Green Party Successes in 2006

[FlamesAddiction]

First of all, I will apologize to anyone who is offended at this promotion of a political party. I'm not trying to push anything on anyone, but I think there are some things here that of importance just for general interest in Canadian politics.

I received this email today that highlights some of the ground the Green Party has made since the last election. There is also a strong case to be made for why they should be invited to debates.

I guess the big question I have is: Has the Green Party done enough to earn the right to play with the big dogs for the next election?




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We had the most successful election ever in the Green Party's history. We made significant gains in winning 665,940 votes – an increase of 14.4%.

• We won almost 100,000 more votes for the Green Party in this election than in 2004.
• Almost three times as many candidates won more than 10% of the vote – the magic threshold to receive
  reimbursement for 50% of campaign expenses. In 2004 only three candidates broke 10% -- in 2006 it was eight!
• In Quebec we won almost 147,000 votes – roughly the same number of votes that the NDP won in 2004.
• Our Albertan candidates won about as many votes as the party won in all of Canada in 2000.
• Sean Maw in Wild Rose, Alberta placed second – ahead of the Liberal and NDP candidates; and Shane Jolley in Bruce Grey Owen Sound and Danielle Roberts in Calgary West both finished third.
• More than 50,000 Canadians have signed the petition to ensure the Green Party is included in the televised leaders debates. The TV broadcasters were proud that 10,000 Canadians emailed questions to ask the leaders of the old-line parties – but five times as many Canadians wanted to see us included in the debates.
• During the 2004 election only one polling company prompted for the Green Party – today the most frequently cited polling companies in this election – Strategic Counsel used by the Globe and Mail, SES used by CPAC, EKOS used by the Toronto Star and Ipsos-Reid all now prompting for the Green Party.
• With a fair electoral system we'd have at least 12 seats in parliament today (see Fair Vote Canada site at www.fairvotecanada.org/fvc.php/ ).
• We have had a profound impact on Canadian politics already. On Saturday January 7, 2006 Prime Minster Martin announced a $1 billion water clean up. If you look at the exact same announcement two years ago it was a $25 million announcement. The announcement during the election was 40 times greater. Now I am deeply concerned about water quality in Canada – but even I don't think that water quality has deteriorated 40 fold in just two years – it may be marginally worse but not 40 times worse. Could there be anything else that would motivated Martin to commit to water clean up? Well 18 months ago the Green Party presented 308 candidates and won almost 600,000 votes and we just ran another 308 candidates and won 665,000 votes – so 616 candidates later and 1.25 million votes later the PM found new commitment to water quality. We are incredibly powerful and our dramatic rise is forcing every other party to adopt our issues.

The biggest disappointment, of course, was not being included in the televised leaders debate. Had we been included we would have we would have doubled our vote and elected Greens, in my opinion. Remember that:

• In 1993 the Bloc had never elected anyone under its' banner, was included and won 54 seats becoming the opposition.
• The Reform party won 275,767 votes in 1988, and then in 1993 won 52 seats. The difference? Mr. Manning was included in the televised leaders debate.
• Gordon Wilson, the leader of the Liberal Party in BC, had no seats but was included in the televised leaders debates in the 1991 provincial election and won 17 seats becoming leader of the opposition.
• The BC Green Party's vote jumped from 2% in 1996 to 12.4% in 2001. What accounts for the 640% increase? Adriane Carr's inclusion in the leaders' debate.

Going forward getting included in the leaders debates in the next election will continue to be one of our top priorities.
I am so proud to be a member of the Green Party. We ran the most effective campaign ever in the party's history:

