Why can't we just advance the Green Agenda through a traditional party?
Right and Left politics
The Green Party believes that Right-Left politics are over. The German Greens have a saying we are not right we an not left we are forward. The traditional parties are arguing about how to distribute goods. Their core argument is whether goods should be distributed through market forces (capitalism) or through government control (communism). The Greens feel the discussion is over the majority of countries in the world have decided that a market economy with some government intervention is best. The Green Party agrees.
This makes us fundamentally different from the the traditional parties because we are not looking at how to distribute goods. We want to talk about how we increase the education level of the populace so we can produce goods locally. We also want to increase the number of goods available to people by increasing the amount of recycling. Not shallow recycling like blue boxes but deep recycling where the manufacturing of products is changed so that companies can take the goods they produce back at the end of their life cycle ending waste. The German Greens have already passed laws to do this.
An interesting part of your question is that I have been asked the same question by conservatives. David Orchard an organic farmer from Saskatchewan made a bid to take over the Progressive Conservative party. His plan was to green the Conservatives. When the Alliance merged with the PC’s Orchards plan failed. I told his people when they approached me “A leopard does not change its spots.” The (pick your old line party) may be trying to reposition themselves as more green but as long as they are mired in the tradition of right left politics they will never be able to actually make the change.
New Ideas
There is a lack of vision among the old line parties. When was the last time you heard one of them talk about their vision of the future. They don’t do it because for the most part they do not have one. They may be interested in holding the line on health care or bettering education or lowering taxes but they do not have a vision for the future. The Green Party does.
Our vision
The Green Party has a vision for the future that derives from 10 key value. These values were agreed to by Green parties in 70 countries and a Charter was signed in Canberra, Australia in 2001. Global Greens Charter
The Green Party believes in :
Sustainability
Decentralization
Gender equity
Non-violence
Community Based Economics
Social Justice
Grassroots Democracy
Ecological Wisdom
Personal & Global responsibility
Respect for Diversity
The old line parties all agree that the question is: How do we distribute scarce resources to satisfy unlimited wants? The Green Party has been rethinking the question and we believe that it should read: How do we locally produce through education and recycling enough resources to satisfy limited wants? This is our mission.
We want a planet were the inputs of processes equal the outputs. William McDounagh talks about this concept in his book Cradle to Cradle. His term for it is waste = food. How do we make the waste of one process the food for the next. This deep change in how society is structured is one of the things we are pushing for. We believe in a sustainable future. That is the core of who we are, for the other parties it is only window dressing.
How are we doing.
The Green Party unlike the other parties does better every time we go to the polls.
Ontario
We have just run 102 out or 103 candidates and increased our vote from 0.8% in the last election to 2.8% in this one. That is a 100,000 vote increase.
Manitoba
We fielded 9 candidates this election our last total was 6. The leader of the Manitoba party received 20% of the vote in his riding.
Saskatchewan
We ran 27 candidates up from 16 last election. In every case we run more candidates and get more votes.
Canada
Because of the upcoming federal election Ipsos Reid has been tracking results fairly regularily. The Mar 23rd poll show us at 5% across the country and 7% in Alberta!
The old line parties have had many years on us. The CCF which became the NDP was founded in 1932 and has had 70 some years to get going. There have been Conservatives and Liberals in Canada since there was a Canada. The Green party has only had 20 years at the national level and 14 years in Alberta. We are just in our infancy. Are they more popular or are they just well known?
Changes to the Federal Funding Laws
The Federal government just recently passed the Election Act (Bill C-24). This bill will have a major impact on the political landscape in Canada and the Green Party has the most to gain. The Election Act has reduced the amount that corporations and unions can donate to political parties from an unlimited amount to $1000 per year per party. This will impact the old line parties funding at the federal level. The bill also states that any party which receives 2% of the vote will receive funding from the federal government. The Green party which is mainly a volunteer party run mostly with donations from individuals would have for the first time in its history the money for real infrastructure. This will not affect us provincially except that a rising tide lifts all ships.
Who votes Green
The average age of people who belong to the traditional political parties in Canada is 59. The Green Party by contrast has an average age of aproximately 35. The leader of the Saskatchewan Greens is 26. 9% of the 18-34 year old people in Canada support the Green party. In BC where the party is well known 28% of 18 - 34 year olds support the Green Party Our big challenge is that this is also the group where 75% of them don’t vote.
The Green party is working through groups like the Campus Greens to talk to these people and ask them to support. More people did not vote in the last election than voted for the winning party.
After the Ralph Nader presidential bid in 2000 an analysis was done of his votes and it was found that the majority of his votes came from people who did not previously vote. Ralph Nader raised almost 5 million dollars by having house parties and getting small $10 and $20 donations. It was the non-voters and the youth that drove Ralph Nader’s campaign.
So to finish you should support the Green party because we believe in sustainability it is not just window dressing. The old line parties maybe entrenched but their party is made up of 59 year old people who are mired in a right / left political discussion that is not relevant in today’s society.
We are the thin edge of the wedge. We are the voice of the future.
