Talk:Green Party of British Columbia
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The original article explains accurately the prediliction of the GP of BC for electoral reform, it's alliance for this purpose with the BC Unity Party, and the actual history of the GP of BC that differentiates it from other parties, and parallels it to the NDP of Saskatchewan in terms of a provincial movement that became a national movement.
Someone who wishes to blame Nader wholly for Bush's election wouldn't like the observation made about the electoral systems being more obviously at fault than anyone's choice to run, but removing that point of view amounts to censorship.
Two16 seems to believe that ad hominem hacking of articles s/he/it does not understand is all right, if the author is one s/he is suspicous of. I would invite others to comment on this self-appointed censor approach.
What is eco-capitalism, and why are we linking to a non-existent article on the topic? I've just googled it, and the only links that come up are from a book title arguing for a eco-socialism. More importantly, have the BC Greens actually termed themselves "eco-capitalist"? If not, it needs to be changed to reflect that it's a critical term opponents are using. Radicalsubversiv 21:51, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
[edit] "Joint Opposition"
The following sentence was changed:
- Although Premier Gordon Campbell could have granted the NDP (or some joint opposition composed of the NDP and other parties such as the Greens) this official party status, he chose not to do so, leaving British Columbia with no official opposition.
To:
- Although Premier Gordon Campbell could have granted the NDP MLAs this official party status, he chose not to do so, leaving British Columbia with no official opposition.
My rationale is that the "party status" in question is whether the legislative caucus receives certain funding privileges. Since there are no Greens in the BC legislature (at the time), a "joint opposition" with a non-existent Green caucus is impossible.
I'm not even sure whether the entire blurb is necessary. The Greens only directly affected the number of NDP seats in Victoria, not whether Campbell confers party status on the NDP caucus.
- Kelvinc 10:21, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
(Tiresome finger-pointing at the Greens for NDP losses aside...) The abrogation of the appointment of a Leader of the Opposition was actually a breach of the constitutional order; but because of "convention" such unilateral changes to the way things are supposed to run has no punitive or preventive strategy to respond to it with; same as with Bennett's abrogation of the mandate to spend in 1983. Technically the Executive Council, the Cabinet, requires its mandate from the Privy Council, which cannot "sit" without a Leader of the Opposition being appointed; this has happened in other provinces by the appointment of a LoO from civilian ranks if there are no non-government members in the House (happened in NB). If someone had tried to press the point in court and taken it to the top, it's difficult to know how the judges would have gone with this; ultimately it's a constitutional amendment, but if a first minister can get away with shit usually they get away with shit because no one can be bothered of the expense of pressing claims about it. The NDP were going to but the public just isn't into the constitutional obscurities the same way. Immediate damage to the NDP is that, yes, funding privileges are involved, and specifically the 120,000+ salary of the LoO.Skookum1 00:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Reminiscences of 1983
I added in the omission concerning the first federal candidacy in Mission-Port Moody (I still have some brochures and buttons - want some?) and tidied up the language in the opening paragraph. I'm tempted to tell the whole story of that opening year but not sure where to put it; I was the "office slave" under Dave Hughes, Adriane & Paul, Wally Thomas, Ted Mousseau and others (whose names should be in the party history if they're not already - especially since Wally and Ted provided most of the party's bankroll for most of that year, from what I remember Dave telling me, although I never saw the books) and so on for a good six-seven months that year, sleeping on Dave's floor and hitchhiking around the province to meet Greens and try and spread the word, all with no pay and with virtually no money in my pocket throughout. For this, somehow, I was branded at the National Conference that fall as one of the "centrists" out to "take power from the grassroots"; I was railed at for not publishing the huge treatises that people sent in, expecting us to publish them and circulate them to the membership, even though no money to cover such huge costs came in from those people (the people who sent in money generally did so with a short, polite note). Wally, a distinguished, kindly and gentlemanly retired doctor from Whytecliffe, who had been active in the Peace Movement and had been the head of nuclear medicine at UBC in the days when the field was top-secret, and always impeccable in a beautiful grey three-piece suit or something befitting his age and demeanour, was openly derided for being exactly that; for not being a shaggy, "granola", "true grassroots", self-consciously "radical" member; even though he bankrolled the party and suffered in silence while the insults were hurled at him by people who had no clear idea what they wanted, and were only full of suspicion and hostility towards anybody who wasn't like them. For the record, I was "shaggy" too, just not as prejudiced towards mainstream Canadians as so many were; the early party had a wide range of political backgrounds, including Tories and Socreds concerned about the environment; but the mere fact of their not being part of the supposed "grassroots" provided the res causa to exclude other similar people from the party; and indeed drove many of us from it, either by choice or insistence. The fact was that the small-g green grassroots - the TRUE grassroots - transcended the usual political spectrum and was a much larger support base than the rads wanted to find out; I know this because I knocked on c.5000 doors in the Mission-Port Moody campaign and spoke with everyone from church-going types to hardcore supposed "rednecks"; the Green Party lost much of its potential constituency when the mainstream elements - the supposed fifth columnists from the "right-wing"/centrist elements - were driven out. This was lost on the diehard self-proclaimed capital-G (but anti-party) Greens and the relic of the original party-movement that was left never managed to shake the media image of being a bunch of hippie flakes.
