While there is some discussion going on about when the next leadership race should happen and where is already determined (Toronto…. maybe, depending on the when), it’s time to move onto the who. Who could run as the Leader? Who should run as the Leader? What does the Green Party want from someone running for this position?
The Current Leadership
Elizabeth May – as the current leader, the question isn’t one of “will she run?” but rather “does she really want another 4 years of this?”. She’s had a long 4 years of bouncing back and forth across the country for countless personal appearances and book tours. Compound this with two failed attempts to win a seat in Parliament (despite the party dumping full resources into London North Centre and Central Nova) and a failed attempt to gain a seat in the Senate, is this really something she wants anymore?
As someone who “hates” politics, Saanich-Gulf Islands will likely be her final litmus test for the party and for the Canadian electorate. If the party (not Federal Council but the active membership) won’t 100% commit to SGI and the voters of SGI won’t elect her, there is no point to continue jet setting across the country with hardly any days off. The bigger question is whether this litmus test will happen BEFORE the leadership race.
Adriane Carr – one time successful (by Green standards) BC Greens Leader who sits as the current GPC Deputy Leader, she’s been the paid candidate for Vancouver Centre for the last 3+ years. Active on both the Shadow Cabinet and Federal Council, attempting to move up one spot on the organization chart is not out of the question. This last summer’s tour of EDAs, funded by the Party and the EDAs, was definitely orchestrated to test the waters for her to move into the #1 spot and help build a contact list of supporters.
However, recent history hasn’t been kind to Deputy Leaders of the various Green Parties, national or provincial. They have either not run for the top spot when available or have failed to capture the seat. None of the Deputy Leader of the GPO ran to replace Frank de Jong, none of the DLs ran to replace Ms. Carr in BC and David Chernushenko wasn’t successful in replacing Jim Harris as GPC Leader in 2006.
Claude Genest – pretty much the flip side of the coin on Deputy Leaders. While Ms. Carr is active, engaged, paid and likely to run, Mr. Genest isn’t any of those. While he was mulling a run at the Leadership role in 2006, he’s pretty much detached himself from the party over the last 3 years.
Provincial Leaders
Jane Sterk – one of a handful of Greens within the party that can call themselves “elected”, she sits as a town councilor in her BC community as well as Leader of the BC Greens. While possessing the skill sets to hold the position, she’s on record of planning to work on improving the BC Greens
George Read/Joe Anglin – With the deregistration of the Alberta Greens, both these former Leaders have plenty of time to now run for the federal job as long as the stigma of having a provincial party deregistered doesn’t stick. However, I’ve heard, that Mr. Read has stepped away from politics to focus on family and Mr. Anglin has returned to his roots of annoying the hell out of the Alberta PC’s and their want of a transmission line to the US.
Larissa Shasko – not a high profile candidate but a well connected one, Ms. Shasko is on the GPC Federal Council, sits as the Leader of the Sask. Greens, Finance Chair of the Young Greens and is on the executive of the local chapter of Fair Vote Canada. Unlike some of the other potential candidates, on this list, she’s young and more associated with the party’s strongest support base (the under 30s).
Frank de Jong – as mentioned above, Mr. de Jong recently stepped down as GPO Leader and now has plenty of time to devote to running for Leader of the GPC. That being said, after 16 years as GPO Leader, what resources does he have left “up his sleeve” that would improve the GPC’s standing beyond the 8% that they already match in Ontario?
Sharon Labchuk – seeing that the current PEI Greens Leader is also the federal party’s Director of Organizing, one could assume that she has both the leadership and organizing skills to put a together a campaign for the national title. However, like Ms. Carr and Mr. de Jong, Ms. Labchuk has been in her dual roles for quite a while and may have tapped out the necessary resources to make a serious run.
High Profile Local Candidates
Mike Nagy/Dick Hibma – Both were very successful local candidates in the 2008 Election but neither are running again in the upcoming election. While not a requirement for leadership, candidates coming from the “strong local candidate” angle need to demonstrate this in a potential spring election.
