I have, for over forty years been an active member of the BC NDP. At election time I contributed what money my wife and I could possibly afford. I was always enthusiastic about door to door canvassing, putting up signs—doing what I could to elect NDP candidates who I felt would stand up for the social justice and environmental values I hold dearly.
It seems to me that the current NDP provincial government, under the leadership John Horgan and Carole James, has done a reasonably good job of moving toward a more just and caring society with the need to foster the long term well being of our economy. I would give our current government very high marks for cleaning up the, BC Liberal created, swamp of big money dominance over our electoral process and all the corruption that went with it.
Indeed if it were not for climate change and the unfulfilled promises on reconciliation with the First Nations of our province, I would have been, perhaps, even more enthusiastic about supporting the NDP in our next provincial election.
BUT…I have three beautiful grandchildren, and you could not plumb the depth of feeling that I have about leaving a healthy, living/livable world for them to grow up in. On the environment, especially climate change, the NDP gets grossly failing marks. And tied to its failings on climate change, the Horgan government has made an absolute hypocrisy of its commitment to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Rather than leadership on climate change and Indigenous rights Horgan and James have made it clear that whenever big money speaks they will prostrate themselves in eager servitude.
Now the Horgan government did make a pretence of opposing the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion that would triple the current pipeline’s capacity to carry tar sands oil to lower mainland ports. The BC NDP government petitioned the courts to determine if BC has jurisdiction to limit substances harmful to the environment from entering the province. But, let’s be honest here, they didn’t put much into the effort that they had to know in advance they didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of turning back the pipeline expansion through the courts. I don’t think the Supreme Court of Canada gave the petition even a serious reading before it was perfunctorily rejected.
During the 2017 election, John Horgan stood with opponents of the being-constructed Site C dam, labeling it a multibillion-dollar boondoggle. After the election he changed his tune. Site C, it seems, is crucial to supplying the power to condense fracked natural gas to Liquefied Natural Gas for shipment abroad—a project that has become the hallmark of the Horgan government despite condemning a proposed LNG project during the election because of its greenhouse gas emissions.
It seems Horgan’s NDP government has undergone a Saul on the road to Damascus conversion on LNG granting more than generous tax subsidies to construct gas pipelines and build a dubious plant to liquefy the fracked gas in Kitimat while tearing up its commitment to reconciliation with First Nations in order to get the gas there by the shortest, quickest, most objectionable pipeline route regardless of First Nations objections. It seems that Horgan isn’t a tidbit interested in the impact of this taxpayer subsidized project on gutting the once touted goal of cutting GHGs by 40% by 2030. The project will generate, in Phase One, 3.4 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually!
It would, indeed, be hard put to find an instance of Horgan’s government actually doing something meaningful about climate change and never if it means shifting the economy away from GHG augmenting industries like the five mountaintop removal coalmines in the Elk Valley.
On the environment side, the Horgan government actions do not diverge substantially from that of the BC Liberals.
The life of our BC forests certainly does not face a brighter future for the election of the NDP. This year more than 1,300 hectares of old growth on Vancouver Island go on the block.
Despite its advances on social justice and election financing, when it comes to the environment and Aboriginal rights the NDP under Horgan continues with the economy is all, environment can be considered only if it doesn’t get in the way of development mentality of his NDP predecessors who were a little more forth coming about their views on protecting our environment–like Premier Glen Clark who called Greenpeace members “enemies of British Columbia and “eco-terrorists” for their efforts to protect the “Great Bear Rainforest”or Carole James who, as party leader, wanted to ‘ax the carbon tax” or Mike Harcourt who was the first BC premier to charge civil demonstrators blocking a contested logging road with criminal offences—an action not even Social Credit governments had considered.
I am reluctant to admit this even to myself, but the hard truth seems to overwhelming argue that the NDP just cannot understand that the very basis of our lives on this planet is dependent, not on an ever expanding economy but on a healthy functioning planetary ecosystem and a life sustaining atmosphere. A just and equitable society is very important to me, but a just and equitable society will not last long if we don’t start paying much closer attention to a healthy functioning planetary ecosystem and a life sustaining atmosphere.
