An Afterword to the Green Party

As stated in my earlier blog, I resigned as President of the Green Party of Manitoba in 2002. I had become disenchanted with electoral politics and felt that I no longer belonged. In hindsight, I think it was a combination of me changing and the Party changing. I still believed in the Greens so I kept my membership and waited from the sidelines to recharge. I had found that communicating my ideas to others had become exhausting because the mental disease of political correctness was infecting the party.

My resignation as President was just a foreshadowing to the mass resignation of competent party executive members that would take place in 2005. While my resignation in 2002 was for personal disenchantment with the political correctness creeping into the party, the 2005 resignation was due to the infestation of malignant society elements.

These elements were allowed to take root in the party because of our Green Party values and practices. The Green Party constitution that was endorsed during the founding convention of November 1998 was written to encompass the core values of the global Green movement such practicing consensus-based decision making. Later, we adopted a well-crafted policy on conflict resolution. These were all remarkable documents that captured the spirit of camaraderie and a non-confrontational approach not seen in conventional political parties.

We tried to be a political party that was different… and we were for a while. But being a small party with an alternative agenda, we attracted people who did not fit in the other political parties. Some of these people also did not fit well in mainstream society.

We attracted eco-activists, slackers, anti-society rebels, and ideologues who believed that humanity was a cancer that needed to be irradiated. Like a moth to light, we attracted people who wanted to remake society but in a method that was so radical and ideological that they pushed out the moderates. Unfortunately, we had no grill or glass to protect ourselves. Our naive policies of conflict resolution and consensus building allowed this malignant element to disrupt the party and eventually run it.

These people were not thinkers, but reactionaries. These were not people who possessed emotional intelligence, but used Machiavellian methods to get their way. These were not working, competent people who were engaged in society and who could relate to where larger society was going wrong, but were activists who thrived on conflict, posturing, and strident victimization.

I had my share of idealistic views, believing that it would be possible to create a kinder, more ecologically sane society through the Green Party. But I never shared the perverted interpretation of Green philosophy that I witnessed taking place.

It was in 2005 that almost all of the entire executive of the Green Party of Manitoba resigned citing an ‘unruly and ungovernable ‘ group of members who had paralyzed the party. What I had witnessed made me resign my lifetime membership. I also resigned from the Green Party of Canada at the same time. I had witnessed the same elements being battled in the federal party and despite the success of realists like Jim Harris, I had little faith it would last. As you will see in my Resignation Letter I directly accused both the federal and provincial parties of abandoning sensible party members in favor of the ideologues.

In Manitoba, this was particularly devastating for electoral advanced. We can see this by comparing the recent electoral results of the provincial Green Parties across Canada:

Ontario
In 2003 the party ran 102 of 103 candidates capturing 2.82% of the vote.
In 2007 the party ran 107 of 107 candidates capturing 8.03% of the vote.

Saskatchewan
In 2003 the party ran 27 out of 58 candidates capturing 0.55% of the vote.
In 2007 the party ran 48 out of 58 candidates capturing 2.01% of the vote.

Nova Scotia
In 2003 the party was not formed and did not run candidates in the election.
In 2006 the party ran 52 out of 52 candidate capturing 2.3% of the vote.

PEI
In 2003 the party was not formed and did not run candidates in the election.
In 2007 the party ran 18 out of 27 candidates capturing 3.04% of the vote.

Quebec
In 2003 the party ran 23 out of 125 candidates capturing 0.44% of the vote.
In 2007 the party ran 108 out of 125 candidates capturing 3.85% of the vote.

Manitoba
In 2003 the party ran 14 out of 57 candidates capturing 0.96% of the vote.
In 2007 the party ran 15 out of 57 candidates capturing 1.33% of the vote.

Between 2003 and 2007 the Greens in Manitoba ran only one more candidate and increased the vote % by a pittance. All of the listed Green Parties had increased in vote by large percentages and had at almost doubled or maxed the number of candidates ran. All political parties suffer from factionalism and infighting, but in Manitoba the group who won out were not remotely capable of leading the party.

So where does this leave the Greens in Manitoba? For me, the Greens in Manitoba are a political joke. While I believe that their ecological message is important, they have become irrelevant because of the socialist and activist elements that have infected the party. The current Greens are too busy dropping out of society and acting as activists to run as a political party as demonstrated by the those election results.

In future blogs, I will discuss the importance of Leadership, why the Green Party should not be a Leftist Party, and why the party needs to appeal to the Middle Class.

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