Huguette Allen – another highly successful local candidate from 2008 who has taken key roles in the party (Federal Council, Shadow Cabinet, one time member of Campaign Committee) since then. While relatively new to the political arena, she has quickly integrated herself into the party fabric and has some of the qualities of a strong leader.
Dan Grice – Had a very successful run in Vancouver Quadra byelection and recently worked on the BC-STV campaign (building contacts/support in non-Green camps). He’s another one of those “younger” candidates.
Stuart Hertzog – he’s high profile in a way no others are. While Mr. Hertzog was unsuccessful in challenging Ms. May for the SGI nomination, he does represent a portion of the Green Party normally called the “deep Greens”. I wouldn’t be surprised that a candidate, if not Mr. Hertzog, will run from this camp to ensure the Greens keep true to their roots.
Chris Tindal - another youthful candidate who had a strong byelection results, this time in Toronto Centre. Good with the media, bilingual and willing to go toe-to-toe with heavy hitters like Bob Rae (and do well), he's another strong candidate assuming he doesn't run for Mayor of Toronto. However, like Mr. Nagy and Mr. Hibma, he's not on the ballot for the next general election.
Big Name Longshots
David Orchard – the anti-NAFTA organic farmer from Saskatchewan has a following that could deliver a victory plus has the experience of running when he ran for the PC Leadership against Peter MacKay. He joined the Liberal Party to support the Leadership of Stephane Dion but no idea if Mr. Orchard is out of favor now that Mr. Dion is too.
Garth Turner – the Canadian political “maverick” who’s spent time in the PC, Conservative and Liberal camps as an MP including a stint as a Cabinet member. He shares principles on environmentalism, fiscal conservatism and transparency in government (I miss MPTV). He, too, has a following that could deliver a victory.
David Suzuki – Despite one-time claims to the contrary on the GPC website, I personally believe Mr. Suzuki is Canada’s top environmentalist. While he spoke at the 2004 Green Party BGM and has been quite supportive of the Green Party, the likelihood that he’ll jump, now, into politics is remote. That being said, he’s also got a tremendous following that would aid in winning the top spot.
Others?
Heard a rumor? Know of someone who should be on this list? Want someone else to run? Drop a comment...
UPDATE - From a reader, Chris Tindal added above.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
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23 comments:
Winners of leadership races can be non-political outsiders with a high public profile (examples: May, Ignatieff).
Or they can be "rising stars" in the party: proven successful campaigners ready for the job of "candidate-in-chief". You mention of few of these, but I wonder if a single good campaign is enough to create the profile for a leadership run.
A third pool of potential leaders are the federal deputy leaders and provincial leaders. Since the leadership vote will be won by whomever collects say, 4,000 ballots, I think that you have to make these presumably well-organized people the front-runners.
Anyone who has "high negatives" within the party (Anglin, Herztog, Labchuk) is obviously a non-starter.
Given current financial and organizational problems, the recent by-election mess, etc., any of the current inner circle who run will face serious competence issues.
Great informative list Mark.
Since I have only a fraction of the inside information, I can't comment on how complete it is, or the fairness of the comments on each.
There are bound to be objections, but the tone says to me that you restrained the strength of the pros and cons you must have for some of the individuals.
Just to make explicit something you raised, most seem to think that Elizabeth May has little appetite for the status quo situation. She might be fine with it for now, but you have to expect that in her own terms its "up or out".
If she were to not win in SGI but come close, that might be good enough to recharge her. That would require a sufficiently broad outpouring of "we want you to stay." And thats feasible, in the abstract.
But all of those questions are moot if the leadership race comes before the general election.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find pundits that EXPECT a Spring election. And at any rate, the contendors have to make their intentions clear long before we will KNOW whether there is a Spring election.
I think its extremely unlikely that May will declare herself definitively in the leadership race if there is any chance that it comes before the general election. Because then she's declaring the intention to be Leader until 2014, come what may.