Unless there is a substantial turnaround in the Horgan government’s commitment to acting on the environmental well being of our province and acting to implement their words about meaningful reconciliation with First Nations, I will not be voting NDP in the next election. I will not be supporting them with my money nor my volunteer efforts and I will encourage my friends and associates to do the same. The wellbeing of the planet that we leaving to our children and grandchildren is that important to me.
Who will I, then, support? The BC Green Party seems an obvious answer but they have been supporting the BCNDP through this whole term in office. I have serious reservations about a BC Green Party government and I am not willing to abandon the many social justice advances that the NDP has brought in to a party that often seems to hold much more conservative social values than I can support. So who/what party can be both socially progressive and committed to a healthy environment? I do not ask this rhetorically. I am most interested in your thoughts. One might say “vote for an independent candidate” but independents are both ineffectual and unpredictable. So do we need a Green Democratic Party—and further split the opposition to the big business interest only Liberal Party that doesn’t care for social justice nor our environment unless it is to the benefit of some highly profitable, wealthy corporate interest?
Is this the conundrum on which democracy founders?
A collection of responses I have received:
A:There has been a great deal of discussion – once it was obvious pro-rep was a lie and not going to happen – around Green/NDP cooperation. It seems simply pragmatic – to continue, at least in BC, the current CASA arrangement. Which is a long way from a “coalition”. But I suspect, at least here on VI where party lines are so entrenched, that the ideologies are irreconcilable.
B:Found a dialogue on NDP/Green cooperation that happened in Ottawa on Feb. 1st: “Politics That Work – How the Green Party and the NDP can work together to bring about change” – A panel discussion hosted by Green Party candidate for Cape Breton – Canso, Clive Doucet. With Elizabeth May; Interim Green Party leader Joann Roberts; Former Ottawa City Councillor and NDP MPP Alex Cullen and NDP and community activist Candyrose Freeman.
Panel video, starts at 50:00. https://www.facebook.com/ripplefxcanada/videos/181570702915450/
Article by Alex Cullen from this week.
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/cullen-shouldnt-the-green-party-and-the-ndp-start-dating
B:As for your suggestion of a ‘sustainable pledge’ – I have trouble with the word sustainable, and have since Bruntland (1987). It implies we can sustain business as usual under capitalism – and therefore, compromise. Just too easy to twist – ‘clean coal’ and pipelines etc etc. Longer discussion there, I’m sure.
C:Ronna-Rae has been so invisible—except for fundraising—but where to find a viable replacement.
A:The candidate and not the party seems a reasonable alternative . The question remaining for me is in supporting a candidate who is whipped into alignment with the caucus it seems we end up getting the party views governing instead of the values you voted for in the candidate. I suspect Ronna Rae has personal environmental views but she is part of what keeps Horgan pushing Site C and fracked gas.
Norm:Aside: separate from Green –NDP issues purse it amazes me how nearly everyone can see the impasse on Proportional Representation PR and not see that we could have had Preferential Ballot PB if influential people hadn’t been so rigid about our way or no way. I agree PB is not as distributive just as PR but it is doable. And it is not so confusing to the bulk of the population and it is how every party in Canada (and likely world) elects their leaders –because they don’t want a first past the post election that would see in the case of 5 candidates their leader elected with as little as 21% of the vote. Under PB everyone would vote for their first choice but their vote isn’t wasted if their first choice doesn’t get elected.
I am delighted with this conversation with you and others because it is refreshing to talk outside the confines of media defined limits and it is about how we can get a more just and sustainable world by redemocracizing our election process (much larger context than just elections). I was moved by one of the panelists who said that the only way to effectively deal with climate change is to fix our broken democracies. Yikes seems a tall order but I can see the wisdom in his assertion.
Maybe we can see it this way: the NDP did do a good job of cleaning up the influence of big money over elections in BC. They are working on social justice—not enough but moving that way. Maybe an NDP govt that has to take in Green cabinet ministers is the govt we are looking for. YIKES! –it IS what we are looking for! What we need to do now is find a way to concentrate Green votes in some ridings and NDP in others so that the next govt is an actual coalition AND the great thing about this idea is that by concentrating votes we JOYFULLY greatly reduce the chance of a split that allows the corrupt Liberals, who care only for big money and aren’t the slightest interested in social justice or environment, to get in!!
