Green Party Watch

Newsweek is profiling some strong Green Women Leaders from around the world in this “Women & Leadership” special.

Included are Germany’s Renate Künast:

The biggest coup could come in Berlin, where party chairwoman Renate Künast has a good shot to become the first Green to head a state… “We used to think that radicalism came in writing papers and outlining a far-reaching vision. It’s not enough. Radicalism is when you have a vision but go forward step by step, one reform after the other.”

Kenya’s Wangari Maathai:

In 2004 Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the Green Belt Movement, a nonprofit NGO she founded in her native Kenya… “I have literally seen a revolution in terms of awareness of how we need to protect our environment. We have seen governments and local communities committing to changing policies to facilitate sustainable management of our resources.”

Canada’s Elizabeth May:

“We cannot have any notion that our children are going to have a livable world if we don’t apply ourselves to political decisions—like making sure our governments ease our addiction to fossil fuels.”

(Thanks to D.Schwab for the link!)

The Tyee in British Columbia reports on the Canadian Green Party’s quest to elect its leader, Elizabeth May, as the party’s first member of parliament elected as a Green:

A year ago an internal Green Party poll suggested leader Elizabeth May would have a good shot at winning a seat in Saanich-Gulf Islands in the next federal election. It would be a major breakthrough for the party, which is yet to elect a member of parliament in Canada.

But 12 months later there are questions about whether she’s doing everything she can to make it to Ottawa.

“I think I’m going to be either first or second, in terms of polling,” May said in a recent interview. “I like first.”

She decided to run in Saanich-Gulf Islands, across the country from the Central Nova riding where she took on cabinet minister Peter MacKay in the last election, after a party poll put her even with Conservative Minister of State Gary Lunn.

“Part of it was polling and part of it was listening to people, and there was no question far and away it was voters of Saanich-Gulf Islands that said their values were most in tune with Green values, they were most interested in making a change,” she said. read more »

From the Green Party of Canada:

OTTAWA — Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson yesterday confirmed that marijuana activist Marc Emery will be extradited to the United States, a move that the Green Party of Canada condemns.  The decision was made shortly after Marc Emery turned himself in to the authorities as his bail expired May 10, 2010.

Marc was arrested in 2005 as a result of an undercover investigation of his online marijuana seed-selling business.  Last summer, Emery entered into a plea bargain with American authorities that will likely see him thrown in a U.S. jail for at least five years for distributing marijuana seeds.  The extradition ends his 5 year battle to avoid the US drug charges.

“It is wrong that Marc is being sent to a US prison for an offense for which there is almost no penalty in Canada,” said Green Leader Elizabeth May. “We ask the Justice Minister to reconsider. At the very least, Marc should serve his term in a Canadian prison.” read more »

The Irish Times is reporting that the Irish Green Party has forced the governing party, Fianna Fáil, to hold a vote on ending the hunting of male deer, or stags. The article says that the Green Party forced a vote on the issue by negotiating it with Fianna Fáil during talks aimed at preventing a government collapse. Apparently now some Fianna Fáil members of the Teachta Dála, the lower chamber of the Irish Parliament, want to be free to vote to retain the stag hunt; in essence saying that they want to ignore the terms their leaders committed to earlier.

Meanwhile, in Canada, the Prime Minister has suspended parliament for two months, and The Star is quoting Green Party leader Elizabeth May saying

“We need to kick and scream at this insult to democracy – because that is what it is. We need to support each other, efforts by other parties, non-political leadership,”

This move by the Harper government will kill a committee probing the transfer of Afghan prisoners by Canadian troops. The closing of parliament also shuts down vocal opposition to his conservative read more »

From the Western Standard Shotgun blog:

Reports of the detention of an American journalist trying to cross into Canada for a speaking engagement have prompted outrage within the Green Party of Canada. Amy Goodman was kept at a British Columbia border crossing for over an hour, apparently because officials wanted to be sure she wasn’t coming to Canada to make negative comments about the Olympics. read more »

As has been reported here at GPW over the past few days, the Irish Green Party membership is not happy with their government, even though the Greens are part of the governing coalition. Part of the difficulty is the government proposal to bail out Irish bankers, speculators and developers, known as NAMA. Party chair Dan Boyle has put the chance of snap elections at 40%, but Environment Minister John Gormley has ruled out early elections.

