What would you do? What way forward for the Green Party?
Spring has arrived and that's got me thinking. What should the goal for this year be? I am also posting this because another form of the strategic voting movement seems to have been formed and Green Party members have again been asked to participate. My riding is also one that will be targeted for strategic voting initiatives.
First of all a look at the facts:
#1 In the last 4 years there have been 4 FAILED referendums on proportional representation(PR) in Ontario,BC, and PEI. Other provinces have turned down reform before even having a referendum(NB). Provincial NDP governments are uncertain to act on the issue(Manitoba, NS). Further reform seems unlikely in the short term.
#2 Copenhagen was largely unsatifactory, thanks to Canada's lack of involvement and new political economy of China and USA. Greenhouse gases will probably continue to rise(by how much?) barring a sudden change of leadership/lifestyle of society.
This could be catastrophic for humanity and requires quick action.
#3 The Conservative party received more than 50% of the vote in 78 ridings in the last election. They are probably "safe" (no close challenger) in roughly 120 ridings. The "Unite the Right" movement(although brutal to the PCs) has been largely successful and has created a strong core of support across the country. This will be hard(but not impossible) to change in the current electoral system.
#4 Stephen Harper has shut down parliament for the second time, counting on apathy and cynicism to get away with it. Obviously this is wrong on many levels. But, if the opposition remains divided Harper wins by default. The opposition must agree on "something" in order to counter Harper.
And lets not forget the economy(recession and slow decline because of NAFTA), a major war, and so many other issues.....
The question is: What would you do???
I see there being 4 options from a Green Party perspective:
Option #1. STAY THE COURSE
Continuing to push for change within the Green Party framework. Put bluntly: increase the Green vote.
Focus on community organizing, education of citizens, action at the local level, and building EDA capacity. Train volunteers and future leaders at the grassroots. Think long term(i.e. 10 years or more) Capitalize on the "new party" not associated with the old parties image.
Build on our current political capital which includes:
-1 Charismatic leader and national politial figure
-6.8% of the vote, polling at about 10% nationally
-0 elected MPs
-Little to no presence in Quebec/francophone Canada
-A couple dozen well organized ridings(i.e. they have 1000s of identified supporters, active between elections, dozens of volunteers, etc..)
-roughly 1 million a year in funding from per vote subsidies
But, be prepared for the election day killer called "strategic voting."
Option #2. ENTER A COALITION GOVERNMENT
Right now would only include moral support, but could include MPs if contemplated after a future election. Similar to what NDP and Liberals proposed(is that a Public Relations nightmare?) Might not be possible given Conservative strength and Liberal culture of entitlement (i.e. they feel they can regain a majority within 1-2 elections). But it is legal, and would retain our political independence.
The risk? Harper wins a majority in the next election and all is lost.
Option #3. MERGE WITH ANOTHER PARTY
Partners include NDP, Liberal, or both! At the same time!?
Pros: Achieve political sway right now. At the local level meet new friends(we can all be friends right?),
access to voter lists, more volunteer help, connect with already established political presence.
Cons: Junior partners(a.k.a The Green Party) often get lost in the merger process(see what happened to the Progressive Conservatives). Might mean other parties become light green at best. Lots of people have to put their egos aside (is that a pro or a con???)
This also takes a lot of good faith and requires people to be cooperative and work together. Is that asking too much?
Option #4. PROMOTE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
Another long term solution. Will take a lot of effort talking about a topic that few understand. There will be arguing about which system is best(STV? MMP? Ranked ballots?) But if achieved it means no party(including the Conservatives) will EVER get a majority(unless they truly earn it). Keep in mind the failed referendums.
I am not advocating any of these options, I'm just laying out what I see as the possibilities. I would appreciate some honest feedback on which option(or combination) members feel is most appropriate. Destructive
comments, (i.e. "I'll never work with Party X!") show that you don't get the severity of the situation and should read the facts(see above). If there's an option I've missed then suggest a better one.
Sincerely,
Matthew Piggott
Kitchener Centre
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Challenging Fact #3, Presenting a fifth option
You're assessment of the current political success of the Conservative Party is one that is shared by many non-conservative partisans in Canada. However, I would challenge that the merger has NOT been brutal on the PC's.
