Elizabeth May, Canada’s Green Party candidate, at a whistle-stop in Vancouver. (Andy Clark/Reuters)
Why Canada’s Green Party is (finally) a prime-time draw
Elizabeth May, the Green candidate, will make history by appearing in a nationally televised debate on Thursday night.
By Susan Bourette | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor/ October 2, 2008 edition
Christine Muschi/Reuters
Green Party leader Elizabeth May said she plans to use a “spontaneous, from the heart” approach to explain her party’s platform, which prioritizes reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Ms. May, exiting a train on Sept. 26, has not driven a car in 20 years.
Toronto
One way or another, Canada’s Green Party leader Elizabeth May will make history this week.
The mother, lawyer, environmental activist, and native of Connecticut will be the first Green Party member to participate in national televised debates on equal footing with Canada’s mainstream party leaders.
The debates – in French on Wednesday and in English on Thursday night – are “make or break” events for a party long relegated to the fringes of Canadian politics. Despite Green Party success in Europe, Canadians have yet to elect a single Green member to Parliament.
Voter concern over high oil prices and climate change have thrust the environment into the center of Canadian politics. But political analysts attribute the party’s rise in the polls to Ms. May’s scrappy, off-the-cuff campaign style. She has a giftfor rhetorical thunder that seems to resonate with voters.
“She’s got lots of natural charisma,” says Karen Bird, who teaches Canadian politics at Hamilton’s McMaster University. “She seems to be a person of integrity who is down to earth. She’s not obsequious. She tells you what she really thinks and where she stands and I think a lot of people respond to that.”
Earlier this week, May said she planned to employ that “spontaneous, from-the-heart” approach to disarm her political foes in two debates (Wednesday night in French, Thursday in English) in which five party leaders will compete.
The debates give May a shot at establishing herself as a serious contender in the eyes of the Canadian electorate. Recent polls put the ruling Conservative Party within striking distance of forming a majority government. The once mighty Liberal Party, currently the official opposition, is sinking like a stone. The Liberal Party is polling last, for example, in British Columbia, behind the Tories, the left-leaning New Democratic Party, and the Greens. The most recent Press Harris-Decima poll has the Green Party polling at 10 percent.
At the heart of the May’s Green Party policy platform is a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by taxing polluters while doling out tax breaks to companies and individuals that reduce their carbon output. She campaigned this past week in a cross-Canada tour by train instead of by plane, a lower carbon-footprint form of transportation. She has not driven a car, according to media reports, in 20 years.
But May is also keen to stamp out the perception that the Green Party is a left-wing party full of treehuggers. Instead, she emphasizes a platform that is socially progressive with fiscally conservative ideas.
While the Green Party has a long history of electoral success in Europe, with strong representation in countries like Germany, Italy, and Ireland, the party hasn’t made significant inroads in North America.
In the 2006 Canadian federal election, the Green Party garnered 660,000 votes, or 4.5 percent of those cast.
May has her sights set on a much bigger piece of the pie this time around. She said this week that she hopes to win at least 12 seats in the election. Canadians head to the polls October 14.
But many observers are sceptical. Wilfrid Laurier University political scientist David Doherty says that despite the uptick in support, it’s unlikely that the Green Party will achieve a major breakthrough.
“Our electoral system isn’t exactly democratic,” Professor Doherty says. “It tends to punish smaller parties, while rewarding a winner who may not even have a majority of the votes.”
The “first past the post” or plurality system means that while everyone gets a vote, some votes effectively count more than others. The winner is the one who places first, not necessarily the candidate who receives a majority of votes. The electoral system tends to reward parties that are able to bunch their votes geographically. In 26 federal elections held since 1921, there have been 16 majority governments elected but only two that actually commanded a majority of the vote.
The way Doherty sees it, the Green Party may have a shot at winning three or four seats. But he adds that even if the party manages to double its popular vote from 2006, it may not win a single seat in Parliament.
May’s shot at expanding the party’s power in Parliament may have been further diminished Tuesday when Canada’s two most powerful environmental groups issued a call to its members to “vote strategically.” In other words, they are urging Canadians to support any party that will defeat the Conservatives. “We are nonpartisan,” explains Bruce Cox, executive director of Greenpeace Canada. “Our goal is to send a very clear message to voters. If you want real action on climate change, you must vote for anyone other than the party that we believe has the worst environmental plan for Canada going forward.”
