. Macdonald kicked out by a Liberal and then re-elected?” then students would be more interested. Maybe if students knew that William Lyon Mackenzie King had his term interrupted by a Conservative-Led coalition, perhaps they could understand that the 2008 Parliamentary Crisis wasn’t a coup d’état. If teachers are willing to dig into more controversial material such as some Progressive Conservative beliefs that caused the fall of Joe Clark’s minority government or Kim Campbell’s incredible social program mess left by Prime Minister Mulroney with resulting very short term in office, then pupils could understand the “whys” of Canadian politics. After learning about Tommy Douglas’s principles and the socialist ideals of the New Democratic Party and other beliefs found inside the political parties of Canada, students may finally be able to understand the background of our nation’s government. Then, perhaps after changes like the above are implemented in the education system, students may embrace our parliamentary system. Understanding “why” would be a significant step towards civic literacy.

Midway through the chapter, you have written a very powerful quote: “But how are young citizens supposed to become excited and engaged citizens?” I think that there is a solution to this problem. We need to make students feel comfortable around politics. It is my belief that if young people are not in an environment where political opinions are avoided and discouraged, they will keep that mindset throughout their lives. Also, if more time is spent at school on finding the underlying reasons behind Canadian politics, youth people will understand and realize that through our government, we can change our nation for the better. Although this will take more time, it may have an even greater impact than current high school curricula in Canada. Young citizens should not be afraid to read and share a party’s election platform. We can change Canada and the World for the better! But only if someone gives us the opportunity to understand and embrace.

I hope that you enjoyed my (rather long) response, or were able to see my point of view. In addition, I would like to congratulate you on your relocation to my home province of Super, Natural British Columbia. I know that you will find success here and make an impact on Canadian politics. Should there be an election in the fall, (as you predicted in the spring) I will be carefully watching the Saanich Riding and cheering for you!

Sincerely,

Okanagan-Shuswap Riding, Vernon, B.C.

Youth voting

Fall Election?

The media speculation about a possible election is moving to warp speed. Personally, I think all indicators point to a fall election. I think most commentators, basing speculations on the moment to moment variations in polls and the “what happened ten minutes ago?” punditry are rather missing the point.

The question is not “do Canadians want an election?” (although those considerations are clearly relevant), the question is “does the government enjoy the confidence of the House?”

That may sound like a question out of PoliSci 101 instead of the usual approach of politics as sporting event, but it is the central question.

To get a handle on that question, we need to examine the lay of the land with some longer term perspective.

We could take the relatively brief historical window of politics in Canada since the creation of the Bloc Quebecois, the rise of Reform, then Alliance, and then the Alliance cannibalization of the Progressive Conservative Party. From that we could agree that Canadian politics is in a state of disequilibrium. Things are out of whack. The neo-con agenda of the Harperites is a far cry from the old PC party. The progressive element of Red Tories is somewhere in hiding.

It is this disequilibrium that has created the space in which the Greens are rising. (That and the NDP decision to move from conscience of the country to government – or Official Opposition – in waiting. When the self-appointed conscience of the nation decides to compromise in the interest of greater power, a niche opens for a party willing to be a conscience.) Enter the Greens.

Future historians may well focus on the more immediate past. This country has simply not come out the other side of the self-inflicted threat to Harper’s government of his November 08 economic statement.

After the October 14, 2008 vote, the common wisdom was that the Harper minority mandate was good for about two years. The fact that the government nearly fell within weeks was entirely due to the Prime Minister’s extraordinary miscalculation in the November economic update. In a hang-over to his famous “If we were going to be in a recession, we would be in a recession already” approach to economic melt-down, he contradicted his commitments of only days before at the APEC summit, and decided to pretend Canada’s books could remain in surplus for the next five years. No stimulus package. Zero reaction to the crisis. Larded on that miscalculation was the attempt to remove women’s pay equity to the civil service and to remove the campaign financing reforms of the Chretien years.

Hey presto! The Prime Minister converted a two year mandate into a seat of the pants effort to cling to power. To do so he only had to fan the flames of regionalism, attempt to turn the rest of Canada against voters in Quebec, and for the first time in the history of any nation in the Commonwealth, succeed in shutting down the House of Commons to avoid a confidence vote.

Harper survived by the skin of his teeth, but he has not since enjoyed anything that could be called the “confidence of the House.”

Ignatieff broke faith with his promise to the Liberal caucus (all MPs had signed a pledge to support the coalition, although Ignatieff’s name appears last) and the other opposition parties when he, as newly minted and anointed Liberal leader, decided to support the 2009 budget. But Mr. Ignattieff’s “support” was conditional. He said the government was “on probation.” What he meant by that was unclear, but it was certainly far short of confidence in the government.