Many believe that the Reform/Alliance wing side of the party was the one that overtook the old PC wing but if you look at the policies/actions of the current Conservative Party, you are likely to see more relating to the Mulroney years than the Manning years. Harper has been chasing after free trade agreements with Central and South America similar to the old NAFTA agreement under Mulroney's days. Harper had a deficit larger than any in Mulroney's days. Harper has appointed more Senators than any other PM in Canadian history yet one of the Reform Party's major planks was an elected Senate. The more you review Harper's policies, the more you see old PC and the less you see old Reform.
... and just to play devil's advocate, why don't you include the options to either merge with the Conservatives and/or form a coalition with the Conservatives???? They could benefit greatly from many of the Green Party's forward thinking policies while we could directly affect policies around the environment from the government benches (you did point out that the Conservatives are relatively safe in roughly 120 ridings making it very, very difficult to form a non-Conservative government). Comparing our fiscal policies to the Conservatives actual budgets, we are more small-c conservative than they are. As well, the environment portfolio can be described as "ecological conservatism" (it's in Wikipedia!).
Mark Taylor (Cypress Hills - Grasslands)
http://ReportonGreens.blogspot.com
This statement is purely my own opinion and no way is to be mistaken for the viewpoints of the party
Power and currency
I agree with Mark .. if you are thinking of a merger, include the conservatives in the discussion.
The problem with the whole merger discussion is that, at its core, politics is about power. In Canada, the power associated with a seat in the House of Commons is a much stronger currency than the power associated with having a particular percentage of the popular vote. To be clear about this, ask yourself who has more power in today's parliament, the NDP or the Bloc? The NDP has a million more votes, but has less seats, than the Bloc.
So, when it comes to negotiating, as you suggest we might do in #3 and #4, we don't have much to trade. Green voters can no more be told how to vote than can cats be trained to pull a wagon.
That leaves us #1 and #4, ie. increase our vote and promote proportional representation. By the way, the main reason for promoting PR is not that it gets us seats. The main reason is that it is a better system which better reflects the wishes of the people. When the time comes, and I believe it will, that we form a government under FPTP, the true test of our integrity will be the implementation of PR when it is to our disadvantage.
#4 Proportional Representation
I agree with Jim about #1 and #4, though I think we should emphasise #4 (proportional representation). Obviously without PR it will be very difficult for our party to grow. Also, without PR we end up in a situation where our success helps elect Conservatives (i.e. a vote for Greens isn't a green vote). I would like the interests of the party and the interests of Canada to coincide, and under the present system they don't.
I don't have any first-hand information about #1, but my impression from reading the comments of others on these blogs and elsewhere is that, generally speaking, we will have a difficult time making much progress on #1 under the present leadership. I understand that building local EDAs hasn't been a priority, and that offers of help have been refused. That said, it's all the more reason to reassess our strategy and redouble our efforts in building the party. I agree with David Barclay's suggestion that we should emphasise our team (e.g. Shadow Cabinet) more than we do.
mergers.
A merger into a bigger party would water us down and we'd be lost. If merger was on the table however, we also have the option to approach the lesser parties, PC, CAP, MJ party . Not the CHP. There must be some common ground and it would put us in a better membership and vote situation should we need to negotiate a larger merger.
Not that I'm want a merger but there are other options to consider.
Building versus merging
One additional piece of information on merging. The Green Party pulled 0.94 million votes in 2008, compare to the Bloc, say, at 1.4 million. All of the smaller parties put together only got 64 thousand votes. There's really no benefit to looking to them for support.
@Michael: I completely disagree with your statement about the present leadership being problematic. The polling numbers and the votes delivered in the last general election rose dramatically due to the current leadership, and the polling numbers remain at their highest levels ever. There has a been a small, but vocal, group who have dumped a lot of blame at the leader's feet. The most vocal argument has been over negative voting, the issue that began this thread. I believe that we need to have a clear policy and messaging strategy in place for the next election to deal with this issue. I intend to raise a motion for the BGM to address this.