• The Green Party ran candidates in all 308 ridings – just 18 months after the last election – so we have run 616 candidates in under two years!
• Only the Green Party and the NDP ran a full slate of candidates in 2006 – both the Conservatives and Liberals disavowed one candidate.
• A number of campaigns spent $25,000 or more – more than the Green Party of Canada historically used to spend for its' entire central party operations a year!
• BC broadcaster Rafe Mair, the most popular talk show radio host in Vancouver, endorsed the Green Party on the Tyee.
• The Ottawa Citizen endorsed our Ottawa Centre candidate David Chernushenko for the second election in a row (David won 10.2%).
• The Kingston Whig Standard endorsed our candidate Eric Walton over the former Liberal Speaker of the House, Peter Miliken.
• The National Post published an article “Nunavut's Green Hope” talking about our candidate Feliks Kappi in Nunavut because climate change is affecting the Artic at twice the rate of any other region
• Barbara Yaffe of The Vancouver Sun wrote that electing Greens would put the bees in the bonnet of Ottawa.
• Newspapers across the country ran editorials arguing for our inclusion in the debates (see some of them at http://greenparty.ca/inthenews.html)
• Our web site www.greenparty.ca took millions upon millions of hits a week as Canadians were hungry to learn more about the Green Party.

Fun Facts

• Sharon Labchuk ran in Malpeque PEI, and her daughter, Camille Labchuk ran in Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe in New Brunswick.
• Thanks to the fantastic media team, we generated more media coverage in this campaign than any other in our history!
• Once again the stats available after the election will show that the Green Party is the most efficient political party in Canada. In 2004 we won a vote for every 86 cents that the central party spent. By contrast the NDP had to spend $5.66 to win each vote, the Conservatives $4.30; the Liberals $3.34 and the Bloc $2.86.

[Shawnski]

Rex Murphy had a good line last night. Essentially the Green Party could be replaced on the ballot with "None of the above" and had done pretty much the same.

[evman150]

Saanich-Gulf Islands and my riding of Victoria were the Greens' two most successful ridings in 2004 but both were huge disappointments this year. Ariel Lade in my riding went from a second best in Canada of 11.7% down to a disappointing 8.1%. And Andrew Lewis went from a Canada best of 16.7% all the way down to 9.9%.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

Rex Murphy had a good line last night. Essentially the Green Party could be replaced on the ballot with "None of the above" and had done pretty much the same.

Indeed. I especially like the "fair reform" comment. The Greens would not get nearly as many votes if the fair reform movement were to succeed, simply because not as many people wouldnt be voting green as a protest.

[Agamemnon]

I personally don't believe the Greens were a protest vote for many. People support the party and the platform. Many, many parties ran in the election, not just 5. If they were a pure protest-vote party, they would not have done nearly as well as they did.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

I personally don't believe the Greens were a protest vote for many. People support the party and the platform. Many, many parties ran in the election, not just 5. If they were a pure protest-vote party, they would not have done nearly as well as they did.

No one is suggesting that it was a pure protest vote but they are the most well known and visible of the "other parties" so they w/o question benefited form people that didn't know who else to vote for.

How much - well we don't know.

But I was dissapointed in their campaign. They need to be better organized, and stop their own internal fighting if they want to be a real party and play with the big boys. In my opinion they had a good result but missed the opportunity to have an even better one.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

But I was dissapointed in their campaign. They need to be better organized, and stop their own internal fighting if they want to be a real party and play with the big boys. In my opinion they had a good result but missed the opportunity to have an even better one.

I agree.

They need to have more rallies and/or events. A few TV ads wouldn't hurt either.

But I think in order to take them out of the fringe, they need to go to the debates. It's sad that our television networks have so much control in the democratic process. As mentioned in the email I got, both the Bloc and the Reform parties took off once they were invited to the debates. In my opinion, the Greens earned this.

[BaronInEdmonton]

The Green SHOULD have been invited to the debate this year.

However, and correct me if I'm wrong, a party need 5% of the vote to get the $1.75 to get funding.

Elections Canada has them at 4.5%. I don't want to say it, but the Greens have hit their high water mark and are receding into infamy.

[Resolute 14]

I think it was 3%, not 5%, but I could be wrong.

As far as the debates go, if we let the Greens in, do we let all of the other marginal parties in too? Where do we draw the line? The Green Party is deluded if it thinks that being invited to the debates allowed the Bloq and Reform parties to to win as many seats as they did in 1993. They both won the seats as they became credible alternatives to the highly unpopular Conservatives. The Greens are not a credible alternative to most people right now. They also fail to mention that both the Reform and Bloq had sitting MPs at the disollution of the 34th Parliament, the Greens had none as the last government fell.

The Greens are a growing party, but they arent ready to play with the big boys yet.

