Category Archives: green party

Closing Statements

economy, green party

The following is one post in a series: “Reporting Back: Green Party of Canada Policy Conference, Halifax“

Here are my notes, paraphrasing the closing statements of all five presenters.

Paul Lansbergen

Representing a big industry that can be the target of some criticism, I wasn’t sure what to expect coming here. It’s been a useful day, we’ve covered a lot of ground, shared ideas. We’ve agreed and disagreed, but there as been fruitful food for thought. My reading of the tea leaves living in Ottawa and working government: the environment is gaining more attention from Canadians. They’re starting to consider personal cost to achieve environmental goals. This will bode well for the Green Party. Good Luck.

Amy Taylor

Thanks for your energy and participation. The number of people left in the room is a testament to the enthusiasm of the Green Party. I’d be happy to participate in any future events or continue this discussion via email.

Dr. Ronald Colman

Think back to the graph that shows we’re now in 30% overshoot of our planet’s resources. There are really only three scenarios.
1. Business as usual.
2. Look at the social side of the equation and seriously address poverty. But if that’s only done in the way it’s usually done (we don’t address the access consumption of the rich), that’s a problem. If we only raise the standards of the poor you increase the rate of overshoot. In order to maintain our standard of living in Canada we need a huge chunk of the world to live in poverty.
3. We need to address the consumption patterns of the rich. This is where the environmental perspective and social justice perspective is crucial, and the Green Party is the only group that’s willing to do that.

We can (need) to talk about no growth, at least from the point of view of consumption. Present levels of consumption are not sustainable if we have any commitment at all to improving the living standards of the poor.

How does a political party differ from an NGO? There’s a big difference. An NGO won’t look at different issues (environmental and social justice, for example) together. A party must look at the whole picture and bring them together.

Gains in productivity can either be taken through increased income or increased leisure time. The Netherlands has reduced its unemployment by distributing work. Part-time work became very attractive. Read the book “Sharing the work, Sparing the Planet.” (Haden?) Elizabeth becoming the leader of the GPC is the most exciting thing that’s happened on the Canadian political scene in a very long time; politics will be changed in a very short time.

Dr. Peter Victor

I’m tackling this issue of growth because it’s such an inappropriate overriding policy objective. Your policy objectives guide your policies. Therefore, the GPC needs to be clear on what its objectives are. That choice will then guide the instruments you use. If the party isn’t clear on its set of objectives (I don’t think you should have a growth objective, be more specific). Objectives should be things like eliminating poverty, protecting the environment, etc. The problem is that the growth objective has overwhelmed us. Good ideas get stopped if they’re not pro-growth, and bad ones get adopted if they are. You’ll be judged by the success of your own instruments towards the objectives you’ve set.

Andrew Van Iterson

Read “Life, Money and Illusion” by Mike Nickerson. Talk about tax shifting with your friends; get it into the discourse. Let’s get people talking.

On My Way To Halifax

economy, green party

Sorry for being out of touch, it’s been an extra busy week. For now I’ll just say that there are lots of exciting things in the works that I’ll let you know about soon, including a Green Party podcast I’m getting ready to launch.

This weekend I’m on my way to Halifax for the first of several Green Party mini-policy conferences. These events will be key to 1) making sure we have another solid platform for the next election that covers a wide variety of issues, and 2) convincing the media that we’re credible and deserve to be included in the televised leaders’ debates. (Having a policy conference in-between elections was one of the conditions for inclusion stated by at least one executive last time around — by the end of this year we will have had six since the summer.)

This first conference is on “Tax shifting and Environmental Economics.” (Yes, this is my idea of a good time. I clearly have some kind of sickness.) I’ll let you know how it goes.

Now, off to the airport…

Garth to Stay Independent–For Now

green party

Just found out.

Fine. Your loss, Garth. I didn’t want to go out with you anyway. You’re right, we should just stay friends. I don’t want to ruin this special thing we have. Besides, um, well, I’ve been meaning to tell you, there’s someone else. She’s really great, and I think she might be my first MP instead. So uh, no hard feelings?

“Well, there is some appeal (in joining the Green party),” Turner said.

“However right now, there is more appeal in trying to be an independent and seeing if that is going to work.”

Good, I hope it does work. I just want you to be happy, really. And hey, if being on your own isn’t what you thought it would be…I mean, if you get lonely…well, who knows how we’ll both feel in the future.

Just know that you’ll always have a special place in my heart.

(Special thanks to every girl I knew in high school for their help with this post.)

Three Updates: Garth Turner, Elizabeth May, Planet Earth

ecology, green party,

Today, three posts in one. I thought about splitting them up, but this seemed simpler. I recommend reading the whole thing, of course, but feel free to take it in pieces instead.

