| Adriane Carr | |
|---|---|
| Deputy Leader of the Green Party of Canada | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office September 2006 Serving with Georges Laraque |
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| Leader of the Green Party of British Columbia | |
| In office 2000–2006 |
|
| Preceded by | Tom Hetherington |
| Succeeded by | Christopher Bennett |
| In office 1983–1985 |
|
| Preceded by | New Party |
| Succeeded by | Stuart Parker |
| Personal details | |
| Political party | Green Party |
Adriane Carr (born 1952) is a Canadian academic, activist and politician with the Green Party in British Columbia and Canada.[1] She is also a Councillor-elect on Vancouver City Council.[2][3] She was a founding member and the Green Party of British Columbia's first leader from 1983 to 1985, whereafter the party abolished the leadership position until 1993. In 2000, she became the party's leader again.[1] In the 2005 provincial election, she received in excess of 25% of the vote in her home riding of Powell River-Sunshine Coast. She resigned her position in September 2006 to become one of two deputy leaders of the Green Party of Canada now led by her political ally and long time friend Elizabeth May. After two losses as a federal candidate in Vancouver Centre, Carr was elected to Vancouver City Council in 2011 as a candidate of the Green Party of Vancouver during the municipal election. This was her first electoral success, and she was the first person elected to Council as a Green Party candidate.[2] She continues to support the Green Party of British Columbia.
Carr was born in Vancouver and raised in the Lower Mainland and Kootenays. She earned a Master's degree in Urban Geography from the University of British Columbia in 1980 and went on to a teaching career at Vancouver Community College.[1]
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Carr helped to found the Green Party of British Columbia and worked as its leader from 1983 to 1985. She began working professionally for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee in 1987, having co-founded the group in 1980 with her husband, Paul George. From 1992 until 2000, WCWC was led by a four-person committee of paid employees comprising Carr, her husband, activist Joe Foy and the organization's chief financial officer.
Carr has been the BC Green Party leader on two separate occasions. She was the party's leader in the 1983 provincial election, held shortly after the party's founding. Carr ran in the riding of Vancouver-Point Grey, and finished last in a field of eight candidates with 1549 votes. She also ran as a Green candidate for the Vancouver School Board in 1984, but after this had little further involvement with the provincial Green Party until the late 1990s. Although she and her husband Paul George returned briefly to active involvement in the late 1980s.
The Green Party of British Columbia was led from 1993 to 2000 by Stuart Parker (whom Carr endorsed during both of his runs for the party leadership in 1993 and 1997) and its ideological direction was largely guided by former members of the New Democratic Party during this period. Carr emerged as a rival to Parker at the party's 1999 policy convention. The non-confidence motion against him that she sponsored at the party's annual convention six months later was defeated by a substantial margin. But he was defeated in another non-confidence motion in March 2000. On September 23, 2000, Carr defeated Andy Shadrack and former municipal councilor Wally du Temple to become party leader for a second time.
(Parker and his supporters had resigned from the party July 31, 2000, accusing the WCWC of attempting to manipulate the party's direction. He later encouraged Green Party supporters to vote NDP in the 2001 provincial election.)
Carr ran in the 2001 election in the riding of Powell River-Sunshine Coast, against former Liberal leader and then NDP cabinet minister Gordon Wilson. She was included in the party leaders' debate along with Liberal leader Gordon Campbell and Premier Ujjal Dosanjh. The Greens hoped to be viewed as a progressive alternative for voters. Carr finished third in her riding with 6316 votes (27%), against 6349 for Wilson (28%) and 9904 for victorious Liberal Harold Long. The Green Party received 12.4% of the provincial vote in this election, a significant increase from its 2% total in the 1996 election. The party's largest number of votes was received in Saanich-Gulf Islands, one of only 17 constituencies that had been voting Liberal since 1991.
In 2004, Carr ran for the Greens in a by-election in Surrey-Panorama Ridge, held following the resignation of Liberal Gulzar Singh Cheema. She finished a distant third with 8.4% of the vote as the NDP recovered to win the riding. This result was a harbinger of the party's decline in popularity in the 2005 general election, where its share of the vote fell to 9%.
