I need to take a minute and respond to Stuart Hertzog's "The Failure of Green Electoralism" article that the Green political movement in Canada has already peaked and is doomed to "complete electoral failure". I disagree on so many levels - and I'm compelled to inject a little optimism into everyone's blog reading this morning.
In terms of electoral "success"...
On the one hand Stuart is correct - no Green Party candidate has won an election race - yet. That doesn't mean we will never succeed. I believe we are going to win a seat eventually and that our first historic win will be followed by a subsequent surge of success. I won't speculate if the first win will be Elizabeth May's in SGI, or in Bruce-Grey-Owen-Sound, or in Guelph, or even when it will happen, because my support of the Green Party is not contingent on short term electoral success. I've got about 45 years left according to Stats-Canada, my daughter has 77, and my youngest nephew has 80. I'm here for the long haul and absolutely nobody can tell me how many Greens will be in Ottawa, Victoria, or Queen's Park in 2020, 2030 or 2050.
Politics is about tomorrow and I choose to believe we'll succeed. That makes me an optimist - which is exactly what we need to be to convince Canadians to vote Green.
In terms of indirect success....
Just shy of a million Canadians voted for a Green Party of Canada candidate in 2008 - almost 300,000 more than in 2006. Tell me how that can't be considered a success? I think Stuart downplays the impact we are having when he writes that "apart from pushing the mainstream political parties to slightly ‘green’ their political images, the collective Green political effort has resulted in almost complete electoral failure." I choose to look at it this way: the other political parties are being forced to "green" their political images! Would they be doing that if we were not on the scene? I doubt it.
Stuart needs to be reminded that we are not going to form a Government right off the bat. The first thing we're going to do is elect members to a legislature. What will that enable us to do? It will enable us to push the mainstream parties to slightly 'green' their political legislation. That's how our system works. Right now we're making all impact we can as a political party without elected members.
Next steps...
The issue we need to work on is convincing Canadians to vote for Green Party candidates because we are the only party who is going to consistently back up our "green" image with actual Green policies. The mainstream parties will pander to green voters (you can bet the NDP and Liberals want a share of our 930k voter), but if they don't follow through with sustainable legislation as our environment and economies continue to deteriorate it's my bet that Canadians will continue to turn to us as the answer.
On a personal level convincing voters is incredibly easy to do: talk about the Green Party to your friends, neighbours and coworkers. Tell them you vote Green. If you volunteer somehow talk about that too - it's the most compelling argument you can make. It tells people you are so convinced the Green Party is the right choice that you're willing to give it your most valuable possession: your time.
Job Search Metaphor...
At the age of 19 I learned a great lesson about perseverance and that lesson is this: never give up.
After my first-year of University I was looking for a summer job. After sending out resumes to every employer in the high-tech database I ended up with almost nothing: just one telephone interview. Even that interview was a formality since the job posting was going to be filled by an internal candidate anyway, but for appearances sake they needed to interview someone, and they picked me. Maybe that means I was the best choice from the pile of people who would never be chosen? Who knows.
I resigned myself to the realization I would be back at my high-school retail job for the summer, packed my room and got ready to head home.
Just before leaving my sister called and gave me the address of a few companies she found in the phone book. I had three resumes left but almost didn't bother sending them. It might even have come down to being more work to pack them in a box than to mail them. Into the mailbox they went and I headed home.
Less than a week later I was in a high-tech company's office for an interview and was hired shortly after. I had caught a lucky break – the secretary who opened my resume turned out to be from my parent's neighbourhood and she recognized the last name and street. That was just enough to get my resume passed to the hiring manager. In the end I got the job for myself because I had the skills they needed but that lucky break was critical.
Where would I be now if my sister hadn't called until after I finished packing? Or if that secretary had been late for work and someone else did the mail? Or if I hadn't bothered sending that last resume? I'll tell you – it didn't feel like it was worth the bother at the time.
That's where we are in the Green Party today. We have to keep working hard because nobody can ever predict where a lucky break will come from. But I am certain that if we don't keep up the pressure, if we don't try to convince voters everyday that we have solutions, that lucky break will pass us by.
That would be a shame.