Even not thinking much of May's standards of integrity, I doubt she would take on a new term if there is any chance she'd be turning around to step down in 2011 or 2012. The damage that would do to the GPC is just too obvious.
But I think its good that you described and commented on all of the candidates irrespective of whether Elizabeth May is in the race.
Carr is the one potential contender whose entry must hinge on whether or not May is in.
And since they are obviously at the very least in close touch about each others plans- that is ultimately going to raise fairness issues.
IE, contendors are strictly limited in how much they can use party resources. Carr uses LOTS. [She has a paid aide as well as her own salary. Plus the travel around the country to talk to EDAs.]
And no one expects Carr to declare herself in as long as May has not declared herself out.
Too early for this to be a pressing issue. But at some point the air needs to be cleared about whether or not May is running... where her continually saying "I'm thinking about it" will become just too convenient to Carr's building of her leadership race capital.
I think that Frank De Jong has real potential. Most of the membership and good organisers live in Ontario. And the latter have bailed out of the GPC and moved over to the GPO because it has been clear for a long time that they are not wanted in the GPC.
The new GPO leader, Mike Shreiner, has committed to building strong CAs in Ontario, which will have the spill-over effect of making Ontario even more of a "centre of excellence" for the GPC.
Finally, the skill set that Frank De Jong brings to the GPC is just what he needs. He is an expert in holding together a dysfunctional organisation and keeping the more practical people mollified enough that they will stay around and fix the mess. He can keep the just about everyone happy while at the same time helping the flakier people towards the exit---.
He won't win seats, but he will build the party. Which is exactly what we need now after the current administration's strategy of strip mining the party in the hope of getting the leader elected.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/11/21/mme-krieber-regrets/#IDComment44231243
@Anon(6:43) - Are you suggesting that Dion be added to the list?
I'd rank him ahead of Garth Turner, slightly behind Blair (forget me not) Wilson.
Carr was instrumental in getting EM elected in 2006. In the three years since then, she had the opportunity to play the "practical veteran campaigner" as a counter-balance to EM's "merry amateurs" approach.
It didn't happen. So she must be held equally accountable for the financial and organizational mess that is GPC in 2009. A vote for Carr would be a vote for "four more years of the same."
Mr. Owl's comment on De Jong are perceptive. The next leader is going to have to do a lot of re-building.
In 2006, GPC tried something new: bring in an outsider with good media skills but no political experience. In 2010, I think the party will not repeat that experiment.
Political virgins probably need not apply. And politicians from outside GPC (Turner, Dion, Wilson) will be at a huge disadvantage.
While I like Frank de Jong, I agree that his bag of tricks might have run out. It's too bad because he was the GPO leader for 16 years.
I think Ms. Carr would be an excellent candidate, but in the end I think we'll be surprised when the time comes to open the start of the contest.
At the Calgary convention I agreed to take minutes at a meeting where various people tried to come up with some sort of consensus about how to deal with Jim Harris's disaster of a promise to spread the money from Elections Canada to riding associations. (I told the people in Guelph not to accept a penny because it was an insane suggestion.)
Adrian showed up late but in the middle of the discussion it became clear that she had promised people that so much money would be coming to her BC riding that they would be able to do things like fund homes for abused women. I was absolutely horrified to find out that someone who had been promoted as someone who really understood politics and who had organised a very successful NGO knew absolutely nothing about finances.
Sorry, but Adrian Carr would be Elizabeth May Mark II. She would be a disaster for the party. We need someone who is a good organiser or someone who is willing to listen to good organisers.
Could you give a little background for your comment Bill.
Calgary Convention was 2004?
Are you saying that the revenue sharing that exists evloved from a promise by Jim Harris? [Rather than something that developed initially at Council or somewhere else like that?]
And did Jim make the promise on the heels of the announcement of the then new federal subsidy for parties?
Did he make the promise in the run-up to the leadership vote, or after?
And when had Carr made the switch to the federal party? Very recently at that point?
These are questions more about the history of 'how to organize' ideas, rather than about the personalities per se.
