David Chernushenko, the anti-Clive

I’ve volunteered with David in the past, and I’ve been impressed by what I’ve seen. He’s good at building consensus and working with others, and exudes competence. Over the past few years, David has extricated himself from the federal Green Party, been appointed to the National Round Table on the Environment, and produced two documentaries. He gets stuff done. And non-Glebe residents of Capital Ward (yes, we do exist) will be pleased to know he’s from Old Ottawa South.

The current councillor, Clive Doucet, is running for mayor. Even though I agree with some of his ideas, he’s the wrong candidate for the job. He was right to argue that we should consider multiple routes for the O-train, and he was right that OSEG should have had to compete against other bidders for redeveloping Lansdowne. But both of those pushes were hampered by Doucet’s inability to build a coalition around his ideas, and apparent problem with deadlines. As a councilor, he’s been a poor representative of the Ward: he consistently doesn’t show up to his public meetings at the Wild Oat (according to his column in the Glebe Report), and his previous election pamphlets have taken credit for work done by community organizations.

I hope that Doucet’s exit from Council will make it possible for David to win. But I worry that Doucet will split the anyone-but-O’Brien vote.

David Chernushenko. The best MP Ottawa-Centre never had.

I’m glad to see that David is getting back into politics. Longtime PiePalace readers will remember that I volunteered with his various election campaigns when he was running for the Green Party in Ottawa-Centre. He reeks of credibility and honesty. He’s one of the few people I’ve met who should be in politics.

Having said that, I don’t want to see parties pushing into City Hall. Party politics acts to homogenize elected representatives. Party members must vote according to the party line, and private members’ bills rarely pass. At best, politicians must work within their parties to push ideas forward. At worst, parties are petty fiefdoms that only represent the views and priorities of a small elite.

I wish David the best of luck. He would be a welcome addition to City Council.

So, by now, the Green Party should have announced who its new leader is. Since I’m writing this two days before the ballot count, I have absolutely no idea who has won [Editor's note: Elizabeth May won]. But that won’t stop me from offering an opinion.

Any regular readers of this blog will know that I’m rooting for David. If he has won, I would say something like:

I’m very, very happy that the Green Party membership has chosen David Chernushenko to be our new leader. He has done great work for the party in the past, and has done a lot to attract new members to the party. Much of our support in Ottawa-Centre is due to his work as candidate. This win shows that the Green Party is about more than “just” the environment, and our membership wants to broaden our base of support. With David at the head, I think we’re getting closer to winning seats.

Elizabeth May and Jim Fannon have both done a great job as candidates. I hope they continue their commitment to the party, and that Elizabeth is offered (and accepts) a Deputy Leadership position. I believe she holds great promise

Of course, I can’t predict the future, so who knows, maybe Elizabeth will win. If she does, I would say something like:

Congratulations to Elizabeth on her victory. She has shown a strong commitment to the environmental movement in the past, and has been involved in various social justice agencies. I am sure that she will be able to translate her success in those venues into a broader success, attracting the support of Canadians who don’t think of themselves as environmentalists. I hope that her network of supporters in the Sierra Club decide to get involved in the Green Party, and are able to open their vision to sustainability in all aspects of society.

David ran an excellent campaign. He was an underdog as soon as Elizabeth decided that she would enter; but his vision has value. I don’t think that a vote for Elizabeth equalled a vote against a Green Party with broader policies, that is able to attract a majority of Canadians to our fold. I hope that David stays in the public eye, and is offered a Deputy Leadership position

I do think that Elizabeth can make a good leader. I think that she sees that we need to move beyond “I’m right, and we have to do what’s right” justifications for our policy into a more open, yet still principled mindset.

I haven’t given Jim Fannon a lot of attention during this race, because I’m biased against his unilingualism. But I only have one vote, so it’s quite possible that he could have won. In which case, my response will be:

Congratulations to Jim Fannon on his victory. He speaks very well, and is entertaining in his delivery. With the appropriate language training, I’m sure he will be able to show that the Green Party has strong ideas.

