Angry in the Great White North

I've written before that the Green Party can't win in our first-past-the-post system because our system filters out one-issue parties.  Since each riding is a cross section of Canada, successful parties formulate platforms that is appealing to different groups of people simultaneously.

The Green Party platform is appealing only to people concerned only with the environment.

The Green Party would like to see proportional representation in Canada, simply because it can't succeed to get a plurality of randomly selected Canadians to vote for its environment-first, environment-last, environment-always platform.  It can succeed at finding a significant number of like-minded voters across Canada, a few here and a few there, mostly hidden in wealthy upper-middle class neighbourhoods.  By collecting these people together, the Greens argue, they have enough votes to earn seats. 

David Suzuki tosses all that aside.  That approach is doomed to fail, and in the end, relegates the Green Party to the role of parking spot.  Environmental concerns are ignored, by and large, by mainstream parties, figuring they can't beat the Green Party for credibility on that file no matter how hard they try, but at the same time, realizing that the environmental votes are not going to any mainstream party as long as the Green Party is around.  In other words, if the Conservatives aren't going to win those votes, it won't matter as long as the Liberals and the NDP don't get those votes either.  The other parties make the same calculation, because the existence of the Green Party affects them all in the same way.

And so the environment is neutralized as a campaign issue for parties that are in this to win:

Canada’s foremost environmentalist says there’s no need for the country’s political landscape to include the Green Party.

David Suzuki on Tuesday via teleconference told a gathering of Lakehead University students that as long as there’s a Green Party the environment will be tossed around like a hot potato with no real action being completed.

"There shouldn’t be a Green Party," he said, matter-of-factly and unexpectedly.

An outspoken supporter of outgoing Liberal Leader Stephane Dion’s much maligned Green Shift carbon tax proposal, Suzuki suggested having a party solely focused on sustainability and the environment will not make the impact most supporters are hoping for.

Suzuki praised Green Party Leader Elizabeth May for getting into the national television debates during the recent election campaign, but suggested her platform is one better served if adopted by more mainstream parties.

"I really think we’ve got to drive the green agenda so it becomes everyone’s agenda," Suzuki said to an Agora audience of about 150.

"But until they understand that, yes, this has got to be the way we all act, it’s going to continue to be a political football."

I've argued before that in a two-party system, fringe groups like the Green Party will find their policies adopted and integrated into a mainstream party (maybe even both mainstream parties, but with different approaches).  That's the only way to succeed.  What happened in the last election was that the Liberals adopted a sort of lightweight Green Party platform, but the Green Party continued to fight for votes (even if the Elizabeth May was confused on that point).  Being a mainstream party, the Liberals had to balance the Green Shift with other political realities.  The Green Party could remain pure and dogmatic.  As a result, environmental voters generally went with the Green Party, and the Liberals suffered (in particular alienating voters who thought the Liberals were too green).  The Conservatives and the NDP didn't have to fight for the environmentalist vote since they could see that the Liberals weren't getting that vote either, that voting block having been neutralized by the existence of the Green Party.

I think David Suzuki has got this global warming nonsense completely wrong, but he's making sense on this point.   Thanks to the Green Party, environmental issues will never  become more mainstream.  That's too bad, because there are a lot of legitimate environmental issues being given scant attention, putting aside, for the moment, the scam of global warming or climate change or whatever they're calling it these days.  A mainstream party won't bother figuring out the right way to deal with this complex set of issues, though, as long as the Green Party ensures that no mainstream party will ever benefit electorally from being more green.

Indeed, thanks to the Green Party, being green is a sure way to lose votes.

The Liberals are (barely) living proof of that.

Update: The Green Party issues an official response.

Update: David Suzuki clarifies his comments.  Well, not really.