At the same time, the Socialist Workers Party in Ireland plans to lobby a Green Party conference on September 12th, which is being held to hear from Green Party members and their concerns about the NAMA program.

In Canada, the National Post is reporting that recent polls put the Green Party at 9.9% as the Liberal and Conservative Parties run neck and neck. Green Party leader Elizabeth May may have an early run for office if the current minority Conservative Party government looses a no confidence vote.

The Standard of St. Catherines reports that Greens, and other political candidates, would prefer to keep the current election schedule instead of holding elections as early as November.

“Look, if it happens, I’m ready to go,” said St. Catharines Green party candidate Jennifer Mooradian. “But this isn’t the time. No one I am talking to right now wants an election. I think people want to see Ottawa get on with the job.

In Austria, the Greens are proposing that deserters from Hitler’s Nazi military be given “full rehabilitation”. An article at Monsters and Critics quotes Austrian Green parliamentarian Albert Steinhauser saying:

“With this bill, the republic and its representatives would declare their view of desertion in a historical context.”

Elizabeth May, leader of the Canadian Green Party, is in the news of late. May, who was born in Connecticut, is reportedly interested in running for office in the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding, the tern used in Canada for an electoral district.

BC Loacl reports that the incumbent, Sport Minister and Conservative Party incumbent Gary Lunn is unconcerned about May entering the race.

“I’m proud of my record and I’m happy to put that up against anybody in any of the other parties,” he said, noting he’s represented the region in the federal cabinet since 2006.

“I can only tell you the Canadian people aren’t interested in an election, that’s for sure. We’re just starting to see positive signs for the economy turning around,” he said.

For the first time, the Canadian Green Party are focusing their efforts behind getting the party leader elected to parliament.

Meanwhile, the Well and Tribune reports on her visit to Niagara to promote green living.

Well, I was going to do as early Green Party blogger Ken Sain did at his blog and wait until I felt sure we were not set for a back-slide before announcing another milestone, but our visitors from Canada have had such an impact today that I feel comfortable saying this:

Green Party Watch is now averaging over 300 unique visitors a day. Not a lot I’ll grant, but a milestone none the less. We have also burst right through the 25,000 visitor mark, and may make it past 30,000 before the day is out.

Not only that, but today is by far the biggest day we have ever had here at GPW. At noon East Coast Time we have had more than 2000 visitors, most of them drawn by Ronald Hardy’s coverage of the Canadian Greens and their results in yesterday’s election.

This website is focused almost entirely on US Green Party activities, but we are not fools! You are here looking for news about the Canadian Greens, and you shall have it.

The Xinhua News Agency From China points out that the only Canadian Green Party Member of Parliament (MP) lost his bid to remain in office, leaving the Green Party out of Parliament. Blair Wilson, an MP from British Columbia, had been elected as a Liberal and changed to the Greens. He lost his seat to a Conservative. The same article points out that the Canadian Greens won 7% of this year’s vote compared to 4.5% in the last election.

The Globe and Mail says that Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May has announced that her agenda right now it two fold: Pay off the Green Party’s debt in preparation for the next election, and promoting her book Global Warming for dummies. In the article May, who lost her race against a sitting MP, is quoted saying

“I can win in this riding. I will next time,” she said. “In the meantime, I will be prepared to win in a by-election.”

The Ottawa Citizen says that May is facing criticism for her decision to run against the Canadian Defense Minister, and includes this inspiring quote:

“We ran an exuberant, a positive and a joyful campaign. We grabbed national attention, not because we were tilting at windmills but because we set out to do something right and we did it for the right reasons.”

The Vancouver Sun covers Adriane Carr, a candidate for MP from British Columbia. She has run twice before as a Green and is quoted saying:

“I’m not going to give up,” she said. “Green politics is in my blood. This country needs it. I really believe we need green solutions in our politics.”

