“We are clearly in a mess and the mess is spiraling out of control,” Independent MP Bruce Hyer told the Green Party convention last weekend. “We can continue to pursue a path that results in winners and losers ... or we can smarten up. … As far as I can see, Elizabeth is the leader who is putting our planet and our country ahead of party politics.”
Green Party leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) says she has been calling for more cooperation and respectful dialogue among Parliamentarians since she was elected to the House of Commons last year, and it’s the reason she invited Mr. Hyer (Thunder Bay-Superior North, Ont.) and Liberal MP Stéphane Dion (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, Que.) to speak at this year’s Green Party national convention in B.C., however odd that may seem at the outset.
“Parliament will work better when partisanship is checked at the door. When we’re not in election mode, parties should stop trying to kill each other,” Ms. May told The Hill Times. “We are elected as Parliamentarians. There’s nothing about the constitution of Canada that requires that Parliamentarians represent political parties. What we are supposed to do is represent constituents, and I think reducing the partisan strife within Parliament would make a huge difference … at least setting an atmosphere of respectful communication.”
The Green Party’s convention took place in Sidney, B.C. from Aug. 17 to 19. In addition to debating party policy and a variety of training sessions, were guest speeches from Mr. Dion, who spoke about his ideas on changing the Canadian voting system, and Mr. Hyer, who spoke about his decision to leave the NDP caucus and the need for Parliamentarians to work together and represent constituents irrespective of party policy.
Despite his high praises for the Green Party leader and platform, Mr. Hyer said he currently has no plans to join the party. He said he will continue as an independent MP for now. Mr. Hyer, who introduced legislation proposing the seats in the House of Commons be scrambled so MPs are not in party blocks and legislation to allow cross party co-sponsorship of private members bills last session, said he felt the topic was an important one to discuss, and was eager to do so with a party whose leader is central to the call for a reformed Parliament. Mr. Hyer said he thinks there needs to be more Green MPs on the Hill.
For Mr. Dion, electoral reform has long been a matter of personal interest and focus, and he said after speaking with Liberal leader Bob Rae (Toronto Centre, Ont.) and receiving his encouragement, he accepted Ms. May’s invitation.
“It’s about the basic rule of democracy. How do you elect Members of Parliament? Do you keep the first-past-the-post system we have now or do you consider another system that would be more effective for Canadian democracy and Canadian cohesion?” said Mr. Dion. “Basic rules of democracy should be under discussion by political parties, and for that parties need to speak to each other, they can’t ignore each other. … I would have pronounced the same speech, sentence by sentence if I would have been in a situation to speak to the Liberals or the Conservatives or the NDPers.”
Ms. May said while it might seem like a strange concept, she’s been working to set a “different tone around politics” since arriving on the Hill and it just seemed “sensible” to extend her call for a more collegial, cooperative tone among Parliamentarians to the convention. In addition to Mr. Hyer and Mr. Dion, Ms. May invited an international panel of Green MPs to speak at the convention: Finnish Green MP Oras Tynkkynen; French Green member André Gattolin; Jean Lambert, a member of England’s Green Party; and Metiria Turei, a Green MP from New Zealand.
Along with policy discussion, Ms. May said training workshops were held to share with volunteers the successful tactics and approaches her campaign took in Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C., in 2011, as well as to train Green volunteers on how to fundraise.
Fundraising has become a leading concern for the Green Party since last summer when, upon achieving a majority government in the May 2011 federal election, the Conservative Party made good on their election promise to put an end to the per-vote subsidies. Former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien introduced the subsidies in 2004 to compensate for new limits imposed on union, corporate and individual donations to parties.
The three-year phasing out of the $2-per-vote annual subsidy officially kicked off at the beginning of April 2012, with parties receiving $1.50 per vote instead, adjusted for inflation. Next year that will decrease to $1, and the next year 50 cents, before the subsidy is phased out completely.
Though the larger political parties will lose a higher dollar value because of their higher number of votes, the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP have sophisticated and well-tested fundraising operations to cushion their loss. Alice Funke, author of the website Pundit’s Guide, told The Hill Times earlier this month that the Green Party is more susceptible to the per-vote subsidy loss because over the years the party structured itself in a way that depended on that money.
The Conservative Party’s Constituent Information Management System, CIMS, has received much attention and has been lauded for its role in enabling the party to effectively tap into its large and well-established fundraising base. Ms. May said the Green Party has its own database system—developed by a long-time Green who now works in her Hill office—where they store data gleaned when canvassing a riding but said it’s not at the “big brother” level of the Conservatives’ system, “nor would I want it to be.”
“I don’t think any political party in the history of this country has ever had anything like the amount of information on Canadians that the Conservative Party has,” said Ms. May. “We’re not aspiring to know everything about everybody, but we do want to know where the Green Party votes are.”
With this year’s subsidy reduction (as well as a reduction in the number of votes the party garnered in the 2011 election), the Green Party received $218,826 in funding, down $72,264. In the Green Party’s March 2012 quarterly return, they reported a total of $258,444 in contributions from 3,846 donors; in their June 2012 report, the party reported a boost in fundraising, bringing in $312,456 from 4,021 donors.
John Streicker, who currently sits on the Green Party federal council as past president (his year as party president came to an end in July and Mark MacKenzie was recently elected as the new president), said in examining how to deal with the loss of the per-vote subsidy last year, the party put in place a plan to raise their fundraising by 15 per cent each year until 2015.
“It’s definitely a growth model. It isn’t just about the money we will lose. It’s about how we intend to build the party towards the next election and beyond,” said Mr. Streicker.
Ms. May said the party is already raising more money than would typically come in a non-election year. Mr. Streicker said with Ms. May in Parliament, Green Party membership is growing again after a drop in votes in the last election, something he said they believe was due to Ms. May’s exclusion from the leader’s debate during the election campaign.
“[We’re] focusing on monthly donations versus one time donations, so building up a relationship with our donors, always making sure that when we’re providing an opportunity for supporters to donate that they see it as working around a cause, so on particular issues that we’re fighting for politically. As well, we believe that some of the growth in fundraising will be through social media and micro-donation,” said Mr. Streicker.
Ms. May said improving fundraising and expanding Green Party membership are key to getting the party in a good position for the 2015 election, and said the party is currently paying close attention to the multiple upcoming byelections with hopes that they can add some plurality to their federal caucus before the next general election.
“We won’t have anything like the funds of the other parties but assuming I’m in the debates and we have the fundraising going as well as so far we’re doing, I think we’ll be in a position to have a very serious and credible national campaign,” said Ms. May.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: LAURA RYCKEWAERT
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