And to think in the past 2 elections the greens were seen in a very postive light by most people. I wonder if Harris is actually trying to kill the Green party on purpose. If so he's doing a remarkable job of it.
Green Party ?
- Thread starter Karlin
- Start date
I don't think he's trying to kill it, I think he's trying to take it over to push his centre-right policies. It might work too. As more and more people become disaffected from Harper and notice the Greens, the party will grow. It doesn't have the baggage of the old PC party, and if he can attract new members instead of Conservatives who bring their own baggage with them, he could do rather well.
It sucks for the environmental movement though, and it sucks for most of the provincial Green Parties who are being hurt as their supporters turn away from the federal party.
It sucks for the environmental movement though, and it sucks for most of the provincial Green Parties who are being hurt as their supporters turn away from the federal party.
I don't think he's trying to kill it, I think he's trying to take it over to push his centre-right policies. It might work too. As more and more people become disaffected from Harper and notice the Greens, the party will grow. It doesn't have the baggage of the old PC party, and if he can attract new members instead of Conservatives who bring their own baggage with them, he could do rather well.
It sucks for the environmental movement though, and it sucks for most of the provincial Green Parties who are being hurt as their supporters turn away from the federal party.
It sucks for the environmental movement though, and it sucks for most of the provincial Green Parties who are being hurt as their supporters turn away from the federal party.
Green Party hit with second elections complaint
A teaser:
A second complaint to Elections Canada of alleged electoral-law violations by Green Party officials has been made public by a former party member, even as the party threatens legal action against the initiator of a complaint reported last week.
B.C. activist Dana Miller, who served in the party's shadow cabinet with responsibility for human rights issues, provided The Canadian Press with a copy of her April 15 complaint, alleging violations of federal law and the party's own constitution.
Miller had hoped to run for the party in the riding of Delta Richmond-East. She said in an interview she had been expelled from the party, without due process, after filing the complaint.
In her letter to Chief Electoral Officier Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Miller says party leader Jim Harris did not report expenses he incurred in his 2004 race for the party leadership.
She calls on Kingsley to declare the results of the leadership race invalid and suspend federal payments to the Green Party, which is receiving $1.2 million this year based on a formula of $1.75 per vote won in the last election.
"Leadership expenses were obviously incurred yet none were claimed by Jim Harris, as per the Elections Canada website," said Miller, referring to a government website on which the legally required financial statements of political parties and candidates are posted. [/teaser]
Click link for rest.
It seems that Jim Harris is really doing the greens any favours. I hope he gets the boot soon after election.
A teaser:
A second complaint to Elections Canada of alleged electoral-law violations by Green Party officials has been made public by a former party member, even as the party threatens legal action against the initiator of a complaint reported last week.
B.C. activist Dana Miller, who served in the party's shadow cabinet with responsibility for human rights issues, provided The Canadian Press with a copy of her April 15 complaint, alleging violations of federal law and the party's own constitution.
Miller had hoped to run for the party in the riding of Delta Richmond-East. She said in an interview she had been expelled from the party, without due process, after filing the complaint.
In her letter to Chief Electoral Officier Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Miller says party leader Jim Harris did not report expenses he incurred in his 2004 race for the party leadership.
She calls on Kingsley to declare the results of the leadership race invalid and suspend federal payments to the Green Party, which is receiving $1.2 million this year based on a formula of $1.75 per vote won in the last election.
"Leadership expenses were obviously incurred yet none were claimed by Jim Harris, as per the Elections Canada website," said Miller, referring to a government website on which the legally required financial statements of political parties and candidates are posted. [/teaser]
Click link for rest.
It seems that Jim Harris is really doing the greens any favours. I hope he gets the boot soon after election.
Well if Harris actually wants to take over the void left by the Progressive Conservatives, he's doing a horrible Job. He's killing the credibility of the Green's with all these violations, corruption and even purges.
I don't think he planned on getting caught though. Remember that the Greens he's taking over from and pushing out have a reputation of being a bunch of stupid, disorganized hippies. That's a feeling that's especially prevalent on the right. If Harris looks at them the same way, he could have easily underestimated what the response would be.
