Green Pages
Green Party leader Elizabeth May’s announcement that she will run in the British Columbia (B.C.) riding (district) of Saanich—Gulf Islands in the next election has sparked a renewed sense of optimism and enthusiasm among Greens in Canada, raising hopes and expectations that the party will win its first seat in the House of Commons. May had previously run for a seat in her home province of Nova Scotia – on the Atlantic coast, thousands of miles away from B.C. What prompted her move to the other side of Canada? The answer lies in the party’s successes and failures in the last national election, and the reshuffling of Green priorities that has ensued.
Publication Source:
National Newspaper of the Green Party of the United States
Source Link:
Author:
Camille Labchuk
Additional Excerpt:
Paradoxically, due to the regressive nature of the winner-take-all electoral system, the current MP for Saanich—Gulf Islands is Conservative cabinet minister Gary Lunn, who has held on to his seat since first being elected in 1997 because the riding’s progressive vote is split between the Liberals, NDP and Greens. Progressives have long acknowledged this problem and have gone so far as to launch a Shun Lunn campaign, encouraging voters to rally around one of Lunn’s opponents in order to vote him out. In the last election, the Liberal candidate came close, losing 43% to 39%, with Lewis also receiving 10.5% and the NDP candidate 5.7%. Clearly many voters want to rid themselves of Lunn, but have been unable to rally around a single opponent. But now when a star candidate like May enters the equation, a natural rallying point can emerge.