Garth Turner Update

According to this account by Lloyd Hilbert (via Jim Harris’ blog), there is some pretty strong support in Garth’s riding for the idea of him joining the Green Party:

At the end of the meeting he did a quick show of hands to get a judgment about what to do next.

He chose 5 options:

Stay as an Independent, Join the Liberals, Join the Greens, Negotiate a return to the Conservatives, Resign his position.

Based on a show of hands, the results were as follows:

Resign = 0
Join Liberals = 0
Go back to Conservatives = 4
Become Independent = 19
Join the Greens = 18

Those results confirm my earlier prediction. In fact, that support from his constituents to join the Green Party is even stronger than I thought it’d be. It’s a very good sign.

To an earlier commenter’s question about how I feel about the fact that Garth doesn’t support Kyoto as-is, I’m not thrilled about it but I can deal. Kyoto is important because it’s the only international framework we have for dealing with the climate crisis, and because Canada is now in the shameful position of being the only country to have signed the agreement and walked away. We have “cut and run,” as Harper would put it, from an international contract.

That being said, Garth is still willing to work seriously to reduce emissions. In terms of representation in the house, that’s better than nothing.

Elizabeth May Update

The race is on! Elizabeth has confirmed she’ll run in the by-election for London North Centre. There are some compelling reasons why she could actually win this one. There’s no doubt that it’s going to be the biggest local campaign in the Green Party of Canada’s history. We’ll be organizing buses to run from Toronto to London on weekends to flood the riding with volunteers, and several people have already committed to move to London and volunteer for the duration of the campaign. If we pull this off, and Garth comes through, we’ll have two MPs before the next general election. Everything’s happening very quickly.

Planet Earth Update

Things are happening very quickly here too, but in a much more negative way. Yesterday the WWF released more chilling evidence (as if we needed any) that we’re in serious trouble. Some highlights from their report (PDF):

  • Globally, we’re now placing a demand on the Earth’s resources that’s approximately 25% more than the Earth can provide.
  • By current projections, we’ll be using a full two-Earths worth of resources by 2050 (the same year Harper would like to get serious about the climate crisis).
  • Wildlife biodiversity has declined by a shocking 30% in the past 30 years.
  • The report predicts that “large-scale ecosystem collapse” is likely by the middle of the century.

What’s even more upsetting and baffling is that, as of right now, I can’t find this story on cbc.ca, theglobeandmail.com, or nationalpost.com. If “large-scale ecosystem collapse” isn’t big news, someone please tell me what is. (Oh wait, I think I’ve got it. I just took a quick poll. Number of Google News articles about the WWF report: 70. Number of articles about McKay’s dog comment: 83. Number of articles about Madonna’s adoption: 729.)

Per capita, Canada is the fourth worst culprit. Interestingly, the United States is second, with the United Arab Emirates taking first place. I was in the UAE almost two years ago, and just dug this up from an (admittedly overly-pretentious) letter I wrote home about something I saw while visiting a high-school in Abu Dhabi:

A display case labeled “Did You Know…” shares some interesting facts about how wasteful and disproportionately privileged America is (produces x amount of garbage, consumes y amount of the world’s resources, throws out z percentage of the food they produce). It seems a little rich coming from a country where everyone drives an SUV, lives in a palace, eats mostly imported food, and owes their wealth to peddling dino-juice to the rest of the world. Then again, maybe I’m just bitter they forgot to mention how wasteful and privileged Canada is. We count too ya know.

I’m not particularly proud of the tone of the entry (I think I was trying to be funny), but you get the point. These students were being taught how bad the US is, when it turns out the UAE is even worse. And Canada’s not far behind. All I’m saying is, if we’re going to criticize the States, let’s make sure we’re also getting our own house in order.

Time For Action

All that is enough to be paralyzing, but think back to the first two updates. As our crisis worsens, our efforts to solve it also increase. Jared Diamond describes this phenomenon as a horse race between two animals that each continue to run faster. The most likely winner is not yet clear, but it’s not too late to affect the race.

Last night I was at Bullfrog Power’s one-year Birthday Bash. Bullfrog provides 100% renewable electricity to customers in Ontario, today. Right now! If you live in their service area and you want to take some action, becoming a customer of theirs is a good way to start.

Another great action would be donating to or otherwise helping with Elizabeth’s campaign. We need to raise $80,000 to run a full campaign, and there’s just a little more than a month before E-Day on November 27th. Jim Harris appears to be helping to direct donations and organize volunteers through the national party, so visit his blog for more information.

Lots to be done. Let’s get to work.