Elizabeth May
With the Green Party on track, according to most polls, to gain more than 10 per cent of seats in the House of Commons, any party that forms a minority government will probably have to conduct some sort of negotiation with the environmentalist party at some point in its tenure.
The Green Party’s platform is naturally centred around eliminating all fossil fuel emissions and turning Canada into a nation where most homes and businesses will be powered by renewable energy, and all vehicles emitting little to no carbon. The Liberals, too, have said that they want to turn Canada into a carbon neutral nation by 2050, but the key difference is they have committed to the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which is a no-go zone for the Greens.
“I think it’s six to one and half a dozen of the other in terms of the Liberals working with the NDP or the Greens,” said
Reid. “They do align on issues like health care — mental health and suicide prevention for instance — and affordability, but the fundamental question for the Greens comes back to pipelines and the climate, so this is going to be a tough one.”
Both Curran and Powers agree that the prospect of a Conservative minority having to find compromise with the Green Party will be a tough. “The problem with these two parties are that their positions on climate change in particular are virtually irreconcilable,” Curran said. “The carbon tax will be a real sticking point for the Greens, because their platform is essentially transitioning away from oil and gas development very quickly and that is a no-go territory for any Conservative government,” she added.
In the first English-language debate last Monday, Green Party leader Elizabeth May told Scheer that he will not be elected as prime minister, signalling a dismissal on her part as to the prospect of any future collaboration.
Powers says the only common ground the two parties could have is on conservation. “Harper had tons of common ground with all the parties on conservation. The initiative to plant trees is something that they can get around and in fact conservatives have always concerned themselves with conservation in order to seek out common ground with the opposition parties,” he said.