Confustion of an ex-insider
Without disclosing too much personal information I can say that I worked for both the NDP for a number of years and then for the Green Party, before taking my current position which precludes me from being actively involved in partisan politics on a groud level at least.
Over the last two elections I have heard more an more grumbling about the Green Party moving to the right-wing, but have been completely unable to substantiate these claims.
A quick google search turned up plenty of Blogs and ad-hoc comments about the Federal Green's now being right of centre, but no real reliable sources that were willing to state anything of the sort.
In fact it still looks like the Green's are just begining to get on the radar of any media at all.
I have met Jim Harris, and I have to say that on a personable level he impresses me more than any of the other candidates... but that's not really a grand compliment.
Sure he was ex-conservative, but he's been with the GP for 17 years. I'm not sure how his alligence to "conservativism" should be judged considering the time span.
My main confusion comes from trying to evaluate the party platforms, I just did a quick scan of all the federal party sites.
On the front page of the Green Party site I can download their full platform in either PDF or Word.
The NDP, Liberal and Conservative site offered no easily recognizable downloads, all of them had a place for "the issues" which you can click on and read a quick blurb.
After reading through the Green Party platform for the last 40 min. I can say I'd have a very hard time labelling it "right-wing".
I have written to the NDP and asked them to forward me a copy of their platform, because their supposedly impressive environmental platform was desperately lacking on the website.
If I manage to get myself a copy of the NDP platform, I'd be happy to initiate a discussion on the comparative platforms.
I'd also be happy to receive copies of the Conservative and Liberal platforms.
Without disclosing too much personal information I can say that I worked for both the NDP for a number of years and then for the Green Party, before taking my current position which precludes me from being actively involved in partisan politics on a groud level at least.
Over the last two elections I have heard more an more grumbling about the Green Party moving to the right-wing, but have been completely unable to substantiate these claims.
A quick google search turned up plenty of Blogs and ad-hoc comments about the Federal Green's now being right of centre, but no real reliable sources that were willing to state anything of the sort.
In fact it still looks like the Green's are just begining to get on the radar of any media at all.
I have met Jim Harris, and I have to say that on a personable level he impresses me more than any of the other candidates... but that's not really a grand compliment.
Sure he was ex-conservative, but he's been with the GP for 17 years. I'm not sure how his alligence to "conservativism" should be judged considering the time span.
My main confusion comes from trying to evaluate the party platforms, I just did a quick scan of all the federal party sites.
On the front page of the Green Party site I can download their full platform in either PDF or Word.
The NDP, Liberal and Conservative site offered no easily recognizable downloads, all of them had a place for "the issues" which you can click on and read a quick blurb.
After reading through the Green Party platform for the last 40 min. I can say I'd have a very hard time labelling it "right-wing".
I have written to the NDP and asked them to forward me a copy of their platform, because their supposedly impressive environmental platform was desperately lacking on the website.
If I manage to get myself a copy of the NDP platform, I'd be happy to initiate a discussion on the comparative platforms.
I'd also be happy to receive copies of the Conservative and Liberal platforms.
Here's where my last Green Party member went:
http://www.tommanley.ca/
As long as you don't vote liberal I guess.
paulmartin said:Here's where my last Green Party member went:
http://www.tommanley.ca/
As long as you don't vote liberal I guess.
thats nuts. lol.
I think it's logical to assume that the green party like most new parties (and even like many old parties) does not have the resources to have a tight reign on all of it's former (and possibly current) candidates.
As such you always have to consider the candidate a bit seperately from the party (something that is very difficult to do under the current electoral system).
As such you always have to consider the candidate a bit seperately from the party (something that is very difficult to do under the current electoral system).
with envirormental policy the Green party and the Liberals are not too close to each other. Well at least in practice the Liberals don't have a good track record. Just goes to show you that, the canidate in that riding for the liberals is just a politcal opritunist. If you ask me.
Seems like it.
BTW, does anyone have any full-party platforms from any of the major parties?
I noticed Jim Harris got criticized a lot for his CTV interview where he said that the Green's were releasing their platform over the course of the election and subsequently didn't fully answer some questions.
However the Green Party Platform is on the website.
