"The Green Party's Mess" by Greg Morrow

True, Dave you went after Greg and not his comments which is not what we are supposed to be about, and does not foster constructive discourse.

True, Greg has not backed up his claims, however not all of them need to be, that we are still in debt is known, that our membership is down is known, and that getting money out of green pockets is akin to getting water from a stone is known, our base as a whole don't either have the conviction to put their money where their mouth is or they don't have 2 cents to rub together.

True the green party is a mess the main stream media is now covering our leadership problems and our money problems, yet too many of the people on this blog and I think in the party as a whole seem to be wearing rose coloured glasses, we are heading into the BGM and a likely election to follow and we are going swimmingly down the same path.  A vocal minority is trying to get some energy going but it's not happening.  How does that saying go? "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result"

I have been trying for some time to get this party to engage in some very serious critical thinking about us as a party and figure out what we are going to do differently to help us get some seats and move on to the next level, but to no avail.  I'm telling you we are not an old line party that can  simply wait until the winds blow in their direction again and roll back on into power, hell even they can't do that anymore.  

We are a young growing party that is growing a little each year but I am telling you, if we do not have a significantly better showing the next time out we will be a party in decline perhaps without an opportunity to right the ship!  The Canadians that entrust their votes to us deserve better, the deserve to have their votes mean something, they deserve to have a Green MP to call their own, and I just don't see us doing the things it takes to get it done.

Lastly someone earlier in the tread eluded to an internal survey / poll that was suppressed or something, does anyone know more about it, because if we have a survey on the mood, wants, needs and desires of Greens, or Canadians as it relates to us, I would most sincerely like to know.

Lets see how the average GPC donor does vs donors for other parties.  Is the leadership really pushing it too hard or not hard enough?

2009 figures via Elections Canada (nothing there for 2010)...

Liberals: $239 per person
CPC: $175 per person
NDP: $169 per person
GPC: $123 per person
BQ: $103 per person

Hmm... that is a bit of a disadvantage there.  I'm right around the GPC average ($10 per month) but to catch up to the Liberals we'd need the average person to donate $20 per month.  Of note: the Liberals had a great fundraiser running this at the time, Rocco Rossi (formerly of the Heart & Stroke Foundation - my company works with them and they were in fantastic shape while he was there -  who is now running for Toronto mayor), but now do not.  It will be interesting to see how that affects 2010 figures.

What about donors per 1000 votes in the last election? 
CPC: 19.5 members per 1000 votes
Liberal: 10.4
GPC: 9.7
NDP: 9.4
BQ: 4.4

So for donors per voter we are mid-way between Liberals and NDP.  The CPC is in their own world at the high end, BQ on the low end.  However, we hope to see a 50% increase in vote in 2010/2011 (based on polls)  which would knock us down drastically.  

Thus to 'catch up' fiscally we need to either catch up to the CPC in getting voters to join us, or we need to catch up to the Liberals in donations per person. 

First off thanks to Greg Morrow for the public post. 

This is my response to his post reproduced here.

It is much needed public commentary on the Green Party. We boast about being grassroots, innovative and the alternative to status quo politics in Canada. Great. Now we have to prove it and we get things right and we get things wrong. The issue for me personally is that what we have wrong strikes to the core of the above boast and needs to be addressed and fixed.

Grassroots? Well everyone has their own interpretation of what that means and I’ve heard the arguments from other parties and frankly they haven’t worked it out either. To me its obvious. Grassroots means the membership is active and when it comes to internal governance, the vast majority of our membership has been asleep at the wheel in the last four years. There is an expression from when I was a kid referring to devout spiritual people. It goes like this, “Some people are so heavenly minded their no earthly good.” Green Party members are passionately concerned with climate change, national and global environmental issues, democracy, as well as economic and social justice. That’s great but we have to be the functional expression of these ideals as well. The leadership contest mess is just one problem that has to be dealt with at the national convention in August. The membership needs to turn its passions inward and take a hard look at what has been going on internally.
A grassroots membership stands up to the leadership and says no. A grassroots membership, passionate about democracy and political alternatives, remains vigilant. We don’t have a delegate system. We don’t use proxy voting. We use one member one vote. That puts the responsibility directly on the shoulders of each member. The leadership across the board has taken advantage of the apathy within the Green membership and it has brought us to this point. This leadership has to take responsibility for their actions. It’s time for the membership to wake up and start asking hard questions. A grassroots membership accepts their responsibility, takes control and cleans house when its needed. It seeks constant renewal.

That’s a key element of this national convention.

Those are my thoughts.
Stephen LaFrenie

Ron Fischer

“We are a young growing party that is growing a little each year but I am telling you, if we do not have a significantly better showing the next time out we will be a party in decline perhaps without an opportunity to right the ship!”

I appreciate where you get this impression but it also hilights what's wrong internally among the membership.  We are not a young party by any stretch of the imagination.  We are an established party that experienced explosive growth vs gradual growth.  The Green Party of Canada is over 20 years old.  The global Green movement dates back to the '70s.   Our policies in social justice and international justice are well established as policies should be.  They established the moral direction of the party.  The newer membership is having trouble with that history.  The party is transforming as it should but dismissing our history is a grave error in my opinion.  Our history forms the foundation of our boast at being the alternative, grassroots political party needed in Canada.   