[Flame On]

I think it should be at least consistent as far as the debates go.
It annoys me that federal funding kicks in around the 3 or 4 percent mark. I.e. recognition of a somewhat bigger party status. At least than the Alberta Action party lets say.
Then the CRTC or the debate rules have it as requiring a party to hold at least a seat. So now that independant twat out in Quebec gets to come to the debates?!
Make it a seat or by popular vote percentage, but not some bloody mixture of the two.

[Resolute 14]

That "independant twat" does not represent a party. Terribly illogical argument, dude.

Also, Elections Canada, and the the television networks are not the same. If the Greens have a problem, then they can buy their commercial time like everyone else does and get their message and complaint heard.

[Agamemnon]

I think that as Green issues become more prevalent in society, people will pay more attention to a Green party. Whether this means the actual Greens will become more popular, or all of the existing parties will move towards a 'Greener' position, I don't know.

I just like Full Cost Accounting and Cradle to Cradle manufacturing, thats why I support the Greens. Its too bad a major party doesn't pick up on these, I'd support whomever did.

[flambers]

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

I personally don't believe the Greens were a protest vote for many. People support the party and the platform. Many, many parties ran in the election, not just 5. If they were a pure protest-vote party, they would not have done nearly as well as they did.

Yep I totally agree the Green Party was a protest vote nothing more. This party has zero future.

[Flame On]

Originally Posted by Snakeeye

That "independant twat" does not represent a party. Terribly illogical argument, dude.

Also, Elections Canada, and the the television networks are not the same. If the Greens have a problem, then they can buy their commercial time like everyone else does and get their message and complaint heard.

I realize they're not the same and that's what I'm saying, I'd like there to be some consistency between the two. It wouldn't be hard for them to come to an agreement either way. If it's good enough for our government to recognize a party as being big enough/popular enough to receive federal money, I don't know why it's not good enough for the state run television network.
As for the twat I again realize he's not part of a party. But the rule by the CRTC was said to be the leadership candidate shall only be entitled to enter the debate if their party holds a seat. Technically at the moment, wouldn't that mean he'd be ahead of the line before a green leader?
(I'm being slightly tongue in cheek with that guy just to illustrate a point man. I'm not actually concerned with that guy, but I still think he's a twat. )

[Shawnski]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I guess the big question I have is: Has the Green Party done enough to earn the right to play with the big dogs for the next election?

In short, no.

There are many points to discuss or put into perspective in that e-mail.

We made significant gains in winning 665,940 votes – an increase of 14.4%.
We won almost 100,000 more votes for the Green Party in this election than in 2004.

The increase was 83,693 to be more precise (must be the exchange rate for Canadian votes!! ). Now factor in the increase in voter turnout (which was 9.22 %). That increase in turnout, if using the same percentage of popular vote for the Greens in ’04, would account for 53,697 of these “new” votes.

In effect, the remainder of 29,996 is truly the effective increase in Green votes when looking at the popular vote in ’04 (4.29%) versus ’06 (4.49%). Green supporters should look at an effective increase in popular vote of 4.72% versus the 14.4% mentioned above. These numbers do not indicate “significant gains”. A gain, yes, significant…no.

To put it further into perspective, using the same methodology, Independent candidates had an effective gain of 9.30% (and actually won a seat.)

Almost three times as many candidates won more than 10% of the vote – the magic threshold to receive
reimbursement for 50% of campaign expenses. In 2004 only three candidates broke 10% -- in 2006 it was eight!

First of all, by my count, using a download from Elections Canada, only 7 candidates broke the 10% mark. Dufferin - Caledon received 9.96%, and if rounded to only one decimal place, could be easily mistaken as 10.0%. So the “almost three times”, is actually just over double.

Secondly, one of those seven is the Southern Interior riding, and we all know what happened with the happy smuggler down there. It was a CPC riding where there was no effective CPC candidate. Riding went NDP big time. Heck, my Dad was going to “hold his nose” and vote NDP, and I suggested he could vote Green in protest. Don’t expect those numbers again in that riding, I suspect.

And on that note, the protest/throw away vote is evident in all but one of those seven ridings, as the winning candidate for each ran away with the seat, with the lowest popular vote for those candidates no lower than 48.18% (and four were in Alberta, including three in Calgary.) Only in Ottawa – Centre could one even think that the Green candidate had an effective showing against the “big boys”, but still fell way short.

