Alberta Greens

A political Blog by George Read, Leader of the Alberta Greens.

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

National Convention
The Green Party of Canada just finished their national convention. It was am uplifting time to be Green over 180 members were on hand in Alberta to work on policy and direction. We heard from David Suzuki and we enjoyed one of the few sunny weekends Calgary had to offer this year. It was exciting to have people from all over Canada come together in one place to be Green. The sense of common values and shared identity is something wonderful.

The Green party really is about diversity of voices, inclusiveness and decentralization and we saw this at the convention. We saw a group of people who worked together to agree on a vision of how to be Green. We saw growing pains as people new to the party learned about Green process and about allowing everyone to have their say. We heard from voices that are hard to hear like a professeur on military policy and the Canadian International Development Agency.

We made peace with our own people repealing the Seal Hunt policy put forward in 2002 and changing it to a more reasonable one in line with our values.

All in all the convention was a time when it was good to be Green.

It's never easy being Green but at least for a few sunny days in Alberta flush with election success and new found friends it is indeed good to be Green.

George

PS If we can do it here, we can do it anywhere. The winds of change are blowing.