Carr was a vocal supporter of MMP a mixed member proportional system where some members are elected from constituencies like they are today and others are selected from party lists to "top up" the legislature to ensure that the percentage of seats equals the percentage of popular vote a party gets (like New Zealand adopted in 1993). In 2002 she became the proponent of an Initiative under BC Recall and Initiave Act to hold a referendum to adopt MMP in BC. Called the Free Your Vote campaign, it brought together a broad coalition of British Columbians and even included the official support of trade unions such as the BC Nurses' in a petition drive under the province's citizen initiative legislation ro institute this system. Despite having condemned this legislation as unworkable after failing to submit sufficient signatures for an anti-grizzly bear hunting initiative by WCWC, Carr threw the energies into this campaign which, although it failed to gather sufficient signatures in all but four ridings, created the largest voting reform organization in the province and increased awareness and support amongst Greens and non-Greens alike. Many credit it with spuring the Liberals to establish a Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform a few months later.
When the Citizens Assembly recommended an alternative Single Transferable Vote system, Carr felt strongly that this was the wrong system for BC stating: "It's rock bottom in terms of getting women elected. And it still leaves too many voters frustrated by their votes not counting. It's not truly proportional."[1] However, after that initial outburst, Carr put her personal opinion aside and at the Green Party's Annual Convention following the Citizens Assembly's decision she supported a resolution that her party officially take a neutral stance letting candidates decide themselves whether or not to support the Citizens Assembly's proposal. Almost all Green Party candidates actively campaigned for the electoral reform referendum in the 2005 election. Prior to that election Nik Loenen, "the father of electoral reform in BC" and a big STV supporter, had urged political parties not to take a stance. He felt in particular that the Green Party's endorsement might alienate potential supports in mainstream parties Since the defeat of the BC-STV referundum in 2005 (58% - short 2% of the 60% level needed to pass) after a trip to Australia to see how STV worked there, Carr changed her view and supported the government-sponsored referendum on the BC-STV, as did the BC Green Party in the May 2009 general election.
In 2005, Carr was also included in the leaders debate, this time with Gordon Campbell and Carole James of the NDP. She was expected to be strong competition in her riding of Powell River-Sunshine Coast, but finished third again with 25% of the vote (a decline of 2%), 14% behind the victorious NDP candidate.
At the annual Convention following the 2005 election, the Party conducted a confidence vote which included all members through a mail in ballot regarding Carr's leadership. She received over 85% approval in that confidence vote. The Party also adopted a schedule for regular leadership contests.
Carr resigned her position of Leader in September 2006 to become one of two deputy leaders of the Green Party of Canada now led by her political ally and long time friend Elizabeth May. In January 2007, Carr was nominated to run in the federal riding of Vancouver Centre,[1] running against Liberal Party of Canada incumbent Hedy Fry. Carr bought a condominium in the West End and succeeded in getting the party to open up a regional office in BC at the Dominion Building, 301-207 West Hastings Street within the riding (February 2007). Her work for the federal party includes being co-chair of the party's shadow cabinet.
Since July 2008 the Green Party of British Columbia has been sharing office space with Carr and the Green Party of Canada.
In the October 14, 2008 federal election Carr ran in the Vancouver Centre riding. Hedy Fry was re-elected. Carr garnered 18.3% of the vote. Carr had the Green Party's fourth highest percentage of votes in the nation.
| Election | Type | Total votes | % of popular vote | Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vancouver-Point Grey 1983 | Provincial General | 1549 | 3.6% (1.8%)1 | 8th |
| Vancouver School Board 1984 | Municipal General | |||
| Powell River-Sunshine Coast 2001 | Provincial General | 6316 | 27.0% | 3rd |
| Surrey-Panorama Ridge 2004 | Provincial Byelection | 1053 | 8.4% | 3rd |
| Powell River-Sunshine Coast 2005 | Provincial General | 6585 | 25.8% | 3rd |
| Vancouver-Centre 2008 | Federal General | 10354 | 18.3% | 4th |
| Vancouver-Centre 2011 | Federal General | 9089 | 15.44% | 4th |
| Vancouver City Council 2011 | Municipal General | 48648 | 33.59% | 10th - elected |
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