In Quebec we won almost 147,000 votes – roughly the same number of votes that the NDP won in 2004.
And in this election, the Greens received just over half of what the NDP did. Considering there are four horses in the Quebec race ahead of the Greens, and they are losing ground to the closest one in site, it is not good news.

Our Albertan candidates won about as many votes as the party won in all of Canada in 2000.
And that speaks volumes as to where the Green party is heading. Vote concentration in Alberta, where the likelihood of ever beating a Tory candidate is extremely remote, is a bad thing, not a good one.
Sean Maw in Wild Rose, Alberta placed second – ahead of the Liberal and NDP candidates; and Shane Jolley in Bruce Grey Owen Sound and Danielle Roberts in Calgary West both finished third.

In Wild Rose, the Conservative candidate received a whopping 72.16% of the vote. Getting the largest piece of table scraps here is, once again, nothing worth trumpeting about. In the two other ridings, the word “a distant” should be placed between the words “finished” and “third”. Weak areas for NDP votes will not translate into winning seats where the front running parties are so dominant.

More than 50,000 Canadians have signed the petition to ensure the Green Party is included in the televised leaders debates. The TV broadcasters were proud that 10,000 Canadians emailed questions to ask the leaders of the old-line parties – but five times as many Canadians wanted to see us included in the debates.

More than a million people signed an online petition to have Stockwell Day change his first name to “Doris”.

Adding a fifth, and irrelevant, person in the debates will not improve them. On the contrary. The debates have gone downhill since the Bloc was added. But on this point, it starts to become subjective. Ditto most of the remaining points in the email regarding the debates issue.

Regarding the Fun Facts….

Thanks to the fantastic media team, we generated more media coverage in this campaign than any other in our history!

And I still heard next to nothing from them. Not a good sign, as I followed this election closely. For those that didn’t….

Once again the stats available after the election will show that the Green Party is the most efficient political party in Canada. In 2004 we won a vote for every 86 cents that the central party spent. By contrast the NDP had to spend $5.66 to win each vote, the Conservatives $4.30; the Liberals $3.34 and the Bloc $2.86.

One could also look at that as an inability to get Canadians to donate to the party. If the money was there to advertise and help improve the party, it would have been spent.

Anyways, I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade. But looking at the situation with a little objectivity might help those party supporters to understand where the party really sits.

[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by flambers

Yep I totally agree the Green Party was a protest vote nothing more. This party has zero future.

Well, you're not agreeing with me, not sure why you quoted me.

[flames_1987]

The Green Party is one of the few party's that targets the youth and to me that's something really positive. They don't promote themselves as liberal, or conservative on ideas, to them a good idea is a good idea. I saw great growth in just people simply talking about them this year. Ference even voted for them so that has to mean something haha

[Incinerator]

Sure...vote for a party that ran as candidates a bunch of 20-something philosophy & social work majors with their pie-in-the-sky vision of how this country could be so much greener and everyone would be dancing together singing folk songs on a canyon, that's gonna help keeping your hard earned money in your pockets This party's got a more unrealistic platform than the worst Layton has to offer, if that's even possible.

[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by Incinerator

Sure...vote for a party that ran as candidates a bunch of 20-something philosophy & social work majors with their pie-in-the-sky vision of how this country could be so much greener and everyone would be dancing together singing folk songs on a canyon, that's gonna help keeping your hard earned money in your pockets This party's got a more unrealistic platform than the worst Layton has to offer, if that's even possible.

What do you know about their platform? Anything specific to bring to the table, or was this just a drive-by?

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by Incinerator

Sure...vote for a party that ran as candidates a bunch of 20-something philosophy & social work majors with their pie-in-the-sky vision of how this country could be so much greener and everyone would be dancing together singing folk songs on a canyon, that's gonna help keeping your hard earned money in your pockets This party's got a more unrealistic platform than the worst Layton has to offer, if that's even possible.

Perhaps to them (and their supporters) there is more to running a country then how much money is in your pocket. Thankfully, not everyone has a complete disreguard for the environment like yourself.