Green Party

Tuesday November 22, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 22, 2022

Political insider breaks down Green Party of Canada co-leadership win, potential trouble ahead

Former party leader and B.C. MP Elizabeth May and newcomer Jonathan Pedneault became the new co-leaders of the Green Party of Canada (GPC) on Saturday.

October 14, 2015

After her win, May, who ran the party from 2006 to 2019, made the case for the co-leadership model but noted that members would have the final say. It will require a change to the party’s constitution.

Former interim leader Amita Kuttner had expressed some uncertainty about how a potential shift to the co-leader model would be implemented.

Sonia Théroux, a political organizer who was involved with one of the Green Party of Canada’s most successful campaigns in 2015, says while she’s not surprised by the outcome of the leadership election, there could be some challenges ahead. 

When asked if she was surprised the two won the leadership, Théroux said, “I was not surprised. I was quite certain that Elizabeth and Anna Keenan were the two front-runners, and with Elizabeth’s name recognition, I assumed she had the edge.”

October 13, 2022

As for challenges they’ll inherit as co-leaders, “besides the obvious infrastructure problems, they’ve had a massive loss of staff. I think there’s a lot of work to be done to regain trust, not only from the base, which in some senses might be more easily done than with the public. I think the public looks for political parties and leaders in general that feel like they have a handle on their internal matters, and as we’ve all seen for the last few years, that’s not the impression the party has given.”

“It’s not unusual for Greens, that’s for sure. I see it as an increasing concept in leadership. I think it’s actually a good concept for the most part, but it can also really easily be poorly done if it’s not really well thought out. They do need to democratically come to this decision as a party, and my understanding is that they’ve attempted that in the past, and it hasn’t passed, but I can see it being successful at their 2023 annual general meeting. It will require an adjustment of their constitution.”

July 16, 2021

“if you’re both tackling the same things, you end up with a lot of confusion often, which can really trickle down to staff and the people that you’re working with. I’d say that the major factor from my perspective in a party that needs to signal change is that Jonathan Pedneault was given a lot of platform, and my understanding when Elizabeth announced the co-leadership intention, she was quoted somewhere in the media saying they had already figured it out.”

Théroux believes challenges lie ahead: “Jonathan was going to focus on rebuilding the party, and she was going to be the spokesperson. That sounds like a recipe for it not working. You’ve got a party in disarray that is not completely unrelated to her 13 years in leadership. To have Jonathan go in and try to fix that while she’s given the platform, I think it’s the opposite of how they should approach it.”

“If the intention is really to signal a new voice, a new time, a new era, and to try to regain the trust of the public, it’s really hard to do that when you’ve got a record versus somebody who’s brand new and exciting, and that can really engage a subset of the population that currently isn’t paying attention to the Green Party.”

June 18, 2021

“Elizabeth had her time at the party. It really needs to signal change. I think that points to giving Pedneault more of a platform than Elizabeth May herself. He needs to be given the time and the resources he needs in order to feel like he’s got everything he needs to move forward.”

When asked if the Green Party be any better situated in the next federal election to elect more members of Parliament, Théroux said, “That really depends on what they choose to do. I do know a lot of folks that feel like Elizabeth May returning to the role signals moving backward versus moving forward. So that is a hump that they have to overcome.”

“And I think then it really comes down to, can they as leaders really generate enough attention and engagement that they build back a funding base because you cannot win elections without staff and without money. And if those two things aren’t repaired together with, critically, a culture change that needs to happen in that party, I don’t see their chances necessarily getting better without that hard work.” (CBC News) 

 

Thursday October 13, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday October 13, 2022

The sad decline of the Green party

Climate change is no longer something we need to prepare for. It is here, in the form of extreme weather, and this country, and, indeed the world, is reacting to a crisis no longer at our door, but in our kitchen.

September 23, 2005

Hurricane Fiona and Hurricane Ian are just the two most recent extreme weather disasters that are bringing death, destruction, darkness and despair to North America. We have also dealt with record heat, raging wildfires and a litany of “once in a century” storms that hit with frightening regularity, making a mockery of such hyperbolic labels. It also hurts the Canadian economy. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has committed $300 million in a relief package to rebuild after Fiona.

The Green Party of Canada had long held more mainstream parties accountable on dealing with climate change and a vibrant party pushing for more robust action would be crucial to the discourse of 2022.

But, that type of contribution is no more. There are signs that the national party could soon be no more.

September 17, 2007

There are those who would argue that the demise of the Greens began when Canada’s mainstream parties (with the notable exception of the federal Conservatives) began dealing seriously with climate change. We are now in an era when even the Canadian Chamber of Commerce is mapping a strategy for NetZero by 2050 and the Canadian corporate community has long known that transitioning to low-carbon energy is no longer aspirational. Failure to act damages the bottom line.

But the steep decline of the Greens wasn’t sparked by the loss of its signature issue. It was the product of hubris. Rarely has a political party more completely lost touch with its raison d’etre. It is there to serve and advocate for its constituents, not settle internal scores and bury itself in a grave of leaked grievances, threats, petty sniping, charges of misgendering and legal minutiae.

June 18, 2021

But that has been the sad recent history of the Greens, post-Elizabeth May. Jonathan Pedneault, a Quebec Green seeking to become co-leader with May, put it this way: “Right now, Canadian voters would be hard pressed to look at us and think that we are a viable option.”

He’s being optimistic if he thinks Canadians are looking at them. Most have looked away, in the manner in which one would recoil from a bus crash.