We will be teetering on the edge of an election for this whole session of Parliament. Mr. Harper simply does not have the confidence of the House. Nor has he earned it. He has failed to engage the other parties in a common agenda to make government work. He is still playing games. The latest orgy of patronage appointments to the Senate does not help create a less partisan atmosphere. (Although appointing Gary Doer as our Ambassador to the US suggests he is capable of a more balanced and cooperative approach).

The current state of affairs is that Mr. Ignatieff has an Opposition Day scheduled for September 28. I think he will bring forward a motion of non-confidence. The on-going after-shocks of Mr. Harper’s bad judgement in November have not yet settled. Neither has the climate of political instability over the last decade or so.

I think the odds are as slim as one in ten that there will not be an election triggered by that vote. But if not then, soon. We cannot continue in this dysfunctional state of non-stop electioneering. Like a storm that is brewing, sometimes you need a heavy rain just to clear the air.

Fall Election?

Whitehorse

While my last blog (and sorry for being so blog-delinquent this summer!) dealt with the need for voter turn out for the Green internal democracy, most of my touring summer talks have been on the theme of Canadian democracy.

(By the way, the GPC Council elections have concluded. Check out the results… You’ll need to login)

Canadian voters are clearly desperate for a revival of real democracy. Everywhere I go, halls are packed to hear the Green message of how we can take back democracy – how we can re-instill respect and cooperation into politics. Whether in Winnipeg, or Owen Sound, or in Whitehorse, the public response is amazing.

This last weekend, touring the Yukon to support our candidate John Streicker, I had one of the most moving responses yet. The day after over 150 people crowded into the fire hall (with chairs for 100), people in Whitehorse were continuing to discuss the themes from my talk. I heard from one person that she had come to get my book after hearing people talking about it at the swimming pool. Others were sharing their observations about democracy at a meet and greet breakfast at a local bakery. One woman at the fundraising dinner the next night told me that she had more-or-less dragged her twenty-something daughter to the talk. She told me that her daughter had changed her whole attitude to politics.

This is hard to write without making it sound like it is about me. It is decidedly NOT about me. It is about a public appetite for democracy. It is about citizens being tired of being treated like consumers of a junk food called “politics” when they could be growing their own power as engaged citizens.

One of our Green volunteers and her 14 year old shared the most inspiring reflection. After my talk, Rowen told her mom Catherine, “I want to get a fake ID so I can vote.”

Wouldn’t it be great if young people across Canada could be so excited about democracy that they would be that eager to vote?

That is the great challenge. We need to get all young people — and all of us older people – engaged, committed and excited about taking democracy back. There has to be a way. The first step is to believe it is possible.

Whitehorse

Whitehorse Blog

While my last blog (and sorry for being so blog-delinquent this summer!) dealt with the need for voter turn out for the Green internal democracy, most of my touring summer talks have been on the theme of Canadian democracy.

(By the way, the GPC Council elections had an all time high voter turn out. Check out the results at http://greenparty.ca/group/members.)

Canadian voters are clearly desperate for a revival of real democracy. Everywhere I go, halls are packed to hear the Green message of how we can take back democracy – how we can re-instill respect and cooperation into politics. Whether in Winnipeg, or Owen Sound, or in Whitehorse, the public response is amazing.

This last weekend, touring the Yukon to support our candidate John Streicker, I had one of the most moving responses yet. The day after over 150 people crowded into the fire hall (with chairs for 100), people in Whitehorse were continuing to discuss the themes from my talk. I heard from one person that she had come to get my book after hearing people talking about it at the swimming pool. Others were sharing their observations about democracy at a meet and greet breakfast at a local bakery. One woman at the fundraising dinner the next night told me that she had more-or-less dragged her twenty-something daughter to the talk. She told me that her daughter had changed her whole attitude to politics.

This is hard to write without making it sound like it is about me. It is decidedly NOT about me. It is about a public appetite for democracy. It is about citizens being tired of being treated like consumers of a junk food called “politics” when they could be growing their own power as engaged citizens.

One of our Green volunteers and her 14 year old shared the most inspiring reflection. After my talk, Rowen told her mom Catherine, “I want to get a fake ID so I can vote.”

Wouldn’t it be great if young people across Canada could be so excited about democracy that they would be that eager to vote?

That is the great challenge. We need to get all young people — and all of us older people – engaged, committed and excited about taking democracy back. There has to be a way. The first step is to believe it is possible.