Regardless of who our new leader is, I think the Green Party will come out ahead. Jim Harris, the Party leader between 2000 and 2006, did a good job at building the party. Now that we have the support that we need, it’s time for a new. One who can attract new votes; show that we’re a party with a broad vision; and let Canadians know that sustainability doesn’t have to hurt.

There are three candidate for leader: David Chernushenko, Elizabeth May, and Jim Fannon. Both David and Elizabeth are extremely strong candidates, while, in my mind, Jim is hamstrung by his unilingualism.

I will be voting for David for a number of reasons:

• He attracts a broad variety of people to the party. I ran a focus group during the Ottawa Centre debate, and all four of my attendees said the would vote for him. During the past few federal elections, I’ve volunteered with him during the campaigns. At the all candidates debates I’ve been consistently impressed with the number of people who say “if he wasn’t running for the Greens, I would vote for him.” When I went to the Ottawa-Centre AGM, almost everyone who stood up to speak started by saying “I’m here because of David” – these are people who would have otherwise written us off as a fringe party filled with fundamentalists. He can talk to people outside of our core demographic. I haven’t seen any other Green who can attract non-environmentalists in that way.
  
• He is capable of compromise. When I worked with David during the federal elections, problems would periodically come up, either with volunteers or the other candidates. David was able to find solutions to each problem that were acceptable to everyone involved, kept with the Party’s principles, and left everyone involved happy.
  
• I agree with his vision for the Party. In my experience, the Green Party can be somewhat disorganized. Many of our core volunteers are political neophytes, and are new to the world of volunteerism. David’s emphasis on making the party more professional speaks to that. When I spoke with David after the last election, we chatted briefly about what we would need to win the next election. We agreed that the Party needs to provide a better volunteer experience and more opportunities for members to get involved. His vision for a strong party is built on strong EDAs that get people involved at a local level. In my books, that’s where we need to be.
  
• He acts like a statesman. I want to vote for someone who treats their opponents with dignity, and is able to disagree with an idea without taking shots at the idea’s proponents. David lives up to that.

Since the ballot is preferential, my second choice will be Elizabeth. Considering how she has been hyped, I went into the Ottawa Centre debate expecting to be inspired by her oratory ability and fresh ideas. She spoke well, but no better than David or Jim. The ideas that she espoused (improving diversity within the Party through anti-oppression training; bringing religion into state functions; limiting Canada’s military role in Afghanistan to taking weapons from warlords) were neither interesting nor inspiring.

My ideal Green Party line-up would see David as leader, Elizabeth as a deputy leader, and Jim Fannon enrolled in french lessons.

1. The party accepts ballots received in the mail until August 24, so you still have time, if you haven’t already sent yours in.

Date: Saturday, June 24th
Location: 252 Bloor Street West OISE Auditorium
Time: 7:00pm
Event: Green Party of Canada Leadership Debate

This debate is open to the public and media.

Please send your questions promptly, by e-mail only please, to Cam Miller at miller dot cameron at rogers dot com. He will pass them on to Gord Miller, who will make the final selection of the questions he will ask.

1. He consistently wins converts to the Party, both inside and outside of our traditional demographic,
   
2. He understands Green principles, and
   
3. He talks the way a politician should.

David wins converts to the Green Party. I’ve seen David during debates with other wannabe-MPs in Ottawa-Centre. At the end of the debate, it’s always the same story: everyone leaving the room is impressed with him. Their political stripe doesn’t matter. The audience sees a guy presenting reasonable ideas in a way that they can agree with. I’ve heard people talking outside, saying that if he wasn’t running for a fringe party, they’d vote for him.

You can see his converts at the ballot box. In 2000, before David was a candidate here in Ottawa-Centre, the Green Party got 1,500 votes in the riding. In 2004, the first year he ran, David got 4,700 votes. Then, this year, when the party stalled at the polls, David managed to squeeze an extra two thousand votes out of the riding. Locally, David has been gold for the party. He hasn’t been riding on the Party’s fortunes, he’s been making the Party’s fortune.

As far as I can tell, David is attracting people aren’t the usual Green demographic. These people are mainstream Canadians. These are the people we need to attract if this party is going to grow.