On CBC Sunday morning today the Conservative correspondant was asked what other tax cuts the Harper Conservatives intend to make (after she said there were more to come and "we are the party of tax cuts)... then she said that we would have to wait to find out and the platform would be released over the course of the election. Directly refusing to answer the question and telling the reporter that CBC cannot dictate when a party releases it's platform.
I know that parties do try to make major announcements throughout a campaign but I'm finding that most parties in this election are keeping their cards very close to their chests...
and I'm quite resentful as a voter of not being able to get a full platform from the major parties. It really makes me wonder what they are all trying to hide.
BTW, does anyone have any full-party platforms from any of the major parties?
I noticed Jim Harris got criticized a lot for his CTV interview where he said that the Green's were releasing their platform over the course of the election and subsequently didn't fully answer some questions.
However the Green Party Platform is on the website.
On CBC Sunday morning today the Conservative correspondant was asked what other tax cuts the Harper Conservatives intend to make (after she said there were more to come and "we are the party of tax cuts)... then she said that we would have to wait to find out and the platform would be released over the course of the election. Directly refusing to answer the question and telling the reporter that CBC cannot dictate when a party releases it's platform.
I know that parties do try to make major announcements throughout a campaign but I'm finding that most parties in this election are keeping their cards very close to their chests...
and I'm quite resentful as a voter of not being able to get a full platform from the major parties. It really makes me wonder what they are all trying to hide.
Apart of the overly long campaign is that the parties don't want to tell too much at one time. They appear to release them every 3-5 days as a big announcement trying to catch the attention of the voters.
The thing is that while Canada is a Center-Left country, there's only so many left-leaning voters to go around.
As a left-leaning party, the Greens have to compete with both the Liberals, and the NDP, for votes. As a left-leaning party, the most the Greens can hope for is scrounging up proverbial crumbs of support that decide not to vote Liberal or NDP.
The old Tories, particularly under Joe Clark in the 90s, were an unique party. They were fairly centrist, and I remember reading that even David Suzuki considered running for them. The old Tories had strong support from small business farmers due to how their policies were seen as friendly to such farmers (they made a point to target such voters). The same policies that made them friendly to such farmers made them, by default, very environmentally friendly policies due to how small family farms are themselves very environmentally friendly. This is why you even had people like David Orchard - called a "Green Tory" - supporting the PCs, and even running for leadership of the party.
The old family farms vs. megacorporation farms issue served to unite the old Progressive Conservatives with many environmentalists. I think that Harris is trying to take the place of the old PCs (who did, after all, at least win some seats) by moving his party to the right.
Personally, I think that it won't work, but then the alternative wasn't very appealing for the Greens' either.
As a left-leaning party, the Greens have to compete with both the Liberals, and the NDP, for votes. As a left-leaning party, the most the Greens can hope for is scrounging up proverbial crumbs of support that decide not to vote Liberal or NDP.
The old Tories, particularly under Joe Clark in the 90s, were an unique party. They were fairly centrist, and I remember reading that even David Suzuki considered running for them. The old Tories had strong support from small business farmers due to how their policies were seen as friendly to such farmers (they made a point to target such voters). The same policies that made them friendly to such farmers made them, by default, very environmentally friendly policies due to how small family farms are themselves very environmentally friendly. This is why you even had people like David Orchard - called a "Green Tory" - supporting the PCs, and even running for leadership of the party.
The old family farms vs. megacorporation farms issue served to unite the old Progressive Conservatives with many environmentalists. I think that Harris is trying to take the place of the old PCs (who did, after all, at least win some seats) by moving his party to the right.
Personally, I think that it won't work, but then the alternative wasn't very appealing for the Greens' either.
I think it is undeniable that there is some "green-Tory" influcence in the current Greens. And, this is logical considering that if we look at the history of the party it was probably initially founded when everyone assumed that enviornmentalism was a "left" issue, then in the early 1990's (which would coincide with Jim Harris's arrival) there was the red-green split between labour and environmentalism.
This red-green split may (and this is pure speculation) account for the green party loosing members back to the NDP, and for the NDP adopting a more green policy platform.
I don't think the Green's can adequately be labelled "right-wing" after reading through their platform, and I still need to see the NDP platform before I can decide if they are levelling a "greener" platform.... but I don't think the Green's are as left wing on many social issues as the NDP.