As to the general success of the party, everyone has some responsibility to take here. For example, where did this idea come from that you can't build your own grassroots EDA? Guelph did it. Grey Bruce Owen Sound did it. In most political parties, the EDA's raise the bulk of the money and send the rest to central. If Federal Council decides that electing Elizabeth is their priority, it does not stop the rest of us from developing our community support locally. The record shows that we have done a pretty good job of the #1 strategy which you have identified above. We can do much better, and improve our efforts, but we need to stay the course, and the results will follow.
I believe that it is important for us to get behind our leader. My experience has been that if I have had any concerns, that Elizabeth was more than willing to listen. When people drop out of the party, saying they don't like some aspect of the current situation, it troubles me. What we are trying to accomplish here transcends individuals and personality. We all need to pull together, and continue to pull together. If there is something you want to change, work to change it. But checking out proves nothing.
What we are trying here transcends individuals and personality
Wise words; take them to heart.
"People of good faith, figuring out where we are, not falling victim, making choices, based on our values, with the best available information." These views are my own and do not represent the official position of the Green Party of Canada.
Growth of small parties
The point about all others getting just 64k votes last election is a good one to take to heart. We had 941k votes, independents had 95k (thanks to André Arthur and Bill Casey mainly), then came Christian Heritage with 26k votes. Every other party down ballot had under 10k votes nationally.
What we need to watch out for is how fast a political party can collapse. We went from CHP level in 1984 to 104k in 2000 to 500k+ in 2004 to today. It can go even quicker the other way. Social Credit went from 528k votes in 1979 (6 seats) to 185k in 1980 to 17k in 1984 to 3k in 1988. They were no flash in the pan as they peaked in 1963 with 941k votes (11.9%) or in 1962 with 30 seats depending how one wants to look at it.
John Northey
Wellington-Halton Hills
On setting goals
One last thing .. this thread began with, "what should our goals be?". Here's a suggestion. Find out how many members in your riding and seek to double it. Find out how much money you raised last year and add $5,000 or $10,000 to that. Find out how are the movers and shakers in your community, and make sure that they have heard the Green message, and know your candidate as well.
How to build your EDA
Here is an excellent blog and set of power point slides that show how to build your local EDA. We've been trying this in Kitchener Centre with some success.
"People of good faith, figuring out where we are, not falling victim, making choices, based on our values, with the best available information." These views are my own and do not represent the official position of the Green Party of Canada.
I do admire very much the
I do admire very much the enthusiasm, courage and effort at the local level, building grass-roots support. (Maybe I'm different, but I’ve never been swayed one iota by anyone pounding on my door or harassing me on the street.) It’s been shown by studies in psychology that the majority of people pigeon-hole, stereo-type and label both individuals and political parties simply because it takes less mental energy. And until the under-thirty generation ages another twenty years, the majority of active voters still get their simplistic images from the traditional media. You can’t compare the Obama-Democratic campaign to the GPC. Their mission was to, ‘get out the votes of their already large constituency’ and to sway ‘undecided’ voters.
And I don’t believe that even tripling of monetary donations can make any significant difference if the ‘image’ is well off the mark. It may make life and work easier for members and certainly is an essential. But for the general public, the image of the GPC is way at the margins.
There’s a prevailing philosophy that the Green Party can grow organically and methodically a few percent every election. Changing ideas, ‘one person at a time’. I wish it were true. If so, why has the NDP been stuck at their present level for decades? Because their messaging is too narrow and they have been branded, ‘socialists’.
Likewise, the GPC. There is an upper limit to what one lone crusader-leader can do to dramatize and thus translate concern about the environment into votes. Because like it or not, families are struggling to make ends meet and have many other urgent concerns. Yes our platform addresses them, but not our image and not the vast majority of our messaging. Perception is reality. And reality is what the media says it is.
Image and Personality
Thanks for the comments, David. One of the things which I have discovered is that the longer I am involved in politics, the more I learn. I have learned a lot from Shane Jolley.
One thing that we forget about is that people vote for people. The image of the party is much less important than the image of the individual. The media, to a large extent, has not talked about us enough to actually form an image in the mind of the public. Their perception is largely born in a vacuum of information, and so is not well entrenched.
