The SGM was scheduled to advance co-leadership policy... and both days ended with loss of quorum.

What happened at the last AGM? What this an issue during that too? I don't recall it having been one.

COMMENTARY Every Riding Should Have a Candidate on Standby An election or by-election or snap election can happen at any time, therefore, it just makes sense to have a candidate ready for every riding. This would avoid the lengthy process of fielding a candidate and getting them to meet a new team in such a short time. Why is this not a policy?

By Sam Vekemans Victoria BC Canada Updated November 15th 2024 for formatting

From what I understand; The purpose of the EDA (Electoral District Association) is or should be to simply elect a candidate for the riding. This should be done every year with the specific purpose of electing/re-electing a candidate.

When there is a new contender for the riding then at the AGM (Annual General Meeting) is when there will be a vote to elect the new candidate. At the conclusion of the AGM, the last agenda item should be confirming the date/time and location for the next AGM - the following year. As well as schedule a date/time/location for quarterly events.

Even if there is no EDA and it's just a paper candidate, an AGM can still be scheduled with a time and date, with the location being online. The riding page can still have the paper candidates name and the contact info for the closest local organizer.

See Google Document

I signed up to volunteer for the Green Party in Ontario. I'm a new mom, have some time and would love to get more involved in leaving a future for my son. I haven't heard back yet. Is there a better way to volunteer then signing up online?

I would love to connect with some like minded people as well.

I'll be honest I am hopeful.

When it comes to the various provincial parties and of course the national party we have some absolutely incredible people in the ranks.

We have Mike Morrice at the national level fighting for the regular people and families of Canada. He not only talks environmental issues but calls out bad policy in regards to housing, immigration, wasteful government spending, the list goes on and on.

We have Mike Schreiner in Ontario making a huge deal of housing and also speaking about sustainable agricultural practices, and a localized framework.

We have Aislinn Clancy who truly demonstrates how a grassroots connection is more powerful than anything. She went up against NIMBY special interests, went to local business after local business, talked to non profits and other community activists. She focused on housing and cost of living. She won!

We have the BC Greens led by Sonia Furstenau talking about four day work weeks and in the debates demonstrating a level of knowledge, passion, and incredible articulation of the issues.

If the party at all levels (City council, provincial, federal) can continue to attract high level individuals like this, put forth a holistic forward looking set of policies, and continue to be dedicated to the environment and regular working class people of this nation then the future will be bright.

Some wonderful people to the South of us are deeply concerned about what might happen if some of the more extreme aspects of the so-called Project 2025 come into reality. In particular the research that relates to the environment, which tends to annoy certain large companies is causing a lot of concern. Is there anything that we might do up here to preserve the continuity of the long-term research projects and databases. One of many great articles

This for me is the last straw. More than 48 hours have passed since this tweet, I was waiting to see if she would retract as maybe she had not yet seen all provocation, attacks, vile chanting etc. leading up to these clashes.

I've now contributed over 7k to the party over the years, even during the nightmare that was Annamie Paul's "leadership". No more.

Our leaders and politicians are failing us. Legacy media is failing us. It's sad to see the party and leader I looked up to and respected fail us as well.

I suggest she talk with the PM about using it to across party lines just make some very Pro-Woman(-in-Politics) content. Or if not across party lines, for Greens to just create a social media campaign around this purely for social good RN.

I really am talking super short super positive content with only a basic undertone of Canada loves and values and supports and promotes women everywhere, including at the top.

As an SA survivor living day-to-day in a currently extremely hostile online world (with some spillover in the physical that is highly concerning) - this is something worth doing. And that it might gain the party salience/traction is a bonus.

I don't see how the party can survive her comments on the US election. In asking Stein to step aside she has undermined every candidate in the next federal election and done considerable harm the provincial wings of the party.

There will only be one question for all Green candidates as long as she remains, "If Stein should have stepped down to stop Trump, why don't Canadian Greens do the same to stop Poilievre?"

That will be it. There will be no opportunity to present our vision at all.

What a terrible shame that will be be, because we actually have the opportunity of a lifetime to make this party relevant and mainstream some of our views, like anti-free trade, anit-NATO, anti-war, localism and others.

These policy positions just won all three houses in the US.

I will just leave it at that other than to suggest that people learn about the team Trump has around him who are mostly ex-Democrats, environmentalist and not at all what the legacy media is presenting. Trump has always described himself as a Social Liberal and Fiscal Conservative, if that sounds familiar, that was Mays own slogan. She should also be familiar with how the legacy media lies and distorts and misrepresents those it feels are threats to their advertisers and backers.

We need a young affable leader who can do three hour sit down podcast interviews, that is the new politics and it favours Greens immensely.

In my opinion May has betrayed the party because of her close connections to the Clintons and neo-liberalism and we will get demolished in the next election if we don't make a change and make it soon.

Alexis de Tocqueville referred to American democracy as “the Great Experiment” as long ago as the 1830s. With the results of Tuesday's election, that experiment has taken a shocking turn and could well be indicative of the future of Canadian politics. While the Canadian and American electorates are different, they are similar enough that lessons can be learned from the results of the election that could point to future success.