“This is it, Charlie Brown. If you vote one more time, there will be real change.” So said a slightly doctored caption in a Charlie Brown cartoon that I saw a while ago. As usual, when Charlie Brown tried to kick the ball, Lucy lifted it out of the way at the last second. And there was no real change after the election.
“If voting changed anything, they would make it illegal.” This has been attributed to the anarchist Emma Goldman, although I have seen a similar quote supposedly coming from Mark Twain.
In British Columbia we have a two-party dictatorship. Both do whatever the multinationals tell them, but the NDP tries to be a bit nicer about it. Some people call Horgan a Christie Clark with better PR and better handouts for the poor. Given their performance since the last election (Site C, LNG, native blockades, teachers, etc.), it is hard not to be too cynical about this assessment of the NDP.
Regarding future voting options, there aren’t many. There are countries in Europe with 2 or 3 parties on the left of the political spectrum and 2 or 3 on the right. So one has a wide menu to choose from. And proportional representation means that your vote is not totally wasted. But here the only option left is the Green Party. Unfortunately, they aren’t very “green” (for example, they did not oppose Site C) and they are quite socially conservative and not particularly supportive of oppressed minorities around the world.
So the only solution is if the left wing of the NDP left the party, joined the Greens and tried to influence the party as its policies evolve. We would end up with a Red/Green party. Whether this is realistic or not, I am not sure.
Finally, given the reaction of Alberta and Ottawa to the native blockades, I am thinking about the typical behaviour of a violent husband when he hears that his wife is planning to leave him. He gets even more violent. Alberta is introducing the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, which basically makes everything a “critical infrastructure” and any type of behaviour (holding a banner on anything “critical”, for example), an illegal act subject to massive fines and/or jail terms. Civil disobedience? What is that when profits are being threatened?
So, Norm, the voters can try to see if it is true that “If you vote one more time, there will be real change.”, or they can stay at home and read a good book, or they can join the Greens with a few thousand other people and see if they can influence the party from within.
This reminds me: while we talk of the failure of PR in the last provincial referendum and Trudeau’s deception, we seldom hear any admission that there is a half way choice—Preferential Ballot PB that may not be as distributively effective as PR –but it is much better than First Past the Post FPP AND it is easily understood (ease of understanding being the resentment that opponents to PR milked to defeat PR in BC.
I agree PB is not as distributive just as PR but it is doable. And it is not so confusing to the bulk of the population and it is how every party in Canada (and likely world) elects their leaders –because they don’t want FPP that would see, in the case of 5 candidates, their leader elected with as little as 21% of the vote. Under PB everyone would vote for their first choice but their vote isn’t wasted if their first choice doesn’t get elected.
Someone just suggested to me that the only way to effectively deal with climate change is to fix our broken democracies. Yikes seems a tall order but I can see the wisdom in this assertion. We need to ask ourselves not just how can we get PR but how can we reach others who want a better choice than FPP in order that our democratic will to effectively deal with climate change ceases to be hobbled by an archaic electoral system that divides our will to act.
Although some form of proportional representation is probably best I too think preferential balloting would be a big improvement on what we have, allowing me to vote for who I actually like the best. My sense is that Trudeau wanted PB and thought he could use a committee for political cover, which is probably an expression of him being too young and inexperienced for the job in the first place. He should have just campaigned on PB and done it. PR proponents seemed hostile to PB suggesting Trudeau wanted it thinking it would make Liberal governments even more likely. However this thinking assumes behaviour would remain the same while I think that changing the rules would force the parties to change their calculus. The Conservatives would have to moderate their positions in order to make a play for second ballot choices.
Alas probably the solution to your voting dilemma is proportional representation but I guess that’s not in the cards. I’ve long reconciled myself to voting for the least odious option that actually has a chance of winning. In Comox Valley the choice, provincially, is typically between NDP and Liberal although we can be hopeful the Greens might present a realistic option, but, as you say the Greens have their own problems. If both the NDP and Liberals turn out to be equally reprehensible then I’d consider a protest vote.