So the opportunity remains with us to define the Green Party by who WE are, as individuals, and the promotion of Green values. The best example of this is Shane Jolley. He achieved 33.14% in the last provincial election in Ontario, and he did this through networking. (There is quite a bit of information available on what he did and his recommendations for other candidates .. check the members area for this info). I don't believe they had any money for advertising at the provincial level, so this suppport was generated locally, and was far above the average 8% in the province. In fact, it is the highest percentage achieved by any Green campaign on the planet.
I recently heard Shane speak at a training session in London, and he reminded us that when he started, he knew very little about politics, about public speaking and did not have a team to start with. If he can do it, we can do it. My only regret is not starting sooner.
As to people's urgent issues, remember that we gain respect by listening to the concerns that people have, rather than telling them that our solutions will solve their problems. Listening is key, and is an important Green value.
Shane Jolley
Shane has become a great speaker and is a star in the Green Party.
Unfortunately he his running in a riding that would elect a farmer's cow if it was run for the Conservatives. (And no that's not funny)
Shane has gotten almost every vote available from the NDP and Liberals and can't make a dent in Conservative vote.
Hopefully he can help everyone else in the Green Party.
Stephen Brotherston, BASc., MBA, CBV(retired)
Fast Growth
For all the concern about being unable to grow don't forget about our current government - the Reform Party...er...Conservative Party.
In 1988 they had no one win a seat. Then they won a by-election. Then they moved into the 3rd slot federally while another new party, the Bloc Quebecois, moved into official opposition while the governing party fell to 2 seats.
Think about that. It was my second federal election for voting and I was going to vote PC but was annoyed with government and felt the debt had to be paid down. Thus I voted Reform to send a message - and what a message it ended up being.
Now we are in a period where we probably should've seen the CPC as the governing party much like the Liberals were in the 90's thanks to a split vote but we haven't. Why? The CPC just doesn't hold peoples trust. The NDP and Liberals really should think of merging after all, the NDP is just a group of Liberals in a rush as they say :)
The GPC? We need to stick around and force it. If we grow to 20% then we'd have enough strength to have influence in a merger, but then we'd be strong enough to be part of a government with full power in eyeshot (NDP did that in 1988 and had a beautiful opportunity for merging with a weak Liberal party but didn't and has never cracked 20 again - actually dropped to under 7% in 1993).
John Northey
Wellington-Halton Hills
Mergers with Other Parties - Not A Solution
Most people joined the Greens from other Parties because the other Parties do not represent their views.
A merger is a surrender of those views.
The most likely result is most Greens would join the ever growing masses of people who see no point in voting as no Party represents their views.
Stephen Brotherston, BASc., MBA, CBV(retired)
Green future not comparable to Reform growth
While comparisons to the rapid growth of the Reform party into the governing party give much reason for optimism. It is important to recognize a major difference; the Reform party started as a ‘regional’ party in Alberta. So that their support was concentrated geographically there, allowing them to initially have higher percentage of votes in those ridings, and build outward; merging with the PC’s to capture Central and Eastern Canada voters. In contrast the GPC has a broad geographical support among progressive Canadians. But with no one geographical strength.
This begs the question; without the benefit of PR, should the strategy be to focus on specific region(s) and build outward? Just food for thought.
Thats the big question
How to grow, what direction.
If we want to be in the HOC and to directly influence things we need to get geographically focused - ideally in areas where people have shown a willingness to vote for parties other than the big 2 (or 2 plus NDP).
Alberta and Quebec are the most obvious places that have shown a willingness to vote differently - Alberta with Reform in the past, Wildrose provincially it appears and Quebec with the BQ and PQ. BC also, provincially, has shown a willingness to go against the norm (NDP, Social Credit both forming governments in the past).
Ontario, where we do fairly well and have a couple of ridings that are viewed as potential breakthroughs, rarely votes outside the CPC/Liberal area outside of pockets of NDP support. The east coast is a dead zone for '3rd parties' from what I can recall.