Cater to the Majority

The election was won and lost on the balance of catering to the largest demographics in America: Whites and Latinos. They worked within those cultural confines and created messaging to resonate with those voters and approach it with a conservative bent. The vote on abortion was largely decided in favour of Pro-Life throughout the United States because Christianity (and Islam) is seeing a resurgence at a time of economic downturn, and people are turning to their faith in times of despair. Ethnic minorities like Latinos and African-Americans voted more often in favour of Trump and his Pro-Life policies because of how dearly they hold their religiosity to their sense of morality. From a Canadian perspective, I sincerely doubt that abortion will be a key election issue in the near future, especially since we tend to define ourselves by our opposition to whatever the Americans are doing, but I feel that if we can more concretely define an overall Canadian identity in terms of core beliefs (especially with an environmental bent) we could make some concerted headway. Some problems we could face is that Canada is a much more regionalized country than the United States, and, for example, Newfoundlanders have a very different perspective on our national identity than Quebecois, or from Ontarians, or from Yukoners.

Say Outrageous Stuff

Trump and his campaign have constantly said outrageous things that would have doomed any campaign in the past. Denigrating certain ethnic groups to cater to the majority has been effective at sowing division and affirming the vote for their party. For example, the Puerto Ricans selected Harris/Walz by an overwhelming majority in their Presidential straw poll, but Latinos as a whole generally voted in favour of the Republican candidate, particularly in Miami-Dade county. Targeting groups that are already seen as problematic and scapegoating them seems to work. Billionaires and fossil fuel groups seem to be doing a good job of greenwashing their activities, and we should continue to target them, but I think we should give common Canadians a break about personal recycling. Balancing corporate accountability will be tricky, but we should endeavour to be a bit more business friendly, considering their financial power. Asking ethnic groups that are particularly bad about or don’t care about environmental policy or positions to step up could be an effective way to create coalitions and solve societal problems. It can also spur dialogue where they try to rebut these stereotypical beliefs and begin engagement with the party in a meaningful way.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

Yves-Francois Blanchett is often lauded at English language debates for being a plain speaker: He doesn't need to win English Quebec, he just needs to make the larger parties look foolish. Voters will often respect you more as a critic of policy than as a policy maker; this is nothing new and has always been the advantage of the challenger in any election. As the Green Party has not won any significant races, nor contributed much to actual policy development, the role of critic is, well, critical. We need to do more legwork on creating policy. But creating any kind of buzz by getting our policy advertised is important. Having practical, innovative, and bold strategies is something that we specialize in, but communicating these in ways that the average voter can understand has been an issue.

Gen Z is a Conservative Bunch

As it turns out, by and large Gen Z has voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Republicans in this election. This could be indicative of a greater overall trend for a conservative leaning youth going forward and a consequent cultural shift. Considering how interconnected our media is with the United States, Canadian youth could also be a part of this trend. Since most Gen Z youth seem to get their news from reels or TikTok, it could be a good idea to find ways to infiltrate more conservative spaces with Green ideals, rather than simply dismissing these youth as lost because they simply can’t grasp the beauty of ecosocialism or something. The Green Party of Canada makes a great deal of noise about “Not Left, Not Right, but Forward,” but we need to find ways to incorporate Green perspectives across the spectrum. Finding Green perspectives within schools of thought like Catholic Social Teachings or other more decidedly conservative perspectives could translate to more votes. We cannot afford to ignore potential solutions from an entire spectrum of economic ideas– at a certain point, it comes down to spin.

The Economy and Security Always Win

In times of economic strife, voters will always start with a negative bias toward the incumbent party, no matter how they try to spin it as “results of my predecessor’s policy.” We’ve seen it for decades in the United States that Democrats inherit bad economies and get them on track just in time for a Republican to ruin them again. The same could likely be seen to a lesser degree in Canada where perhaps the inverse is true, given how often the Liberals seem to be in power just in time for a Conservative to sweep in as a change candidate. The narrative in place is that Biden/Harris created the poor economy in the United States, even though it was a consequence of Covid/Trump policy. The Harris campaign was unconvincing in their attempts to change this narrative, and that’s why they lost. Pursuant to this, protests like blocking highways or slashing SUV tires or otherwise slowing economic activities is a great way to get on the news, but does little to help gain sympathy for the movement. Especially in a society where people who commute are becoming increasingly desperate while trying to provide for themselves. We have to find a way for the economy and the well-being of people to be effectively balanced.

The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome

A great book with the above title by Edward J. Watts outlines the use of this rhetorical concept during the time of the Romans and how it has influenced Roman and present society since Rome’s birth. It’s usually found to rely upon an imagined, nostalgic past to show an ideal for citizens to try and strive toward. In effect, it’s a way to introduce new values into our society by utilizing understanding of the past. In Green discourse, the Keep America Beautiful group used “The Crying Indian” PSA as a call to action for Americans to stop littering on highways or in national parks to great success. The Green Party of Canada would do well to find a way to utilize nostalgia and harness societal malaise and “a return to an idealized past” through some sort of serious PSA campaign. It can be done in conjunction with various Green leaning NGOs and bring consciousness to societal issues through Green lenses. The refrain of “common sense" is pervasive because it speaks to a return to something that is familiar or traditional. Finding the Green philosophy in more “traditional” thought would be a great way for us to harness these societal currents.

