Environmental crisis - Part two - The Greens

At this point of time, the Canadian environmental effort staggers from disaster to disaster. The major crisis for the Canada isn’t Global Warming. Not at all.

Only one great disaster remains and it is Humans. The worst thing to happen to the Canadian environment may surprise some. The enemy isn’t the greedy selfish energy guzzling Canadian businessman. At the heart of the crisis is the failure of the environmentalists themselves. The Canadian Green Party(s) continue playing the parable to a political Katrina, …nay a whole series of Katrina class storms.

Politically they cannot get it together. In theory, the Canadian Green Party represents the environment. In action, they mimic Keystone Cops lurching from idea to idea. Bickering amongst themselves incessantly. Making plainly stupid political decisions. They lack leadership, focus and vision.

Result a disaster for the environment. The accumulated follies would assemble into a long list, a compendium of literal disaster. Certainly Green Party members are well meaning people, good people, but presently they haven’t identified the problem. It isn’t waste. It isn’t emissions. Its them.

Top of the list remains the leadership of the party. While the environment remains the top most priority, Canadian environmental politicians care more about strokes to their ego rather than saving a pound of air. Get with it. Hell will suffer from Infernal Freezing before Elizabeth May wins an election, and any election against Peter MacKay in Nova Scotia, in MacKay’s home riding.

For a while there, the Green Party appeared to be on the right track with the leadership of Jim Harris. They were in growth mode albeit one too slow. Harris steered the party into the business and commercial mainstream. The theme was becoming mainstream Canadian.

Canadian voters are for the most part central on the political spectrum. Middle of the road positioning is politically important. Key to the voters is the policies regarding the environment. Apparently the common sense approach to politics remained subordinate to personal viewpoints. The radical factions of the Green Party maneuvered Harris into resigning and took over the party.

May’s surrender to Dion in consenting to allow the Liberals to help her try to win against MacKay remains a questionable tactic.

Not all Liberals will join her and more likely simply refuse to vote. One hunch is that she is not listening to any sound political advice. Even on paper her challenge in this riding is politically stupid. The riding in any form has remained in Conservative hands for at least fifty years with the exception of four years during the first Chretien landslide that swept any Mulroney Tory aside east of the Manitoba Border save for three. In the next election, the riding returned to the Tory side and the politician that did this was Peter MacKay.

By this no-compete effort between her party and the Liberals she may think this is a good thing but she literally killed her very own party by denying the Green party in Stephan Dion’s own riding to make a statement at the polling station. It is an anti-democratic move.

Worse it instantly paints the red Liberals green and environmental. The only recorded achievement Dion did for the environment during his ministerial tenure was to name his dog Kyoto. As for the real Kyoto it was largely ignored suffering from the usual posture of the modern Liberal politician which is to sit quietly on all hands. May foolishly handed the Liberal party environmental legitimacy.

Contrast this with the Harris stand against the urbanite dandy leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) Jack Layton. Jim Harris’s move to the centre suborned the alleged tree hugging posturing of the NDP. The NDP jumps on any fashionable cause de jour, promising but never delivering in any government they controlled in the last twenty years. (Can anyone recall the NDP mantra about Ontario Public Auto?)

Magnifying this was the continuing grievous mishandling by the Green Party of the Wayne Crookes’ Affair. Apparently Green Party members and internet sites are being sued allegedly for libel and slander on the internet blogs. The merits of this litigation is best left to the law courts. Regardless this sequence of events should have never occurred in the first place.

Of all the Canadian environmentalists to constantly harp but do absolutely nothing about it, is David Suzuki. When I was a member of the now defunct National Party under the political amateur Mel Hurtig. The major plank of the National Party involved the environment. Suzuki was rumored to have assured that if Mel took the jump to lead the party, he would be a candidate.

Indeed doubtless Suzuki has not only been asked by the National Party but he had received offers from the NDP, the Liberals (but they’ll ask anybody), and the present Green Party to run in a riding as a candidate. I can only speak to the National Party experience with Suzuki and a little bit with the NDP.

The National Party did start out rather well and united. One of those reasons was the possibility that Suzuki would run. Indeed some of the senior officials within that party felt that it was a done deal. Another promise of participation allegedly came from Maude Barlow another mouth and no action person. Recall that at that time there were only four self proclaimed and widely acknowledged ethical champions of Canada. Mel Hurtig, Maude Barlow, David Suzuki, and Margaret Atwood.

Of the four only one stuck their neck out, and put their reputation on the line politically and that was Hurtig. It is easy to understand why Atwood wouldn’t run, she’s a writer, an unelectable political dilettante. Maude Barlow would have been an iffy candidate. But the star was Suzuki.

Political experts within the nascent political party had correctly ascertained that Suzuki was likely the single most electable environmentalist in Canada. Certainly he would have won in any riding in British Columbia. It was also felt that Suzuki would have been the number two political leader in that party and certainly any party for that matter. Indeed had he asked he could have assumed the mantle of party leader. So strong is the Canadian identity and contact to ordinary Canadians by Suzuki that any campaign manager could have assisted Suzuki to become a political party leader of any political party of his choosing.

That was then. This is now, a decade and half later. Incredibly if Suzuki so chose to do so, he would easily win in many of the seats in Canada. Why doesn’t he?

Well, it would mean public scrutiny. This is the usual excuse. But then he has always been a public person used to being in the public. On the one hand the rumored participation by him in the National Party could have been used as membership bait. The mere mention of his name inspires participation. I can only relate what was told to me. He couldn’t run and keep his contract with CBC.

Recently, Suzuki went on a cross Canada environmental crusade to save Kyoto and stop global warming. According to the reports I’ve read, he did this in a large diesel guzzling luxury RV. He and his spokes people retorted that this was the only option. How wrong. Another option exists. He could have taken a Greyhound like the rest of us mortals.

But Suzuki is a case standard. Its fine and dandy for those celebrity environmentalists to spout. Remember, when people like Suzuki speak the critical issue of the environment to them it still is not their number one concern. Their bank account is.

To win this fight the time for talk is over. It takes guts to change the course of human history. Anyone can talk about it, til cows can roost in the treetops. People can make minuscule efforts to help the environment but at the moment it is not a small change, it is a big change that is needed. It is a political change that is needed. To save the environment depends wholly on a smart plan, a smart vision, a smart action on politics, a smart political leadership and a smart political unity.