That being said I think they have a great long-term out look and I love the fact that they have put so many quantifiable measures into their platform.
At this point I may vote for them simply because they have made their platform accessible.
This red-green split may (and this is pure speculation) account for the green party loosing members back to the NDP, and for the NDP adopting a more green policy platform.
I don't think the Green's can adequately be labelled "right-wing" after reading through their platform, and I still need to see the NDP platform before I can decide if they are levelling a "greener" platform.... but I don't think the Green's are as left wing on many social issues as the NDP.
That being said I think they have a great long-term out look and I love the fact that they have put so many quantifiable measures into their platform.
At this point I may vote for them simply because they have made their platform accessible.
Green ??? The power of a nation
Hi there,
While I voted Green in the last election I have to say that it was for a somewhat week reason. To give them an extra vote in term of: "Hey there, Canadians want green policies..." Considering the views my current government have on issues I consider vital. GREEN, purely GREEN... I need to say that my voice wasn't heard... Far from there...
I need to say that the system is weak at it's core basis... BQ, NDP, LIBERALS, GREEN... Everyone is yelling at the government while it doesn't care...
I will unfortunately have to revise my options... Let me tell ya, that as a Quebecers, there not alot of them left...
Vote for... annyways, does it really make a difference you think ?
Muff
Hi there,
While I voted Green in the last election I have to say that it was for a somewhat week reason. To give them an extra vote in term of: "Hey there, Canadians want green policies..." Considering the views my current government have on issues I consider vital. GREEN, purely GREEN... I need to say that my voice wasn't heard... Far from there...
I need to say that the system is weak at it's core basis... BQ, NDP, LIBERALS, GREEN... Everyone is yelling at the government while it doesn't care...
I will unfortunately have to revise my options... Let me tell ya, that as a Quebecers, there not alot of them left...
Vote for... annyways, does it really make a difference you think ?
Muff
I'll vote Green next election. I don't like the Libs and Harper has proved to be a liar (income trusts). The most important issue to me is the environment and 'rest of the platform' of the Greens is irrelevent as they have zilch chance of winning more than one seat (even one is unlikely). If the Greens can run over 5% in the polls then it forces the other parties to pick up the environmental banner. The other parties, outside of the BQ, have no principles, stand for nothing down deep, and will bend in the wind to suck up support.
I've voted green twice now. A lot of my friends tell me I'm throwing a vote away, which I tell them is rubbish. Unfortunately, many people don't really know much about the platform. I've met people who say "they want to legalize pot, don't they?" and this is the first thing out of their mouth about the party. It would be nice if the Leader could attend the debates.If the House of commons were reformed, and vote percentages translated to seats, the greens would have seats. Thats not going to happen anyways, but it would be nice if they could get one. Every time I watch anything with politicians on the tube, I can pick out times where they contradict themselves, I feel like screaming at the tube in the hopes some of the other MP's might hear. Anyways, heres to hoping, and hoping that maybe the greens can get some candidates with real charisma.
The Greens would have done better last election in Alberta if Harris hadn't opened his mouth. Most of the platform outside of a few environmental principles is thrown together by a bunch of amateurs. Nobody cares about the Green position on pot or same sex marriage or Afghanistan. The strategy should not be to compete with the NDP over 18% of the population on the left. That's a recipe for failure. The NDP is a distant 4th place party in Parliament and hasn't even formed the official opposition after 17 Federal elections.
The issues should be the Environment, the Environment and the Environment. When Greens preach grandiose plans of global this or that or the cure for poverty, etc., 82% of folks role their eyes and stop listening. Endangered species don't care about same sex marriage and carbon emissions will not increase or decrease because of government daycare policy. Nature is not on the left or the right.
The issues should be the Environment, the Environment and the Environment. When Greens preach grandiose plans of global this or that or the cure for poverty, etc., 82% of folks role their eyes and stop listening. Endangered species don't care about same sex marriage and carbon emissions will not increase or decrease because of government daycare policy. Nature is not on the left or the right.
Though the NDP have not formed a federal government or oppistion and have been in forth place, they come in Third place with the amount of votes and is the only real alternative to voting Liberal or Conservative. The Green Party is a waste of time until there is some real electoral reform. Once we get some reform they may actually get a seat or two.