David understands what it means to be Green. Being Green isn’t about being an environmentalist, or buying the right brand of fair-trade coffee, or supporting the right NGOs; it’s about seeing the big picture. David understands that the problems we’re facing are systemic: our medical system encourages costs to rise without improving patient care, our laws encourage companies to pollute and screw over the customer, and our political system discourages long-term solutions. Simply put, being Green is no longer about caring for the environment, it’s about sustainability.

When I’ve seen David speak, he’s shown that he understands that we need to start changing the incentives, to build a society that works better. Disincentives work, as do regulation, but to build a society that will last, that won’t have corporations whittling away our past achievements, we have to make people want to do the right thing. David gets that.

David talks the way a politician should. Every time I’ve seen David in a debate, and in the few occasions where I’ve seen David at the door, I’ve been impressed with how he acts. He tells his listeners what he believes in, and why he believes it. He describes solutions, and tells his audience why he thinks they work. He comes across as honest, as someone with integrity.

That integrity is worth a lot. When David was running against Ed Broadbent, the Ottawa Citizen endorsed David, citing his integrity and his vision. He’s caught local media attention on the usually conservative talk radio stations, as well catching the attention of the CBC.

I’ve spoken with friends and relatives in other parts of the country who heard David speak as deputy leader during the last election. They said that if David was the leader of the Green Party, they would vote for him. Some of these people are Greens. Some of them aren’t. But David’s caught their attention.

I guess I want our next leader to be someone who will attract votes outside of our usual environmentalist demographic. I want someone that Canadians will listen to. I want someone that Canadians can picture as their prime minister. David is all of those things.

Which is precisely why I disagree with Elizabeth May’s brother when he says

I find it odd that telling the truth is “Bush bashing”. Is criticism of Hitler, “Hitler bashing”? … The sooner we speak the truth the better. Funny it turns some off.

The “truth” that Mr. May is talking about is Elizabeth May’s allegation that Governer Jeb Bush threw the 2000 US presidential election in Dubya’s favour (which is plausible, but that’s neither here nor there). But truth doesn’t matter here. What matters is perception.

Dissing Bush does a bunch of things:

• it alienates people who think that a potential Prime Minister should have a certain level of decorum,
  
• it makes the disser look like the standard mud-slinging politician,
  
• it clouds the broader issue.

A potential leader for the Green Party shouldn’t fall into any of those traps. The original complaint of Bush bashing came from Darrell, who is pretty much the target vote for the Green Party: he’s a mainstream guy who is concerned enough about the environment that he recycles, and minimizes his energy consumption, but is also concerned about other issues like health care, the economy, and all of the stuff that the Green Party doesn’t usually play to. He’s interested enough in the Green Party to follow them during elections, and look into the platform. He is exactly the kind of voter the Green Party should not be alienating with off-the-cuff remarks.¹

The Green Party tries to make a big deal about how we’re somehow different. That we don’t treat politics in the same partisan manner as other parties. David Chernushenko is a great example of that: he doesn’t sneer, instead he makes his point in the positive, saying “We need X, Y, and Z”; not “Those nasty Foobars! They’re stopping X, Y, and Z.” That won him a lot of support during the last election. During every All Candidates Debate, he won over lots of voters precisely by taking the high road.

Looking at it more pragmatically, think about what would happen if the leader of the Green Party said “Due to the terrible energy policies of the past, and the current Conservative government, we aren’t going to get the childcare deal we need, which is stronger legislation to ensure that working parents have more flexible work hours and on the job day cares”. In our era of soundbites, that solution would be dropped, in favour of “Due to the Conservative government, we aren’t going to get the childcare we need”. Which misses the point entirely.

The Green Party can’t afford to alienate any portion of the population, especially not folks like Darrell. I’ve never seen Elizabeth May speak, nor have I read any of her writing other than her blog, so I don’t know if this is her normal state. I hope that she is only this frank when speaking candidly, and that she puts on a more pragmatic face when she’s in public.

1. I have absolutely no problem if we alienate people with good policy, I do have a problem if we alienate people just because we don’t take the time to know our audience.