Whitehorse Blog

Green Council: Remember to vote!

Many members are already engaged in the review of candidate statements and consideration of qualifications for the Green Party of Canada Federal Council.  I am afraid that a much larger proportion of our members have not noticed the fact we are in the midst of an all-important campaign for the council.  The process of internal governance of the Green Party is critical.  Unlike other parties, the elected council has more to say (far more to say) about the party’s future than I do as leader.  In fact, in making decisions concerning the future of the party, I am one vote out of the whole of council.  It really does matter who gets elected.
 
You vote for members at large for council, and in a number of provinces there is a competition for provincial rep to council.
 
I am not endorsing any candidate or slate of candidates, but as I look over the wealth of talent on offer, I am so pleased to see people like David Coon of New Brunswick, a leader for over thirty years in the environmental movement. And Susan Stratton, former Deputy Leader of the Alberta Green Party (forgive me for wanting it on the record that Susan and other leading Alberta Greens were challenged in court by a faction that took over the provincial party. It was that faction, not Susan and the long-time Alberta Greens, who allowed the party to be de-registered.)  Our current chair of council, Kate Storey is running for re-election, and many other very dedicated Greens.
 
Votes must be cast by August 15.  If you have not noticed an email message with your voter instructions, please let me know, (leader@greenparty.ca).  If you know of members without email, they will get a paper ballot.  Please remind people to check out the pages on our website with candidate profiles.  Ask questions.  This vote really does matter!

Green Council: Remember to vote!

Stephen Harper bashes religious and political protocol

Lately, Stephen Harper has committed two sins against protocol. One matters to the country, the other only to a few religious citizens.

I have been debating writing about the strange incident of the disappearing communion wafer (properly called “the host”) during the funeral service for former Governor General Romeo LeBlanc. I think most Canadians will accept the view of Vancouver Sun commentator Barbara Yaffe that it doesn’t really matter. But as (I think it is safe to assume) the only federal leader who recently finished a course in “The Eucharist,” I thought it would be worth at least explaining why what the Prime Minister did at the funeral was sacrilegious.

I had not realized how bizarre the communion offense was until I saw it on video. I thought the furor was based on the simple reality that a non-Roman Catholic may not (no, never) receive communion in a Roman Catholic mass. I remember when former Governor General Adrianne Clarkson caused some consternation when receiving communion in a Catholic mass. She’s Anglican, as am I, and although we understand the same meaning of receiving the Eucharist as a Roman Catholic would, each church has its own rules and to be respectful, you respect those rules. While you must be a confirmed Roman Catholic to receive communion in a Roman Catholic service, the Anglican Church offers communion to anyone confirmed as a Christian in any denomination.

For the non-Christian, Harper’s remark that he has “never refused” Communion might sound sensible. It is worth noting that there are approximately 2,000 different versions of Christianity, of which Roman Catholicism is one of the most prominent. There are small shades of difference between all of these faiths. The fact that no one briefed the Prime Minster that he should have approached the presiding bishop with arms folded, indicating he was not to receive, shows that the current PMO is weak on protocol. To Roman Catholics it could have been offensive, but it is for them to complain. I think it unlikely that if the PM had worn shoes in a mosque or forgotten a yarmulke in a synagogue that so many would assume the offence was trifling. His cover was that he is (after all) a Christian, so where’s the problem?

What I found bizarre on seeing the video was that he did not participate in the communion as any Christian would. To explain how appalling his receiving of the Eucharist appeared in video, forgive me for backing up to explain the significance of communion. Most people will know that the wafer (or bread) symbolizes the body of Christ. For the Roman Catholic Church it is more literally the body through transubstantiation. The wine received represents Christ’s blood. But let’s back up further and look at what the living Jesus was doing at the Last Supper. For every Gospel, but John’s, the Last Supper was a traditional Passover feast. Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish and the Passover meal ritual then, as now, begins with the breaking of the bread. The bread is first blessed, and then broken and shared. The Scriptural verbs that mark a sharing of bread in the communion sense are “take, bless, break, give, eat.” Jesus was using well-known rituals of Jewish liturgical experience to reinforce his message: remember me. In all of these experiences, the meal is shared. Those who receive, eat. And they do so as part of the ritual. The Eucharist is not a “take out” item.

In all Christian faiths, the receiving of Communion is participatory. Those receiving eat the bread or wafer immediately, usually with head bowed, standing or kneeling before the officiating priest or minister.

