National Post (National Edition)
Why this could be Green’s year
No, seriously, Elizabeth May’s party has hope
The age of disruption is spawning all kinds of unlikely political outcomes in previously stable democracies. Could one of them be a breakthrough for the Green Party of Canada in next year’s federal election?
Elizabeth May’s party has flattered to deceive before, but a number of leading indicators suggest a resurgence in Green fortunes.
While they are in familiar territory in most public polls — between 7 and 10 per cent — there are signs that suggest their support has room to grow.
Most promising was a question in a Nanos Research poll on the party voters might consider at the next election. It suggested that one in three voters would think about voting Green, up from one in five before the 2015 election. Green leader May is also outpolling NDP leader Jagmeet Singh on the question of who voters prefer as their prime minister.
Party fundraising, a key measure of support, is up 19 per cent in the first three quarters of the year, albeit from a small base.
David Coletto, a pollster at Abacus Data in Ottawa, said he thinks the political environment is opportune for the Greens.
Concerns about climate change are growing, the Liberals are vulnerable on the environment after buying a pipeline, the NDP is in retreat and voters are looking for something different, he said.
“May appeals to folks who are looking for a kind, thoughtful leader without flash. It will require a lot of work on their part but I think their prospects have never been more favourable,” he said.
May herself thinks the auspices have never been better, even under a first-past-the-post system she decries.
In past elections, May has always had to battle for a spot in the leaders’ debates, often in the face of concerted opposition from the Conservatives and New Democrats. But in the next election the question appears settled, after the Liberals appointed former governor general David Johnston as Canada’s first debates commissioner. He will organize two debates, and the Greens appear to meet the criteria for inclusion.
In past elections, strategic voting has hurt the party — from its standing in the polls late in the 2015 campaign, for example, its vote was cut in half to just 4 per cent on election day.
Green voters have often switched to the Liberals or NDP late in campaigns, over concerns the party cannot get its candidates elected. “We run into a wall of lastminute strategic voting,” May said in an interview.
But including May there are now 10 elected members at the federal and provincial levels across four different provinces.
Federally the party is benefiting from disillusionment with Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. Unusually, multiple candidates are seeking the party’s nomination in the North Vancouver riding, and in the Esquimalt-saanich-sooke constituency on Vancouver Island, the Green candidate, David Merner, ran for the Liberals last time. He quit the governing party the day it bought the Trans Mountain pipeline.
By the time the federal election rolls around there may even be a Green provincial government in Prince Edward Island, where Peter Bevan-baker’s party has been ahead in three of the past four public polls.
“Part of it is that people are sick of the old-line political parties,” said May.
Another factor is that climate change is more tangible to voters. From flooding in New Brunswick to forest fires in British Columbia, May said people are feeling the effects viscerally. “People don’t need to be told that climate change is real and that we’re in a climate emergency. It’s no longer an environmental issue, it’s an existential security threat.”
May said part of her challenge is to make sure no region of the country is disadvantaged by the shift to clean sources of energy.
Perhaps surprisingly, her party does not propose going “cold turkey” on oilsands development. She instead supports policies once proposed by former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed.
“If I were (current Alberta premier) Rachel Notley, I would have wrapped myself in Lougheed and repeated his mantra: ‘The first rule of oilsands development is think like an owner,’ and gone back to the first principles of value-added.”
May, like Lougheed, advocates the construction of refineries and shutting down the importation of 700,000 barrels a day of oil from countries like Saudi Arabia into eastern Canada.
It is a persuasive argument but one that ignores the economic reality. There is a surplus of refining capacity in North America, while many of the refineries in Canada are not configured to process the heavy crude being produced in the oilsands. There have been no new refineries built in this country for 30 years and though Notley’s government is exploring the possibility of building one, at a cost of up to $15 billion per plant there is not a lot of optimism one will be built any time soon.
Still, May’s message is that there should be a gradual shift away from fossil fuels. Her emphasis is on de-carbonizing electricity generation, by moving from coal to renewable energy sources. She criticized Notley’s government for “squandering a golden opportunity” as it moved away from coal generation. “Alberta has the best opportunity for solar energy of any province in Canada,” she said.
“We can design a plan that gets us to 1.5 degrees Celsius but it starts with decarbonizing our electricity grid, moving to electric vehicles, looking at transportation and land-use and ensuring the oilsands (emissions) don’t grow beyond 70 megatonnes a year,” she said.
May’s pitch to Canadians is that Green MPS will work across party lines and rid the country of “old-fashioned, hyper-partisan, nasty politics.”
“I’ll be campaigning on honest, hope,” she said.
“The federal government needs to offer tangible acts of leadership that mobilizes the profound sense of anxiety … We need to let people know that we’ll get through it in fine shape, as long we don’t kick it down the road for some other generation to solve.”
It is an appeal that might find a sympathetic audience next year. On the other hand, the Greens could just as easily pass from rising hopes to has-beens in the course of an election campaign.
Much will rest on May’s performance. She is a decent, smart hard-working politician who actually reads legislation and makes sensible interventions.
At the same time, she is not for everyone. She never uses a sentence when a paragraph would do, her sense of humour is no laughing matter, and she is still living down the Press Gallery dinner three years ago when she brought her party into disrepute with a performance that included a memorable shout-out to Omar Khadr, the convicted terrorist (she blamed fatigue and the flu for the meltdown).
If she is going to repeat the success experienced by the late Jack Layton in 2011, it is going to require her to keep calm and to articulate a consensus that is still in the process of forming.
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO OFFER TANGIBLE ACTS OF LEADERSHIP THAT MOBILIZES THE PROFOUND SENSE OF ANXIETY … WE NEED TO LET PEOPLE KNOW THAT WE’LL GET THROUGH IT IN FINE SHAPE, AS LONG WE DON’T KICK IT DOWN THE ROAD. — ELIZABETH MAY