The Canadian Broadcast System reports on the election from a Toronto point of view, and in a message I think we American Greens could learn from, wrote:

Ingrid Sheriff used to be an NDP (New democratic Party) supporter, but was won over by an energetic, grassroots campaign.

Finally (for now) the Collingwood Enterprise Bulletin points to a bright future for the Green Party in their area. According to their article, more than a quarter of 400,000 students voted Green in a mock election, and the students choose the Green Party challenger in Simcoe North over the incumbent Conservative MP by more than 100 votes. More than 4000 schools nation wide participated in the mock election.

I have found myself obsessed with the Canadian election results, particularly in respect to how the Green Party of Canada did. I can’t help asking the question – if the United States had a Parliamentary form of government, and if there were five political parties treated equally in the United States (rather than two privileged parties), would the results in the United States resemble the results in Canada? Or do US and Canadian Green Party results actually coincide more than we think?

As of this writing (10:16 CST) with around two-thirds of the polls counted, the Green Party of Canada is showing 6.6% of the vote, 532,068 votes, with no seats won. The Conservatives lead with 37.3%, The Liberals are at 27.4%, New Democats at 18.4%, Block Quebequois at 9.1%.

Elizabeth May, who probably had the best shot at winning her riding of the Greens running across Canada, took 32.2%, second to Conservative Peter MacKay’s 46.6%, the New Democrats at 19.6%, the Christian Heritage Party at 1.1%, and the Canadian Action Party at 0.5%.

I’ll update this post over the next 24 hours, but please feel free to contribute in the comments in the mean time!

UPDATE: COMPARISON WITH US RETURNS

read more »

Canada heads to the polls, and I confess that I don’t know how the Canadian system works. However, the Green Party of Canada has candidates running in “ridings” (whatever that is) across the nation, and Elizabeth May, the Leader of the Green Party of Canada, is poised to take her own riding of Central Nova from the Conservative Party Incumbent.

But this is the kind of story that Greens should be learning from: “MAY TRADES VOTES FOR BABYSITTING“:

NEW GLASGOW, NS — Politicians and babies are a common combo on the campaign trail, but Green Party leader Elizabeth May took it a step further this election day.

Shortly after the polls opened, Ms. May babysat two young boys so that their mother could get out and vote.

Ms. May met the mother the day before while door knocking in New Glasgow.

“She said: ‘Unless I can find a babysitter, I don’t know how I can vote,’” Ms. May told reporters. “And I realized when I took care of the kids this morning, I’m the first babysitter they’ve ever had and it went really well.”

Right on!

Here is Elizabeth May’s message to voters today:

And one more note, I started to watch the Canadian Federal Leaders debate last night but ran out of time to watch the whole thing. I highly recommend it. Elizabeth May was allowed to join the five person debate, and it was certainly lively, informative, and a pleasure to see a Green at the Table.

The entire debate is on YouTube in 13 parts, you can view the playlist and watch them here.

If anyone knows Canadian politics, or catches election results, please post away in the comments!

Congratulations Green Party of Canada – Their candidate will participate in major debate
Canada is having an election too, in case you had not heard. Their candidate for Prime Minister, Elizabeth May, is polling at 10% currently, and will participate in the nationally televised debates.

It appears Canadians will get to hear more than just the pre-approved political participants.

Great article from the Christian Science Monitor:

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/10/02/why-canada’s-green-party-is-finally-a-prime-time-draw/

Why Canada’s Green Party is (finally) a prime-time draw
Elizabeth May, the Green candidate, will make history by appearing in a nationally televised debate on Thursday night.

By Susan Bourette| Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor/ October 2, 2008 edition

TORONTO
One way or another, Canada’s Green Party leader Elizabeth May will make history this week.

The mother, lawyer, environmental activist, and native of Connecticut will be the first Green Party member to participate in national televised debates on equal footing with Canada’s mainstream party leaders.

The debates – in French on Wednesday and in English on Thursday night – are “make or break” events for a party long relegated to the fringes of Canadian politics. Despite Green Party success in Europe, Canadians have yet to elect a single Green member to Parliament.
read more »