By all accounts, May is undaunted by these obstacles as she heads into the debate. Her first triumph in this campaign was, in effect, to win a spot at the podium. Last month, two of the major party leaders balked at including May in the debate. However, facing a heated backlash from the Canadian public, they retreated, allowing May to join in.
May comes by her political passions honestly. She was born in Hartford, Conn., where her mother was an early antinuclear activist who campaigned for the Democrats alongside Bill Clinton. The family moved to Cape Breton on Canada’s east coast to open a restaurant in a schooner where May worked as waitress while still a teenager.
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Comments
2. S. Sandlin | 10.02.08
“Our electoral system isn’t exactly democratic,” Professor Doherty says. “It tends to punish smaller parties, while rewarding a winner who may not even have a majority of the votes.” Boy! Doesn’t that sound familiar!. And this time around, selecting the nominee from the slate of candidates didn’t ring true to many Americans, either. As for third party recognition, even Ross Perot was out-right ridiculed and Nader, with a sizeable cut of the voters’ pie, hasn’t been allowed on the nationally televised debates. Looks like the political big boys had no more excuses to rationalize their exclusions of coverage in Canada. Maybe we should hope for a political “trickle-down” from Canada?
3. Dave | 10.02.08
Whoa! John D.
I am also a Green Party voter but I disagree with most of your advice and so to does the party platform.
First a couple of corrections. China’s share of global emissions are 7 times as much as Canada’s but they have 40 times the number of people so that’s hardly a fair comparison. Our CO2 emission per person are still 5 times that of China.
We are in no position to be pointing fingers of blame anywhere. We must seek to increase our partnerships with the BRIC’s (Brazil, Russia, India & China) to be able to help them meet their growing demands in a sustainable fashion.
I also don’t think import duties are the way to go. Non-tariff regulations are much better at accomplishing the goal without skewing price information.
The European Union is placing new environmental demands on Canada that we will need to meet in order to trade with them. These demands are in the form of standards requirements, not tariffs.
The Green Party of Canada favors these type of non-tariff regulations in free and fair trade.
And finally, the only way you can throw your vote away is to not use it. I encourage everyone to vote their principals.
4. Troy Banther | 10.02.08
I live in New Mexico an I am a Green. We have major party status here and hopefully we will have more over time.
I wish the Green Party of Canada success in its debate and electoral process.
5. John D. | 10.02.08
Replying to Dave, I realize that what I’m saying is a bit unorthodox, and I don’t expect many people to agree with me at this point in time. While I have voted Green, nothing I am saying here should be identified in any way with Green party policies.
All I would say is to look at the numbers and look down the road. The emissions from the coal plants now being built primarily in China and India - are expected to outweigh, five times over, any reductions made by nations subscribing to Kyoto. China already pumps out more greenhouse gases than the USA, believe it or not. In comparison with what they are doing, anything that we are doing is absolutely inconsequential, except in terms of setting an example. (But we still need to do our share.)
The leaders of these countries claim the “right” to pump out greenhouse gases on the same per capita basis as countries which have already industrialized. But their populations are huge. India has a population of 1.1 billion - more than Europe and the USA combined - and is adding the equivalent of Canada’s population every two years. It is by far the largest contributor to world population growth. In the case of India, the per capita “right” to pump out greenhouse gases leads straight to climate disaster - likewise for China, although it has made efforts to control its population of 1.3 billion.
I understand that India and China will keep building coal plants because that is cheap and because they have abundant supplies of coal. They will probably keep building those plants until their major rivers run on a seasonal basis and the monsoons (in India) shift course. At that point, it will be too late. Decades from now, the people who are currently making the per capita arguments and making lots of money from building of all those coal plants in India and China will go down in infamy in the history of their countries for having ruined their heritage of life-giving rivers, by melting the glaciers that feed those rivers. This will have special significance in India, where the Ganges river is sacred.
We can hope that China and India (in particular)will wake up in time to do something. In the meantime, we should shine a spotlight on what they are doing. A carbon tax on imports from these countries is the least we can do.
Another thing we can do is to develop improved solar technology as quickly as possible and to make major investments in that and drive down the price of solar power. We have to think in terms of forms of power that developing and rapidly industrializing countries can use - for example, India has large supplies of solar power in its drier regions, in particular. Nuclear power is another option, but not one we would want to develop much further in a world plagued by terrorism. More nuclear plants in unstable regions will provide more opportunities for terrorists to detonate dirty bombs or nuclear weapons in our cities.
