Greens fear for party’s future after BDS vote
Support of Israel boycott added to platform
OTTAWA • Despite reassurances from its leader and president, the Green party’s adoption of controversial resolutions at a biennial convention in Ottawa this weekend is causing some to question its political future.
Leader Elizabeth May said she and some others in the Green shadow cabinet felt “pretty devastated” after members voted in favour of adding support for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel to the party platform Sunday.
Still, after what was seen as a largely successful convention, she projected resilience, saying, “we don’t make decisions as a party based on what we think is going to make it more popular.”
May made it clear she personally opposes controversial BDS tactics and lamented that a compromise hadn’t been reached to bridge the gap between the two opposite camps.
The party’s foreign affairs critic, Lisa Barrett, garnered applause during a tense workshop session Saturday morning after saying it behooved the party to support Palestinians affected by Israeli occupation.
“If we hold strong, we will be leaders amongst Canadian political parties,” she said. “Let’s stand up for social justice.”
At the plenary just before the vote, the resolution’s submitter, Dimitri Lascaris, cited UN reports on the occupation that said many people of repute had supported BDS, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and physicist Stephen Hawking.
But May left open the possibility the BDS move could be debated again at the next convention two years from now.
That had been the case with a resolution on charitable status revocation passed Saturday, which originally targeted the Jewish National Fund (JNF) but was amended to condemn human rights abuses more generally and remove reference to any specific group.
In one of the first signs of public backlash, the JNF and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs released a joint statement Sunday afternoon saying they were pleased to see JNF removed from the policy but “appalled” to see the “outrageous” BDS motion pass.
Coincidentally, the Israeli government on Sunday declared it would begin trying to deport or bar the entry of activists advocating for a boycott of Israel.
The Green party’s BDS decision worries a contingent of party faithful that believes electoral prospects are being sacrificed in favour of policies that make the Greens look more like an advocacy group than a political party.
“I get a little discouraged,” said Sonia Theroux, a B.C. campaigner and strategist who attended the convention as a speaker.
Theroux warned the BDS motion will cost the party on the campaign front, and that its ranks should be better-versed in the way politics actually works, the way to actually get elected. “We’re terrible at the ground game,” she said.
Party president Ken Melamed said the “party will allow these discussions to come and we will respect the decision of the membership. We’re committed to democracy.”
“We’re more worried about staying true to our principles.”
May said: “It may attract people to us to know that we’re the only political party that doesn’t shut down debate and doesn’t run topdown. Clearly.”
Though punctuated with strong opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the convention’s primary aim was to put forward a robust program focused on proportional representation.
With electoral reform on the table in Ottawa, a switch to a more-proportional voting system could help the party garner a bigger voice in Parliament.
The co-leader of New Zealand’s Green Party, MP James Shaw, spoke Friday about his country’s experience with the
IF WE HOLD STRONG, WE WILL BE LEADERS AMONGST CANADIAN POLITICAL PARTIES.
mixed-member proportional system, adopted in the ’90s by way of referendum.
And EKOS pollster Frank Graves told convention attendees electoral reform could offer the Greens an opportunity to leapfrog over the NDP.
Time was also devoted to other issues more typically associated with the party, including strong messages about the Liberal government’s responsibility to update emissions targets, and scorn — including more than one accusation of vampirism — for investor-state dispute mechanisms and the TransPacific Partnership.
Despite some social media grumblings among party grassroots that a leadership confirmation vote earlier this year wasn’t well-explained within the party — less than a third of Greens voted, according to one estimate, though May garnered a 93 per cent approval rating — it was obvious at the convention May’s leadership is well-supported and seen as being tied to the success of the party.
May said she’s still committed to her job.
“But I sometimes question if it does take a dose of masochism to be committed,” she said, noting her actual power within the party structure is limited (though her influence is larger-than-life) but if anything goes wrong, she gets the flack.