Archive for Participatory democracy

We had one of the largest delegations to the Green Party of Canada convention in Ottawa. Ten of our members registered to go, though one was unable to make it, and two spouses tagged along. I’ve made all delegates who are not members of our executive guest authors for the next month, so they can contribute their thoughts on the convention.

The delegates from our executive were me, Doug Wright, and Joseph Cunko. Non-executive delegates were Mary Ann Grainger, Anthony Lucic, Chris Lea, Jim Harris and Lee Anne McAlear.     Read more »

I will now remember the summer and fall of 2006 as book-ends around an indescribable weekend in Ottawa, August 24th to 27th. As a newbie to political conventions, I was happy to find so much diversity, yet, so much cohesion in our green family. How could we possibly be a one issue party? How can Canadians ignore the breadth of ideas and solutions within this party? How do we change the perception of Canadians? We are talking about concrete policy, but we are also talking about changing people’s attitudes and about the party, the environment and their place in all of it (how else will they vote Green?). No small task.

All of this fermented in my mind with the election of Elizabeth May as leader of the party. She is in a unique postion to change the perception of our party at a national level which is critical to getting MPs in Parliament. Something tells me she’s up to the job.

What about you and me? When I arrived in Ottawa on Thursday I was unsure. I had doubts about the party itself; about its level of organization — its sophistication of policy. I even had concerns about my perception to family, friends and co-workers — how do you explain a “green epiphany” to them? How do you convince them that you haven’t joined a small-time, go-nowhere movement?

The inclusiveness of debate at the convention and the pervasive feeling that I was constantly participating in something solidified an answer for me:

Being Green means Acting Green — be it a protest, a petition, a simple discussion, a sign or a vote. I think the cycle may work like this: Acting Green = Changing Peoples Perception and Attitudes = Building Concrete Support = Acting Green, and so on.

Acting Green means participating in change, not watching it, waiting for it, or even debating it. Find your niche (I wrote this over my lunch break — 45 min. of political action) and start acting. We need to destroy the false perceptions that have been applied to this movement. Others will notice. They’ll see results. Eventually they will follow and we’ll have Green MPs and Green Policy in this country.

One thing I was disappointed with at the Green Party Convention was that my proposal to encourage a diverse slate of candidates didn’t pass.  All my own prospects for candidate in this riding are men, all but one are white.  Now if you know me at all, you’ll realize that I’m really quite fond of white men, and men in general, but it is nonetheless embarassing, during an election, to have to answer multiple questions about the diversity of the Green slate, with nothing positive to offer.

One day soon, I’m going to let you in on my personal thoughts about potential candidates, but I want everyone to have a voice first.  I would love to find the perfect candidate who will not only be a credit to the local Green Party, but will also help diversify our slate.  Tell me if you know that candidate.  Actually, if you know anyone out there who would make a great candidate, please get in touch with me.  And don’t forget to consider yourself.  I’d love to be in a position where we actually had a choice!

We are in the middle of a byelection in Parkdale-High Park, where Green Party of Ontario leader Frank de Jong is running.  He has agreed to make the Portlands power plant an issue in his election, and I’ve offered to help on his campaign.  I’ll probably be distributing flyers for him next weekend.  If we could get a crew from Toronto-Danforth, it would spread a lot of goodwill.

Jim Harris has asked me to mention the campaign for clean energy in Ontario.  Greenpeace, Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund and Toronto Environmental Alliance have joined together to make clean energy an election issue.  They are concerned that the Province is promoting nuclear power, and failing to close the coal-fired power plants, and they are using the byelection in Parkdale-High Park to make it an issue.  Go to their site at www.cleanenergy4ontario.ca to read more and to sign on to the campaign.

If you want to get more deeply involved in the energy campaign, they are meeting at 7 pm Thursdays in August and September for strategy sessions at the Tinto Coffee House at 89 Roncesvalles Ave, 2 1/2 blocks north of Queen St W.  Call Sarah at 416-537-3966.

To get involved in Frank de Jong’s campaign, contact him directly at fdejong@greenparty.on.ca.

The big message of this convention was to build up a grassroots community, to engage our supporters and to give them a voice.   That’s what inspired me to start this blog.  Our entire executive are authors and can all contribute.  We invite your opinions.  You can add comments to any blog entry by clicking on the word “Comments” that appears below each post.

If you have an existing blog you want us to link to, we’d love to do that.  Right now we’re linking to Chris Tindal (the former Green Party candidate for Toronto Centre, who has a very good blog) and Elizabeth May, as well as to Green Bloggers.  If you don’t have a blog and want to start one, we suggest you do it through Green Bloggers, but any blog connections are welcome.

If you want to open up a topic for discussion that isn’t on this blog, please contact me at adriana@danforthgreens.ca and I will try to open up that discussion for you.  Any ideas on how to improve this blog or the main www.danforthgreens.ca site are also very welcome.