Green party hopeful provincial success will translate to the federal landscape
Credit to Author: Derrick Penner| Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2019 01:00:47 +0000
Green party leader Elizabeth May stood on a stage in Victoria’s Ocean Pointe Resort Wednesday to launch her party’s federal election campaign, looking out at an electoral landscape with a few more green shoots on it than she did in 2015.
Since the 2015 ballot, which delivered just her own victory in the Saanich Gulf Islands, the 2017 provincial election put three B.C. Green party MLAs in office, and 2019 provincial elections in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick saw eight and three victories.
And earlier this year, the Greens won a second seat in parliament with the byelection win of candidate Paul Manly, who said the party is hopeful about coaxing additional electoral growth from that success.
“I think anywhere we’ve won provincially, we have proven that you can elect a Green candidate, a Green MLA,” said Manly, who is fighting to keep his Nanaimo-Ladysmith seat.
“It also creates the basis of a ground game. So where those successful campaigns have occurred, we see teams of volunteers and people who have experience running Green campaigns, and that’s super helpful.”
In B.C., the Greens have candidates in all 42 of the province’s ridings including high-profile contenders such as John Kidder, May’s husband and founder of the Green party in the province.The pair were married this April, on Earth Day.
Notwithstanding early hiccups with candidates’ reported positions on issues such as abortion and Quebec nationalism that had May “revetting” at least one candidate, the party remains hopeful that it can capture enough of the progressive vote that drifted to the Liberals in 2015 and translate that into more seats.
“There’s no pretence that we will form government, but we may hold the balance of power or may be able to provide a lot of influence,” said Manly.
That may not be too bold of a hope at the election’s outset, according to experienced observers.
“I’m prognosticating here, (but) it’s probably not unlikely that what hangs in the balance is a minority government,” said Patrick Smith, a professor in political science at Simon Fraser University. “In which case, every seat becomes quite important.”
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, along with an empty lectern where Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau would have been, at the first leaders’ debate on Sept. 12, 2019 in Toronto.
Smith said that in 2015, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals “staked out territories as protectors of the environment,” but in 2019, have a harder sell to make that case again.
And on Vancouver Island, more so than other regions of B.C. in particular, Greens look more attractive as the third-party option.
“On Vancouver Island, it seems the Greens have real potential to make, I don’t think a dramatic breakthrough, but make a breakthrough,” Smith said.
“And again, if it’s a close election and (the Greens) happen to hold a half-dozen seats, that would change the whole dynamics (of parliament) if we had both the NDP and Greens having the capacity to coalition build.”
The Greens did gain a lot of momentum with Manly’s byelection win and “holding the seat is critical for them” to expand its base, but repeating the win isn’t a given, said Hamish Telford, an associate professor in political science at the University of the Fraser Valley.
“A byelection is a different kettle of fish,” than a general election, said Telford.
Voters can perhaps cast ballots more freely when they know the balance of government isn’t at stake, Telford said. General elections also tend to have higher voter turnout, which changes dynamics.
Provincial parties also have to tread carefully when it comes to lending support to their federal sides, said Stefan Jonsson, director of communications and strategy for the B.C. Green party.
Administratively, politically and legally, the provincial party is an entirely separate entity, which means sharing financial resources, right down to the time of paid staff, is forbidden, Jonsson said.
The only option for experienced B.C. Green staff to step over to a federal campaign on a professional basis would be if they took an unpaid leave of absence, Jonsson said, or volunteer for campaigns on their own time, which he is doing for Victoria Green candidate Racelle Kooy.
Privacy legislation also means no sharing of membership databases between the provincial and federal parties, Jonsson said. And the B.C. Greens have voluntarily backed off on fund raising efforts for the provincial party.
That said, Jonsson added that a lot of key campaign volunteers from the three successful provincial campaigns in 2017 are helping on federal campaigns, “and vice-versa when we get to the next provincial election.”
Another complication for Green party MLAs and the professional staff is that they are also busy preparing for another sitting of the provincial legislature, said the B.C. Greens’ deputy leader, Sonia Furstenau.
“I’m able to participate in some ways, but I can’t go into campaign mode,” said Furstenau, who is the MLA for Cowichan-Nanaimo.
For her that will mean backing the Green candidate in her riding, Lydia Hwitsin, a lawyer and former elected chief of the Cowichan Tribes.
“I’m excited, I’m enthusiastic,” Furstenau said of the federal election.
And she is hopeful that, with the B.C. Green caucus that includes Adam Olsen, MLA for Saanich North and the Islands and leader Andrew Weaver, MLA for Oak Bay, they “contribute to a growing recognition that Greens are electable.”