Most of the Green dysfunction over the past couple of years has been chronicled first – and in excruciating detail – by Torstar’s Alex Ballingall and Raisa Patel. News stories have chronicled party resignations and allegations of exclusion, discrimination and toxicity.

The leadership of Annamie Paul crumbled amidst charges and countercharges. She said she was destabilized from within. Party officials said she could not accept the party’s principle of decentralized authority. Then Paul, a Black, Jewish woman, accused unnamed party members of racism and misogyny.

September 10, 2019

Now, the party has eliminated a round of voting in a federal leadership contest with one official saying the party lacked the morale and motivation to handle two rounds of voting. The party is said to be losing money and is at risk of having to close its Ottawa headquarters. It has two MPs, May and Kitchener’s Mike Morrice, it polls about three per cent support and last year won its smallest vote total since the turn of the century.

There remain signs of Green life at the provincial level, and that’s good. But sadly, it is difficult to find a pulse on the federal scene. If we lose the Greens, the lament will be for what they could have been, not for what they have become. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro …

 

Wednesday October 7, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday October 7, 2020

‘Highly symbolic’: Canada’s Annamie Paul becomes first Black party leader

October 14, 2015

Annamie Paul, the first Black person to head a mainstream Canadian federal party, said on Monday that her victory was a sign that politics could become more inclusive.

Paul, a 47-year-old Toronto lawyer, beat seven other contenders to win the leadership of the country’s Green party late on Saturday.

“It is highly symbolic and highly important that I sit here today,” she told a news conference in Ottawa.

“What I bring is hope to all the people who have not seen themselves represented in politics to this point, hope it’s possible we can have a more inclusive style of politics.“

Paul is the second person of color to head a federal party in Canada after Jagmeet Singh took over the left-leaning New Democrats in 2017.

The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has frequently said there is a need to address what he calls systemic racism in Canada.

Paul faces several challenges. The Greens have only three legislators in the 338-seat House of Commons and she herself is not a member of parliament.

February 3, 2017

Paul will contest a special election in the parliamentary constituency of Toronto Centre later this month but that seat is likely to be retained by the ruling Liberals. She came in a distant fourth in a bid for the same seat in a federal election last year.

The Liberals, who have only a minority of seats in the House of Commons and rely on the support of other parties, look set to govern with the New Democrats and therefore do need the backing of the Greens.

Paul said Canada faced two great challenges: the coronavirus pandemic and global warming.

“The climate emergency is and remains the existential crisis of our times and we cannot forget about it because it has not forgotten about us,” she said. (The Guardian) 

 

Wednesday November 6, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 6, 2019

Elizabeth May calls it quits. Could the Greens do better with someone else?

Over the last decade, Elizabeth May became one of the strongest and most widely known personalities in Canadian politics. Under her leadership, the Green Party of Canada achieved the best results in its 35-year history.

October 14, 2015

Also under May, the Greens peaked at less than seven per cent of the popular vote and three seats in a 338-member House of Commons.

This is where the challenge lies in assessing May’s leadership and legacy.

By any measure, she’s the most successful leader in her party’s history. But that success was limited. And it’s fair to ask whether she and her party should have accomplished much more, particularly in the recent general election.

To May’s credit, her share of the political oxygen around Parliament Hill consistently exceeded her party’s share of popular support.

April 18, 2007

She convinced Stéphane Dion to not run a Liberal candidate against her in 2008 — when she chose to pursue a long-shot campaign against Peter MacKay in the Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova — and then talked her way into the televised leaders debates despite the fact that her party had never won a seat.

After she was elected in 2011 — defeating a Conservative incumbent in Saanich-Gulf Islands in British Columbia — she became a prominent voice calling not only for action on climate change but also for better decorum in the House of Commons and more respect for the sovereign power of Parliament. She was a constant presence in the House  and a regular guest at parliamentary committees, where she would turn up bearing amendments she wished to propose.

She took advantage of every opportunity afforded her as a member of Parliament, all while making her case that the institution, its members and political parties needed to change. The Greens, she vowed, would be different — if they could ever elect enough MPs to form a proper caucus.

September 29, 2008

In 2008, her first election as leader, the Greens received 6.8 per cent of the vote, a two-point jump over the previous election result; the party still failed to elect an MP. Three years later, the Greens focused their efforts on getting May into the House. They succeeded, but the party’s national support slipped to 3.9 per cent. In 2015, its share of the popular vote fell again, to 3.5 per cent.

The Greens elected their second MP in May when Paul Manly won a by-election in British Columbia. He and May were then joined in October by Jenica Atwin, who pulled off a surprise victory in Fredericton.

Three MPs is three more than the Greens had before Elizabeth May became leader. But three MPs is also a smaller number of victories than the Greens seemed capable of winning at the outset of this fall’s campaign.

September 18, 2019

In early September, the Greens were polling at 11 per cent and seemed to have a shot at overtaking the New Democrats for third place. The NDP was weaker than it had been in 15 years, and the issue of climate change — the Green Party’s raison d’être — was more salient than it had ever been. It was possible to imagine the Greens winning a dozen or more seats.

In announcing her departure on Monday, May boasted that the Greens received more than a million votes in this year’s election. But the party’s share of the popular vote — 6.5 per cent — was still below the 2008 mark.

She also celebrated the fact that the party had “doubled” its vote in Quebec — which sounds more impressive if you don’t know that means the party went from 2.3 per cent in Quebec in 2015 to 4.5 per cent this fall. (CBC News)