As for how Leonard Jordaan and Ted Mousseau got along, or of how Leonard attacked me (nearly physically) when I showed up at Montreal to bring greetings to Les Verts from the BC Green Party, well, it was pretty theatrical, lemme tellya . . .
I've often wanted to tell the whole story, without rattling too many skeletons in the closet (the closet's kind of crowded) and I never got the chance in the "Green Horn", the first (second?) party rag (I made the choice of that name and some people didn't like it; I figured it was good because "we're all new at this"). I wanted to write my thoughts about what had gone down in Ottawa (catastrophe, and a waste of time) but I wound up writing a "thank you" column to all the people who had organized the conference, and those (Eliya and his wonderful daughter in particular) who made sure that everyone in the hall at Carleton got hugs when they needed them. Whatever the heck happened to Susan Berlin anyway? (she was the conference's very impartial and efficient ad hoc chair/arbiter of microphones)
What's missing from the history of the party is some reference to the grisly infighting of the NDP fifth-column that year, the party's role in the Solidarity Movement (which I'm prepping an article on, i.e. the Solidarity Crisis overall, which isn't in Wikipedia AT ALL, amazingly, and doesn't even get mentioned on the BC History page), the hostility of the Quebec Greens, and the crazy mishmash of all the people from "the movement" who opposed the establishment of the party coming to the meetings and the national conference to shout all the rest of us down and presuming that they "owned" the concept of environmentalism, and the word "green" in particular...Thank god the nervous breakdown I had at the national conference in Ottawa came along or I wouldn't have had the sense to get out; but being yelled at for hours by "peaceniks" and overly-englightened beings (at least they thought they were) for simply trying to exercise my democratic right to organize, well, it was all a bit much and I resolved to tidy up affairs at the office and move back to Whistler to take up sex, drugs and rock'n'roll (well, two out of three ain't bad, as I've said since). I wound up being dragged into AWARE there for their antipesticide campaign and like everybody else in the anti-pesticide movement in The Corridor found myself tracked by two guys with shades, white shirts, and a white sedan (CSIS or PIs, I couldn't be sure)....and I still have to wonder if all the shouting and foot-stomping in Ottawa and at certain meetings in BC wasn't the work of agents provocateurs, either from CSIS, the other parties (particularly the NDP, who were "out to get us", as anyone who was at the Point Grey nomination meeting must remember; similarly with the fifth-columnist Alan Timberlake, later an NDP MP for Nanaimo; Al was at least sane and articulate...).
Anyway, as I was saying, there's a whole lotta poop from the politics of the organizing year, and I think the founding circumstances of the party - the Solidarity Crisis - should be given some context, as well as the confrontation between the "movement"/"grassroots" (as self-proclaimed) and the people working to actually organize the party and make greenism palatable/understandable to "middle Canada". Maybe Wikipedia isn't the place for an in-depth look at that, but at least some kind of condensed truth should be there, instead of passing over the era completely is the jump in the current text, and then from there to SParker. Gotta go. Any old-party veterans out there, btw?Skookum1 19:04, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Be Careful What You Wish For
Your wish is my command. I have filled in the period.
- After my time; but at some point I'm going to be tempted to fill in 1983-early 1984. Names like Wally Thomas, Ted Mousseau, John Kidder, David Hughes and Jane (can't remember last name!) were part of the early party history and all interconnected with the Peace Movement; it wasn't just an Adriane-and-Paul show (Paul isn't mentioned either, at least not in those early years despite his omnipresence in party energies/workspace). The multifactional nature of the earliest BC Greens - from the Cariboo Organic Commune and Jack Boulogne's commies in Surrey to Timberlake's half-NDP bunch in Nanaimo, to the outright bourgeois flavour of the North Shore and West Side members (who were among the most ardent, and also those who coughed up most of the cash to keep the party offices running; by that I mean Messrs. Mousseau and Thomas); debates within the party as to whether or not to direct energies to the federal organizing effort were also a big part of the debate (with Paul G. in opposition, perhaps rightly so because of the detractive nature and different political situation/attitudes of the other branches of the Greens across Canada; particularly Les Verts but that's another story....). Just some thoughts; and a caveat that, given enough of the right kind of liqueur, I might sit down and try to make an account of the first ten months or so of the party's existence and "internal" goings-on (by "internal" I don't mean "in-group" but rather people who made the effort to come in and be around the office, rather than just send in 100-page tracts demanding that we do what they want us to - whomever "they" might be, typically pronouncing themselves "grassroots" and demanding consensus on pain of veto. But I do think only mentioning Adriane's name in the early-on is just not right, and she would be the first to grant equal time to the efforts and moral support of guys like Wally and Ted. What DID happen for sure is a lot of this core group split for other things to do when it was made pretty clear that "the party [was] Paul's show" and if people didn't want to do things his way, they didn't have to be around; and yeah, that's when I left myself; not sure the attrition rate with the others mentioned so far....Skookum1 06:46, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
