Looking for the limelight

>> The Green Party of Canada hopes to raise its public profile

by RINA CALABRESE

The Marijuana Party won't be the only political fringe entity that aims to grab a little publicity by placing a candidate against Stockwell Day. When the Canadian Alliance leader runs for a House of Commons seat in a by-election--expected in September--in the B.C. riding of Okanagan-Coquihalla, Green Party of Canada president Joan Russow will run against him.

"He stands for everything I despise," says Russow, from Vancouver. "I fear that if he becomes Prime Minister, Canada would become an international pariah in the area of human rights, peace, the environment and social justice."

Making radical criticisms of the powers that be--or want to be--from a position of obscurity is a natural vocation for Green Party members. While the party received 50,000 votes in the last federal election and currently boasts 4,000 members, it has an operating budget of only $75,000. But this hasn't stopped them from developing a platform. As Green leader since 1997, Russow has been promoting what she calls "the politics of public trust" in opposition to "the politics of economic growth at any cost."

Russow says that in the next federal election the party will campaign on a platform based on health and environmental issues, as well as calling for the banning of genetically engineered food and crops. The Green Party advocates "environmental and social justice," is a zealous advocate of human rights, wants a 50 per cent reduction in military spending and the creation of "socially equitable and environmentally sound jobs" including fair and just transition programs.

And while this platform won't catapult Russow to national significance anytime soon, she's a shoo-in to be re-elected as Green Party leader this weekend at the party's national convention in Ottawa, being held from August 3-7. The event should attract between 50 and 100 delegates, including some from Green party organizations in other countries. Most of the participants will be members from the provincial Green parties of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. Quebec's delegation will include Jean-Claude Balu, whom the national party has charged with the mandate to rebuild the provincial Green Party of Quebec (PVQ).

Out of proportion

In 1998, the PVQ proclaimed its own death by announcing it would not present any candidates in that year's provincial election. The party had been fractured by infighting between anarchist members and traditional Green members. In November of that year, the anarchist faction issued a press release to the media that stated: "Death to the Green Party of Quebec and to all other parties! Long live anarchy and social revolution!"

Bernard Cooper, who was treasurer of the party at the time, still defends the party's autodestruction, claiming some party members were constrained by a strict definition of what it means to be Green. "Must it be about recycling and planting trees or urban cycling issues or traffic issues or can it be a broader vision of social change?" says Cooper, an anarchist who thinks the Green Party doesn't "have a chance in hell of ever getting anyone elected."

Balu, who plans to run as a candidate in the Mont-Royal riding in the upcoming federal election, says he doesn't expect to win, but explained the party's objective is to obtain at least 15 per cent of the vote in order to be able to influence the governing party, as the Greens have succeeded in doing in Europe.

European Green parties now sit in coalition governments in Finland, Belgium, France, Italy and Germany. The Greens have been instrumental in Germany's decision to phase out nuclear power and in convincing France to establish a 35-hour work week.

But while Canadian Greens are buoyed by a good recent performance by Mexican Greens and the high-profile presidential candidacy of Ralph Nader in the U.S., Balu admits the party has no chance of having members elected to Parliament as long as Canada lacks a system of "proportional representation." Proportional representation--the Holy Grail of fringe parties--means a party which gets enough votes nationally will be given some seats in government, as opposed to Canada's "first past the post" system where only the candidate with the most votes get a seat. Russow is currently working on a challenge to Canada's electoral laws under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. :

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