“True, Greg has not backed up his claims, however not all of them need to be,…”

I would agree with your rose coloured glasses analogy in many cases.  His post was a reflection of fact for any member who has been aware of the internal functions of the party over the last eight years let alone the last four years. 

John Northey

“A deputy leader who left us to join the Bloc - guess what?  People shift parties all the time and both the Liberals and PC's lost people to the Bloc in the 90's and still do from time to time - that is what you risk when you try to push in Quebec, like it or not.”

The entire Bloc party was created from defections from all other parties.  The provincial Greens also lost people to the Parti Quebecois.  I disagree though with your last sentence.  We didn't push in Quebec at all.  In fact it was the lack of such effort that keeps Quebec elusive.  Organizing has never been a priority of federal council and that's obvious to anyone who looks at the financial priorities.  There is no forward thinking internally, no long term plan despite the fact that we're a party that boasts a 20 year national vision.  Yet we appear to be unable to plan past the next artificially induced election scare.

I would also like to point out the myth of short sightedness on the fixed term issue.  The fixed term mandate of four years was established in 2006, roughly eight months after the general election in Jan/06.  That means that the next expected election was 2010.  We were fully expecting a leadership contest in the same year as an expected 2010 fall election.  Successive minority governments that have occurred are irrelevent to the issue.  The issue is whether the party needs to go through a renewal as a grassroots party should. 

The Green Party is caught in a very relevent, vital debate.  How much do we trust the people who don't vote.  We say they don't vote out of frustration and status quo politics.  That means we have to prove we're the alternative.  The flip side of this debate is what we need to do to get elected.  Does that mean catering to the status quo partisan vote?  Does it mean dismissing our history and 'hiding' policies that might be construed as controversial?  We already see that false thinking in some of the ridiculous comments made in the 'party opinion' section of the motions. 

There's a risk on both sides.  If we default to status quo election strategy then we prove to non-voters that we aren't a voice for true reform and happy to join Parliament in all its dysfunction.  On the other hand we have to have faith that being dedicated to alternative models and politics will inspire new voters to our support and rival the status quo vote out there. 

In Trinity Spadina both the liberals and NDP lost support and the Greens and convervatives gained.  The NDP won on 35,000 votes or something like that, while something like 40,000 eligible voters didn't vote for anyone.  By being encouraged to vote and supplied with a reason to, even half of those non-voters can change the political face of the riding. 

That's the problem with the one riding strategy.  That's the problem with cult of single entity leadership.  After eight years of growth the general public can't readily identify a single person within the Green party political leadership other than the past leader and the present one.  That's a massive failure in grassroots politics, political organizing and leadership in general.   

Those are my thoughts

There are different perspectives on this and I know we disagree on many policy issues. 

The Green Party unlike any other party is not a completely independent entity.  We have signed on to the global green charter to adopt very specific concepts and issues.  Each national Green Party can and does interpret the charter values within its own culture and history. 

We disagree on the nature of our transformation.  I'm not saying the Green Party membership cannot update through debate the direction of the party.  I'm saying this debate isn't happening because many new members I have met and communicated with are completely ignorant of any non-environmental policy and/or any policy prior to their joining.  Walking into an established party with core values and introducing new policy directions that contravene those core values doesn't make sense unless you can argue for that change and have it accepted by the larger membership.  You certainly should not be allowed to do so without having even read the policy book.  This is the issue I have with the statement that we are somehow a 'new' party simply because our membership grew dramatically or that we are all of a sudden stronger contenders for parliament than previous years. 

Jim Harris did not create a 'new' party in 2004 which was our landmark election.  The conservative party was created in the same manner as the Bloc in Quebec by established members of parliament who already had electoral success.  The comparison is deceptive.  The conservative party of Mr. Harper is the merger between two established parties with elected MPs. 

Our history is relevent and I would rather see a proposal that took that history into account, clearly declare the belief that it is wrong and propose the new direction and rescind the historic policy.  That doesn't happen in the Green Party and many policy motions at the previous BGM proved this. 

We have a constitution for a reason.  We have core values for a reason.  When new members are ignorant of one or the other then there IS something wrong with the membership when an established political party in full media/public view can blindly walk into a mess like the present one.  You don't get to shake your head and say, "gee. I didn't even know we had a federal council.  I didn't even know we had a constitution.  I didn't know we had policies before 2004." 

Not in a party that boasts that it's a grassroots party on the leading edge of participatory democracy.  

So in the end Bram I disagree with your politics but respect them when their based on your knowledge of our history and the legitimate belief that our core policies need to change. 

" By definition, there is never anything wrong among the membership.  In a democratic institution, the perspective of the membership is not to be judged -- that's the point.  It is an axiom."

NO.  The membership is not omnipotent. In a democratic institution an educated membership, cognizant of the issues, and after open debate and then followed by a democratic vote should not be questioned.  

YES.  An apathetic membership that isn't vigilant can certainly be judged when it publicly boasts of being the opposite.

Those are my thoughts

Stephen