Condescension Doesn’t Work

One of the critical areas in which the Democrats really suffered in this election was among voters that were not college educated, meaning, the working class. If we intend to approach working class Canadians who rely on a strong economy for security, (ie. Physical, Food, Shelter) lecturing them on morals of tolerance isn’t going to win many friends. We can also see this with the slow and steady collapse of the NDP from their record high seat count in the 2011 Election: As the party drifted away from “a rising tide raises all boats” rhetoric to “uplift the minorities because white male privilege is bad,” it failed to account for the fact that there are tons of working-class white men who are in situations that do not appear to differ much from the situations of their minority neighbours. The difference between Implicit and Explicit biases is important, but constantly insisting on higher level Maslowian thinking from people who are living hand to mouth and therefore are unable to self-actualize to the necessary degree, creates condescension. Voting is a numbers game, and constantly disparaging a majority to uplift a minority position will only serve to create fragile coalitions that are prone to failure. There is nothing wrong with promising justice for minority groups, but navigating that in an attempt to retain voters is something that requires consideration. Accessibility of language and ideas, therefore, is going to be paramount.

Blame the Foreign Adversary

“China” is one of the critical scapegoats of the Trump campaign for the decline of American greatness. And Harris/Walz did not effectively rebut that and offer an alternative cause for American economic decline. Throughout Western society, China (and to a lesser extent, Russia) is a boogeyman which is the root cause of all the economic maladies and for good reason. We all know it’s because of the cheap labour and Western CEOs moving key industries to China to satiate their greed. In Green discourse, especially in this country, Chinese outputs of CFCs and other greenhouse gasses is often used as a reason to not curtail our own outputs. Finding a way to promote new greener industrial growth while combating the criticism of development = death which hamstrings the party. For example, we have to find a way to explain why lithium strip mining is a better environmental policy in this country than utilizing the tar sands. The environment cannot be a zero sum game.

The Movement is Too Important to Leave to Academia

A great deal of the election strategy that the Green Parties of Canada has always taken has been attempts to reach the grassroots. The critical problem though, for a vast majority of the electorate, (who reads at a Grade 5 reading level) the Climate crisis is far too abstract to be articulated quickly and succinctly. A warm November is easily dismissed as “the weather” or “Indian Summer” (aside, is there a more politically correct term for that yet?) and strengthening hurricanes in the Atlantic are seen as a fact of life. Statistical trends and data need to be properly distilled and shared as much as possible with people to the lowest common denominator of understanding. Frankly, Green policy has an accessibility crisis and while academia is valuable, this knowledge needs to be more accessible. If you want to reach the working class, you need to speak their language. And I'm not talking about the university-educated Marxist who had to take a soul-sucking call center job while they're working on their Master's thesis. I'm talking about the brick layer from a small town who has to drive an hour to build McMansions in Richmond Hill with three young kids to feed.

Are policies beyond co-leadership being discussed or voted on, or is this strictly co-leadership?

And I'm not saying that it too-long for only co-leadership as I don't really have a frame of reference, but can anyone here confirm that that is indeed the situation? And, if so, sort of help flesh out how it becomes a 2 day thing? (I don't see a breakdown of the schedule.)

https://wedecide.green.ca/conferences/sgm-2024?locale=en

"Please read the meeting agenda (under preparation) to understand the topics to be discussed and any decisions to be made."

Interesting, there are no fewer than 4 people contending for VP Anglophone! Any thoughts on why and if they represent different factions/visions for the Green Party?

Stuart Hunter, Glenys Babcock, Colin Griffiths, John Willson

Edit: Basically if anyone has insight on which of these candidates would be most likely to contribute to a happier, more harmonious, and sensible Federal Council I'm all ears!

Tax The Axe- A Manifesto

This manifesto will cover a novel new idea to raise revenue for provincial/federal governments: taxing any tools which can be used to cut down trees. This will have numerous positive benefits on the everyday lives of Canadians

1. Environmental protection. By taxing the tools used to cut down trees, we will discourage this behavior entirely and protect our beautiful forests.
2. Lowered crime rate. Anything that can be used to cut down trees can almost certainly also be used to kill people. By discouraging ownership of these weapons, the amount of Canadians killed by them will also probably go down sharply.
3. "Owning the Cons." I don't think i have to go too far in depth here.
4. Increased revenue. The income gained from taking these tools will be used to conserve the environment and find other, less axe-needy ways to build structures.

You may be wondering, just how will this tax work? While, it's quite simple. First anything and everything with a sharp edge will be tested to see if it can cut down a 2" diameter tree within 2 hours. How much it will be taxed depends on how fast the tree was cut down. And that's it! No complicated loopholes or paperwork, just a simple speed scale. I hope this manifesto has convinced you to endorse my plan to TAX THE AXE!

P.S. This is a joke

https://www.instagram.com/p/DBYUFH4opam

From insta and other places idgaf

This is why I vote Green. No other issue matters on a dead planet.