Solar is the only way to go, and we have to get that going as quickly as possible.
6. Dave | 10.02.08
John, check out the Contract and Converge proposal from the Global Commons.
As you can imagine many developing nations are upset to be told to stop using fossil fuels after we used them to gain our two hundred year head start.
You can read about Contract and Converge here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraction_and_Convergence
7. Dave | 10.03.08
The Global Commons has a proposal called Contract and Converge that addresses the reality and needs of developing countries. It gets everyone on to the same place at the same time but at their own pace.
You can have a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraction_and_Convergence
Also, you can’t overlook per capita measures. For example would it be fair to compare Ireland with Canada? In absolute terms they generate 0.2% of global emissions but you don’t here them complaining that we use 15 times as much as them. In fact, they would have a better case of complaining about us then we do about China because we use twice as much per capita then they do.
When it comes to cap and trade systems I agree with using absolute caps (not per unit of productions like the Conservatives plan). But when it comes to comparisons of countries, per capita is the only fair and useful measure that I know of.
8. Kenn Chaplin | 10.03.08
This will be my second time voting Green, having been an active member (on the local Executive even) of the New Democrats, a labour-socialist party. Although I am in a fairly comfortable Liberal Party riding (district) the federal parties are now publicly funded, in large part, on a per-vote basis so it is important for those leaning Green, but thinking about voting for someone else, to give that $1.80 to the Greens. :-)
9. B. More | 10.03.08
I agree with John D. You over populate and destroy the ozone layer or add to global warming, you need to be stopped by someone. Standing up for Green values is the way to be a good steward. I have the view that Canada is greener than USA, at least in sustainable issues.
In case someone can get a message to Elizabeth May, I have a way of creating environmentally sustainable jobs from leaves, made for these times.
10. kalyan chatterjee | 10.05.08
Perhaps John D needs to pay a visit to countries like India and China. For one he should remember that Europe solved its population explosion (like the one taking place in India and China right now) by sending over the surplus to the Americas. Unfortunately, the same option is no longer open to the Indians and Chinese. For another, he would see the levels of poverty (at least in India). And the “tough” measures he is suggesting will only increase it.
The world and its resources, I think, are the common property of all people whether they are in sparsely populated Canada or other more densely populated parts. For long the West believed that it alone had a “right” to use these resources. So sitting in India I too can question whether its okay for citizens of rich Canada, USA and Western Europe to carry on with their “outrageous” levels of consumption while many people in Asia and Africa starve.
And let me also point out that the increased greenhouse emissions from India and China are the direct result of the new lifestyles that large sections of its population are adopting - lifestyles that copy from Western countries like USA and Canada. It would be hypocritical on the part of the West and rich citizens of India and China to pontificate that while its all right for them to maintain their high standards of living while the rest must either settle for a “second best” lifestyle or accept the punishment of poverty till they can simply eliminate the surplus numbers.
11. Dave S | 10.06.08
I’m a Green from beautiful upstate New York. Congratulations to Elizabeth May and the Canadian Greens for breaking the democracy barrier and getting into the debates! Greens in the US are still locked out of the presidential debates, which are controlled by the corporate-funded two party monopoly and sponsored by giant corporations like Anheuser-Busch and the International Bottled Water Association.
Best of luck to Ms. May. Getting in the debates is a major step towards convincing people that the Green platform is just radical common sense.
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1. John D. | 10.02.08
I’m a Canadian, and I’m one of the 8% or so voting for the Greens. I know that in the short term, I’m throwing my vote away. But if the other parties see that a lot of people are voting Green, then they will make their own policies more environmentally-friendly. This is already happening.
While it’s important to take action in countries like Canada and the USA, the real problem spots nowadays are in countries like India and China, which have complete disregard for the environment, and which are building something like one coal plant per week. This totally outweighs anything positive that is being done elsewhere. We need trade sanctions against these countries - the sooner the better. Their exports should be subject to import duties in proportion to the amount of carbon they utilize. This issue will heat up as soon as they try to sell us a lot of cars (made primarily of steel), but the sooner we get onto this, the better. And ultimately, these countries will get the message from their own rivers (on which they depend heavily), because they have their sources in the glaciers of the Himalayas, which are now melting.
We should also do something about Brazil, which is cutting down the Amazon forest. Let’s hit their exports with some major duties until they get the message.
So all in all, while there’s lots of work to be done at home, the real work is in stopping countries like Brazil, India, and China from really ruining the planet.