Pie Palace

Word on the street is that the Green Party will be announcing its leadership race some time in the next week. The current party leader, Jim Harris, did a great job at taking the party from the political wilderness, and turning it into something resembling a main-stream political party. Jim’s vision was a Green Party able to stand on its own two feet, and operate as a successful, self-sustaining organization. He made that vision reality.

Now it’s time to elect someone who has a vision for Canada. Someone who can represent our party on the national leadership debates, speak about our policy knowledgeably, and show Canadians that Greens are about a whole lot more than “just” the environment. I’ve worked long and hard with one great candidate for that role. But regardless of who wins, our party needs to do a few things in the new leader’s coming term.

1. Stop talking about the environment. Yep. That’s right. You heard me. Greens talking about the environment is old news. It’s like old people talking about bodily functions, or frat boys talking about sports: it’s expected, boring, and kind of clichéd. We need to make like the Conservatives (yech), pick four or five points, and hammer ‘em home. Preferably points that are hot in the media: healthcare, foreign policy, etc.
   
2. Provide a strong alternate vision for healthcare. Every developed country is suffering under the load of growing healthcare costs. We need to start looking into efficient mechanisms to reduce those costs, while improving delivery. I’m not talking privatization. Then we need to start exporting those techniques.
   
3. Start funding think tanks. Canadian Greens cite the Polaris Institute fairly often. It’s pretty Green, but they don’t officially associate with us, and we don’t officially associate with them. That’s fine. But we need more sources of research and ideas. The Green Party has to start funding and promoting think tanks that promote and explore our ideology. We need to make sure that those institutes are credible enough that they can make their way into the mainstream press. Our ideas are palatable to a vast majority of Canadians, we just need to show those Canadians that we deserve their votes at the polls.
   
4. Committees are a necessary (if unsexy) part of Party life. We need more standing committees. We need a standing Policy Convention Committee, to make sure that our policy conventions are planned more than six months in advance. We need a standing Policy Committee (with at least one fulltime employee) to promote policy work within the party, to hire and administer interns, and to co-ordinate policy development across the country. Just as important: we need to start working hard on getting proportional representation into the big list o’ issues that Canadians are thinking about; so I propose a Standing Committee to Promote Democratic Reform. We need a standing committee on outreach, and party development.
   
5. We need to start nailing the unholy alliance of the CBC and CTV to make sure that we get onto the next leadership debate. We need to be there. Now is the time to start bothering those unelected sots who decide what the electorate get to see. Not just through the usual means of court cases and petitions. A few thoughtful folks have talked about showing up at the CRTC hearings and complaining that the CBC isn’t doing its job (more for the media spectacle than to seriously have a license revoked).
   
6. We need to start talking to people who aren’t upper middle class, university educated, and white. Those people really like us, but we need to start talking to folks who don’t traditionally vote Green. Starting thinking lower incomes. Starting thinking about what we can do to engage those folks, and to get them involved. The idea isn’t to make everyone an environmentalist, it’s to reframe our everyday problems in terms of sustainability, and to explore long term solutions to the problems Green haven’t traditionally tackled: healthcare, integration of immigrants, public transit, property laws, and banking laws to name but a few.

And now some predictions: 6/10 chance that Elizibeth May will run for leader – she’s been itching to make her political debut for a few years, but if she wins, expect two years of nothing but the environment and a slip in the polls for the Greens. 7/10 chance that David Chernushenko will run – he has the natural charisma and integrity that a party leader needs, and the support of many long-term volunteers. 9/10 chance that a deep hippy will run, saying that we should get back to our roots and ignore this mainstream crap, should he win, you’ll never hear about the Greens again. 4/10 chance that Jim Harris will run: he’s seen that the party doesn’t need him, and that it’s time for him to retire to the roll he’s good at: fundraising.

Update: I added a mention of a democratic reform committee to the list of committees we need to see.