George Read
Leader of the Alberta Greens
Right and Left politics
The Green Party believes that Right-Left politics are over. The German Greens have a saying we are not right we an not left we are forward. The traditional parties are arguing about how to distribute goods. Their core argument is whether goods should be distributed through market forces (capitalism) or through government control (communism). The Greens feel the discussion is over the majority of countries in the world have decided that a market economy with some government intervention is best. The Green Party agrees.
This makes us fundamentally different from the the traditional parties because we are not looking at how to distribute goods. We want to talk about how we increase the education level of the populace so we can produce goods locally. We also want to increase the number of goods available to people by increasing the amount of recycling. Not shallow recycling like blue boxes but deep recycling where the manufacturing of products is changed so that companies can take the goods they produce back at the end of their life cycle ending waste. The German Greens have already passed laws to do this.
An interesting part of your question is that I have been asked the same question by conservatives. David Orchard an organic farmer from Saskatchewan made a bid to take over the Progressive Conservative party. His plan was to green the Conservatives. When the Alliance merged with the PC’s Orchards plan failed. I told his people when they approached me “A leopard does not change its spots.” The (pick your old line party) may be trying to reposition themselves as more green but as long as they are mired in the tradition of right left politics they will never be able to actually make the change.
New Ideas
There is a lack of vision among the old line parties. When was the last time you heard one of them talk about their vision of the future. They don’t do it because for the most part they do not have one. They may be interested in holding the line on health care or bettering education or lowering taxes but they do not have a vision for the future. The Green Party does.
Our vision
The Green Party has a vision for the future that derives from 10 key value. These values were agreed to by Green parties in 70 countries and a Charter was signed in Canberra, Australia in 2001. Global Greens Charter
The Green Party believes in :
Sustainability
Decentralization
Gender equity
Non-violence
Community Based Economics
Social Justice
Grassroots Democracy
Ecological Wisdom
Personal & Global responsibility
Respect for Diversity
The old line parties all agree that the question is: How do we distribute scarce resources to satisfy unlimited wants? The Green Party has been rethinking the question and we believe that it should read: How do we locally produce through education and recycling enough resources to satisfy limited wants? This is our mission.
We want a planet were the inputs of processes equal the outputs. William McDounagh talks about this concept in his book Cradle to Cradle. His term for it is waste = food. How do we make the waste of one process the food for the next. This deep change in how society is structured is one of the things we are pushing for. We believe in a sustainable future. That is the core of who we are, for the other parties it is only window dressing.
How are we doing.
The Green Party unlike the other parties does better every time we go to the polls.
Ontario
We have just run 102 out or 103 candidates and increased our vote from 0.8% in the last election to 2.8% in this one. That is a 100,000 vote increase.
Manitoba
We fielded 9 candidates this election our last total was 6. The leader of the Manitoba party received 20% of the vote in his riding.
Saskatchewan
We ran 27 candidates up from 16 last election. In every case we run more candidates and get more votes.
Canada
Because of the upcoming federal election Ipsos Reid has been tracking results fairly regularily. The Mar 23rd poll show us at 5% across the country and 7% in Alberta!
The old line parties have had many years on us. The CCF which became the NDP was founded in 1932 and has had 70 some years to get going. There have been Conservatives and Liberals in Canada since there was a Canada. The Green party has only had 20 years at the national level and 14 years in Alberta. We are just in our infancy. Are they more popular or are they just well known?
Changes to the Federal Funding Laws
The Federal government just recently passed the Election Act (Bill C-24). This bill will have a major impact on the political landscape in Canada and the Green Party has the most to gain. The Election Act has reduced the amount that corporations and unions can donate to political parties from an unlimited amount to $1000 per year per party. This will impact the old line parties funding at the federal level. The bill also states that any party which receives 2% of the vote will receive funding from the federal government. The Green party which is mainly a volunteer party run mostly with donations from individuals would have for the first time in its history the money for real infrastructure. This will not affect us provincially except that a rising tide lifts all ships.
Who votes Green
The average age of people who belong to the traditional political parties in Canada is 59. The Green Party by contrast has an average age of aproximately 35. The leader of the Saskatchewan Greens is 26. 9% of the 18-34 year old people in Canada support the Green party. In BC where the party is well known 28% of 18 - 34 year olds support the Green Party Our big challenge is that this is also the group where 75% of them don’t vote.
The Green party is working through groups like the Campus Greens to talk to these people and ask them to support. More people did not vote in the last election than voted for the winning party.
After the Ralph Nader presidential bid in 2000 an analysis was done of his votes and it was found that the majority of his votes came from people who did not previously vote. Ralph Nader raised almost 5 million dollars by having house parties and getting small $10 and $20 donations. It was the non-voters and the youth that drove Ralph Nader’s campaign.
So to finish you should support the Green party because we believe in sustainability it is not just window dressing. The old line parties maybe entrenched but their party is made up of 59 year old people who are mired in a right / left political discussion that is not relevant in today’s society.
We are the thin edge of the wedge. We are the voice of the future.
George Read
Leader of the Alberta Greens
posted by George Read @ 10:17 AM
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