But Stephen Harper did not do that. He clearly accepted the host, his hand dropping to his side, where the fate of the host was obscured by the programme of the mass. Senator Kinsella says he saw him eat it later. No matter. By not receiving in that moment, his behaviour was sacrilege. So, once again, who would care? Roman Catholics, maybe. Other practicing Christians, maybe. I found it offensive, but that’s just me. And, as Barbara Yaffe says, it does not really matter.

A few days earlier the Prime Minister had shown contempt for a different matter of protocol. And while this one really matters it has received far less media coverage. I discovered it on a blog. I reproduce Susan Delacourt’s blog below:

http://thestar.blogs.com/politics/2009/07/at-ease-canadians.html
by Susan Delacourt

At ease, Canadians

Early into his first term as Prime Minister, Stephen Harper mused aloud about how he wished Canadian reporters would stand when he entered the room. I believe the collective reply to this musing had something to do with weather forecasts and the temperature in hell.

But yesterday, on Canada Day, Global TV news showed us how Harper managed to get the military to give him a salute that’s normally reserved for the Governor-General. As Heritage Minister James Moore explains in the video, this was something that the Prime Minister apparently wanted.

So if you do run across our Tim Horton’s, hockey-dad, regular-guy PM this summer on the barbecue circuit, give him a little salute. Or stand up, or something. He really seems to appreciate deference.

(Since that posting, the Global TV clip has been removed).

OK. Now that is quite wrong. I detail in my book Losing Confidence: Power, Politics and the Crisis in Canadian Democracy how Stephen Harper has wanted to ape a Presidential style. He has wanted his own more imperial greeting area for foreign dignitaries. PMO began plans for their own media centre where they could, in the style of the U.S. White House, control the order of questioners. This Prime Minister seems to chafe with his role as mere Head of Government allowing the Queen to be Head of State, with the Queen’s representative, the Governor General, receiving the honours due a monarch in her stead.

Stepping forward to receive a royal salute on Canada Day may seem like a trifle, but it is a radical departure from the principles of a parliamentary democracy, a constitutional monarchy. And we have James Moore’s word for it that this was no simple slip of protocol. It was planned and demanded by the Prime Minister.

It is that breach of protocol that should not pass unnoticed. It speaks of a Prime Minister who has no grip on the history of the country he presumes to govern. The notion of a Prime Minister is “first among equals.” He is merely the first minister of the Crown. He is in service to the Crown and, more accurately, the people. He is not the Monarch.

So, now I am wondering if he was late to two G-8 photo ops in a row just to make the point: Who is really important here? Not the church, not the Queen, not those other leaders.

I think we have a problem.

Stephen Harper bashes religious and political protocol

Stampede

When I wrote my last blog, it had not occurred to me that Michael Ignatieff would repeat his “proud of the tar sands ” line. I thought it was a one time slip and he would be more careful in future.

Instead, he used the occasion of the Calgary Stampede to once again extoll the virtues of the tar sands.  More ominously, he has placed the tar sands as a priority in the context of climate:  “The Liberal Party is not going to come forward with climate change plans that club the industry on the head.” (Calgary Herald story, July 5, 2009)

It is an awful thing to ponder whether this is mere political pandering (distasteful), or an actual commitment on principle (like Harper’s) to put expanded oil production from bitumen as a higher priority than the global climate crisis (reckless and irresponsible.)  Neither option is pretty and one must be correct.

I wish he’d been willing to pander without risk to the planet.  He apparently refused to wear a cowboy hat (thus earning “worst dressed leader”).  I am happy to wear Western clothes when in Calgary while I also called for a moratorium on tar sands expansion.

Meanwhile, I thank members and supporters who were concerned that attending the Stampede is synonymous with support of all events. I have never thought attending an important national event was synonymous with supporting all aspects of it. There is so much to do in Calgary when the Stampede is on that going to the rodeo is something few Calgarians actually do. The mood in the town (they still like to call Calgary a town) and the parade and community events are fabulous.  Hats off to the great volunteers who patrolled the parade route collecting all recyclables!  And at least some of those great volunteers told me later they are Greens voters.  Greens do well in Alberta — tying in 2008 with BC for the highest Green percentage popular
vote of any province.

We need to have strong support for Alberta and Albertans  — but not for reckless expansion of the oil and gas industry.

Stampede

Pride

Pride is a great thing.  It is something to celebrate.
 
