GreenerPolitics

Jane Sterk, a 60-year old city counsellor, was elected Leader of the Green Party of British Columbia on Sunday October 21.  During her acceptance speech, she said that she intended to run only for one term and keep up with her duties on city council in Esquimault.

Her priorities over her term include are:

1.  Within six months to have a full-time, staffed office in Victoria that is capable of providing support to the leader, provincial council, regions, constituency associations and members.

2. Within three months, to have a fully functioning database so we can better retain our members and a website that is compelling and robust.

3. To increase our predictable funding from Evergreen donations and individuals donations to fund our internal operations and to help finance the 2009 campaign.

4. To bring the BC Green Party message to business groups, public service sector representatives, civil society groups, service clubs, environmental organizations, seniors’ groups so they agree that we need to have MLAs in Victoria to improve the governing of the province.

5. To have an election strategy by May 2008 and to be election-ready by the fall of 2008.

Among her supporter she singled out for thanks, she mentioned Ian Gregson for facebook and internet support, the number of endorsements from mayors and city counselors throughout British Columbia.

toronto.ctv.ca

Parties like the Green Party of Ontario will not be financially penalized for not winning elections, an Ontario superior court judge has ruled.

Justice Paul Perell said smaller parties are put at a disadvantage with a provision that forces candidates to give up their $200 deposits if they receive less than 10 per cent of the vote, the Globe and Mail reported.

Perell said the provision goes against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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Macleans.ca staff, Macleans Magazine

This week’s Maclean’s investigation of Green leader Elizabeth May refers to the Green Party of Canada as a “phosphate-free soap opera.” And there’s no more telling indicator of internal friction than party member willingness to leak confidential  emails.

Most of the missives received by Maclean’s pertained to the fallout from the controversial  agreement  between Elizabeth May and Stéphane Dion that they would not run candidates in one another’s ridings in the next federal election.  Soon after the April 12 announcement was made, a talking-points directive was sent out about how to field questions. Other correspondence reflects members’ concerns that May flouted protocol by not receiving formal approval from the executive council before announcing the arrangement.

Also forwarded were May’s responses to party members on various topics—including strategic voting, the defection of former Green Briony Penn to the Liberals  and the “corrupt Liberal establishment.” Through it all May remains resilient buoyed by the 10 lessons learned at her mother’s knee, included in her 2006 activism primer How to Save the World in Your Spare Time.

Read the leaked e-mails

Kelly MacParland, National Post

Jack Layton must look at the results of the Ontario election and shudder. Not just because in the past three elections the provincial NDP has managed to increase its seat count from nine all the way up to 10. But because support for the Green party grew from 2.8% in 2003 to 8% this time around. That puts them half way to equalling the NDP.

The Greens didn’t win a single seat, and don’t look like they’re about to. They’re still a bity iffy at the top, and the average voter hasn’t got a clue what they actually stand for, other than the vague notion that they favour a cleaner environment. That’s exactly what makes them so scary: people barely know a thing about the Greens and they vote for them anyway.

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from the CBC

No Green party candidates made it to the Ontario legislature in Wednesday’s election, but that defeat was sweetened by a swell in their share of the popular vote, which more than doubled.

Ontario Green Leader Frank de Jong was defeated in his own electoral district. Liberal Tony Ruprecht easily won the Toronto riding of Davenport, with de Jong still jockeying with Progressive Conservative candidate Antonio Garcia for third place behind NDP candidate Peter Ferreira at 12:30 a.m. ET Thursday.

The Green’s greatest hope for their first seat, Shane Jolley, was also defeated by Conservative incumbent Bill Murdoch, CBC News projects. Murdoch had taken 46 per cent of the popular vote by 12:30 a.m. ET, compared to Jolley’s 35 per cent in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound.

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