There are two forces in particular that affect all political organisation, including the Green Party of Canada. One force requires that our “command structure” become more hierarchical and so less flat, more authoritarian and so less egalitarian, or in other words, more top-down and less bottom-up. The other force requires that we become more overtly partisan, in order to define ourselves more clearly with better focus, and to defend ourselves against confusion with and attacks from other partisan organisations.

Note that the media insists that we attend to both of these forces.

Also note that much of our support has come from people who favour more of a grass-roots movement that is less partisan, not so top-down.

There are many roads from grass-roots awareness to political achievement, but all require that we remain intellectually broad-minded on the one hand and adopt a narrow authoritarian focus on the other.

The more we become like other parties, something the NDP has done over the last two decades, the less we are likely to survive as a national party, yet we may have to survive as a political party for another decade or longer.

However, Canada’s “first past the post” electoral process creates a political climate that favours two parties, not more unless they are regional.

I hope that I may raise our awareness of these forces and this dilemma without also having to conclude as to how we should proceed in order both to survive politically in Canada and to have a positive effect on Canadian environmental policy.

However, in the absence of a better electoral process, we may have to choose between being an effective political organisation and an effective force for good.

I wish our movement great success because we have such a good intellectual command of so many critical issues.