So, logically, we should look at Reform/Wildrose and the PQ/BQ to see what they did to break through along with the BC NDP/Social Credit parties. How did they catch the imagination of the average voter and do well? Are there areas we have in common that we can use to have the big breakthrough?
Alberta is a 'we don't trust government' zone - low taxes, rebellion against central Canada, keep off my property type stuff. As I've said before, an emphasis on providing the average person control over their taxes would sell, but watch out for 'nanny state' accusations over our pollution policies. The best sell there should be showing how various businesses are damaging the voters health & land value & future value of their province and how our policies would force them to cover those costs in a fair method.
Quebec tends to be 'we are a country, treat us like that'. Having it be clear where we stand on provincial/local rights (we are strongly in favour - the closer to the ground government is the better it can do for the area) would help. This province is a hard nut to crack as the NDP has tried for decades with little success despite their social policies appearing to be a good match.
BC is the most logical as they are viewed as ecological and wanting to be first to do 'the right thing'. Our provincial party there has done well (although no seats yet). A focus on areas we do well there should be a winning strategy.
Basically we need to be regionally focused - messages that sell to each region while being careful that national messages don't contradict those regional ones. A strong focus on BC would probably have the best shot, and I keep thinking Alberta has a shot as well although it would be more the 'strong 2nd place' shot than winning at this stage.
John Northey
Wellington-Halton Hills
Regional focus..
To quote you,
"Basically we need to be regionally focused - messages that sell to each region while being careful that national messages don't contradict those regional ones."
Sounds nice, but I don't think that's viable. This follows along with the idea that people would vote for us if only we could educate them just a bit more.
At some point we have to accept that we do not represent the will of the voters. What we really need to do is figure out which of our policies are winners and which are losers and then take a real look at perhaps dropping some of those ideas which are just not winners, so that we can actually get into parliament.
Belief in winning
I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has heard 'I might vote for you but you can't win so why bother'. There is a reason having 1,000,000 signs up helps - people are pack animals and want to be part of the winning pack. If they think voting Green is a voice in the wilderness they won't vote for us, but if they think we could win/will win then they will at least consider voting for us.
Sad but true.
This hits onto the strategic voting issue and deals with the FPTP system that we are stuck with for the foreseeable future. If we are super-visible we do better. See how Elizabeth May has come in 2nd the two times she ran as leader, how we've come in 2nd both federally and provincially in Bruce Grey-Owen Sound and were a strong enough threat that the local MPP threw his leader into the shark tank during an election (he came out as against a key policy - school funding for all religions - right as that issue was starting to die down as he knew it could kill him in his riding).
To win in our current system we need to focus on key regions. The big push to elect Ms. May is vital. We need the same in other key ridings, such as Guelph and BG-OS, to get people if not elected then close enough to get people voting Green next time. The only way to have it happen is to be so visible that you cannot miss us. To be so strongly visible that you have to think we are the #1 contender in that riding. Then we get the 'anti' vote (want someone other than party xyz in) and the 'pro' vote (like Green but need to think it can win). We need to find supporters and get them out to vote as well - increase turnout from 65% to 95% (too optimistic, I know) and we'd up our vote by 50%.
This is true for all parties - in a FPTP system people 'know' that only 2 parties have a shot in each riding thus you must be viewed as one of those 2 to get votes. Some CPC voters WILL vote NDP if it beats a Liberal, some Liberals will vote NDP to beat the CPC, and so on. We need to be the alternate and, when we are, we need to be pushing hard so everyone in town knows it. Then the negative ads that the NDP/Liberal/CPC do against each other will be major boosts to us.
John Northey
Wellington-Halton Hills
Young Liberals suggest Liberal-NDP coalition
A lot has changed since this was written, especially with the coalition government that now exists in Britain.
And then Jean Chretien said that if the Liberals and NDP could form a coalition and defeat the Conservatives they should do it!
Now the leader of the Young Liberals has suggested this might be a good idea:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/young-liberal-pushes-stop-harper-coalition-conservatives-brag-on-economy/article1587660/
Thoughts from Greens?
"People of good faith, figuring out where we are, not falling victim, making choices, based on our values, with the best available information." These views are my own and do not represent the official position of the Green Party of Canada.