I am writing this from the train heading to Toronto to march in the Pride Parade.  Every year we have a large Green contingent in Toronto Pride.  It is one of my favourite events of the year with tens of thousands of Torontonians lining the sidewalks to cheer on the marchers.  It is a family day, with kids and grandparents and the whole rainbow of diversity of our largest city.  This will be my fourth Toronto Pride March, my third since becoming leader.  I also march in Halifax and Pictou and Vancouver Pride days.  When I think about the enormous progress the LGBT community has made since I was my daughter’s age, it marks an enormous cultural shift.  There is much for which the gay community can be rightly proud.
 
Pride should not be casually assumed.  We should only be proud of aspects of our society that merit pride.  I keep thinking about Michael Ignatieff saying he was proud of the tar sands.  Such fake political pride is cloying.  Are we proud of Albertans and Alberta? Of course.  For many of the same reasons I love the Pride Parade, I love the Calgary Stampede where I will be next weekend.  It is an event that could only happen because of community pride.  Literally hundreds of volunteers work for months to make the stampede work.  Thousands volunteer during the Stampede itself.  It is a cultural triumph.
 
But are we proud of the tar sands?  The fact of their existence?  The fact they represent the most monstrous excesses of the Industrial Age, drawing down incredible amounts of water, contaminating the air with toxic substances, destroying thousands and thousands of hectares of forest, and spewing greenhouse gases to heat the atmosphere, melt the glaciers, devastate Alberta’s agriculture and ranching with droughts and its forests with expanding fires.  Is that something of which we are proud? 
 
The delusion that the tar sands are the engines of economic growth for the country is belied by the 2008 OECD Economic Report to Canada that warned we are skewing our economy to the tar sands, causing the dollar to rise, and undermining export dependent sectors across the country.  The rising Canadian dollar caused the loss of over 300,000 jobs in manufacturing and over 100,000 jobs in forestry, before the September financial meltdown.   The OECD urged a carbon tax as a method to help rebalance and protect a diversified, healthy Canadian economy.  So too has TD Senior Economist Don Drummond and Calgary based tax expert Jack Mintz. 
 
I am so proud of the Mayor and Council of Fort McMurray for calling for a moratorium on tar sand projects,  I am proud of the Catholic Bishop of northern Alberta who has called for the tar sands to be re-examined from an ethical perspective. I am proud of citizens who fight back and of Dr. John O’Connor who faced a barrage of pressure to run him out of the medical profession and out of Alberta for his willingness to question the link between high cancer rates in First Nations communities and the tar sands.
 
Let’s keep the currency of pride for something meaningful.  Let’s celebrate the accomplishments of the women’s movement, the civil rights movement, the LGBT rights movement.   When those who have been marginalized and oppressed can march down the streets to the cheers of their neighbours, let’s sing out pride.

Elizabeth May

Leader

Pride

STV Lessons Learned

It is a very sad day for democracy. The vote in BC was not a surprise after the slinging of misinformation over the last few months. The No to STV used scare tactics, clever television ads in which the voter’s choice was blown away in a series of dots. They were warned in ominous tones that if they voted for STV they might not end up even knowing for whom they had voted.

The NDP doubled their hypocrisy factor in this election. The BC NDP campaigned hard against a carbon tax, as well as tacitly campaigning against proportional representation. Thankfully, the cynical attempt to gain votes through a knee-jerk reaction against the tax was unsuccessful. Sadly, Campbell’s environmental record and plan cannot be excused through the fig leaf known as the BC carbon tax. The NDP had abandoned many environmental voters and sadly, the party with the best green platform, the BC Greens led by the very talented Jane Sterk, was not seen as competitive with the two mainline parties. That must change and will when we elect Greens for the first time federally in the next election. And, yes, we will win election with the First Past the Post system.

Meanwhile, we must continue, with great non-partisan groups, like Fair Vote Canada, to press the case to improve and reform our voting system. Democracy is at risk when the minority of voters can elect a majority of seats. This is the biggest risk and has nothing to do with whether Greens get elected under STV or not. It is the fundamental principle of democracy that every vote must count.

We need to study the experience in New Zealand and press for a national Royal Commission (as they did in New Zealand). A full public engagement cannot happen during the midst of an election. Engagement and education must occur well before. The Citizen Assemblies sound democratic, but have the disadvantage of working out of the public eye. This process largely leaves the public in the dark until the Citizens Assembly emerges with the “answer.” Meanwhile most citizens didn’t hear the question.

Ridding Canada of First Past the Post is as inevitable as the arrival of windmills. We just need to learn lessons from valiant campaigns that were waged and failed and find the moment when the Canadian public wonders why so few people vote and why so few people believe their vote makes a difference.

Democracy is not a spectator sport. We need to stay involved and committed to breathing life and hope into Canadian democracy.

STV Lessons Learned

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