Ken:
The revenue sharing promise came from Jim Harris who used it as the "hook" to try and get people to organise the first full slate of candidates for the GPC. It was his idea totally.
Carr had just recently re-joined the Green Party of British Columbia after a hiatus for quite a while when she ran the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. She came back, ran for the leadership of the GPBC and then rejoined the GPC as part of that great push that Jim Harris started through the promise of revenue sharing.
Federal Council has always been so incredibly disfunctional that I doubt if an idea like revenue sharing could have come from it.
I don't know if Harris could have organised a full slate of candidates without the promise of revenue sharing. But that money was intended by Elections Canada to help the "head office" of parties stop having to seek big donations from corporations. The rules for fundraising are so generous that local EDAs should be able to raise all the money they need locally. The revenue sharing option does nothing more than allow small groups of dysfunctional people in "rotten EDAs" to continue to stumble along and deny the area to others who might do a better job.
Thanks Bill for the background.
I've been involved in pretty heated discussions in the NDP about the wish to bring in revenue sharing for EDAs. I take the same position that the way to go is get the EDAs to do their own fundraising. And I point out that revenue sharing has not been a raging success in the GPC.
That said, I think you give short shrift to what drives people. Most people have no idea how to ORGANIZE asking for money. So saying that the EDAs have plenty of means is really saying that 'if wishes had wings.."
And Elections Canada, and the policy writers of the Act before them, take a completely hands off approach to how parties use the money. Let alone that disincentives against groveling to corporations are not required- the new Act simply abolished that as a starting point.
Two points on revenue-sharing.
My EDA spends that money a lot more carefully and effectively than the current GPC HQ. "Rotten EDAs" run poor campaigns, and get reduced revenue-sharing as a consequence.
And, given the GPC HQ financial crunch, I am waiting for revenue-sharing to be suspended anyway. Which is really my first point, re-stated :-)
Ken:
I understand the problems of local EDAs not having the necessary skills, but the head office should be teaching the locals how to fundraise.
My understanding was that the NDP was incredibly centralized anyway. When I was on the local Riding Association Executive (a long, long time ago), I seemed to recall that we had to get an OK from Toronto about how to spend all money locally. (Try doing community organizing in that sort of system!)
That was a long time ago, so I would be surprised if it was still the same. Do you still have to be a member of both the federal and provincial NDP at the same time?
I dislike the rotten EDA comments, in many cases local members with little to no knowledge or experience were ASKED to form an EDA and then never given minimal training, help or guidence on how to run an election or recruit.
The fact many EDAs don't work well is not entirely their fault, we feel deserted.
it's the chicken egg thing, without funding no full slate is possible and so no legitimacy, with no funding there would more support from the center but no EDAs.
When we do contact our local members for cash we find that they've been called 3 times in the year by head office and emailed 2times a month asking for money, donor fatige
If you know the secret of getting the 4000 voters in a riding, (whose names you don't know) to become active please tell us.
I've seen Frank and Carr talk, I don't know her managment style or background but she's a good speaker and personable.
I've met Frank several times, he's passionate, hard working but a little wild eyed and likely to slip off the script during speaches making stuff up on the fly that is not policy.
I agree that outsiders would be a mistake and think a leadership review is needed unless May wins this spring.
Youth would be good to recognize but not over substance or salability.
Anonymous:
I'm sorry if you think of yourself as being part of a "rotten EDA". Let me tell you about some of the folks I've met over the years.
In Manitoba there was a guy who seemed to only shave once a month, who wore a skirt and campaigned in a tricycle with a hand-written "green party" sign on the back. I wonder why no one else wanted to join the Greens in his riding?
In Saskatchewan the party was controlled by a bunch of real Marxists who made darn sure that no one joined unless they passed their own personal "litmus test" of ideological purity. (I know because Tom Manley went to an organic grower's conference there and doubled their membership in one weekend.) They wanted to set up a provincial wing so they could control all the money and keep non-pure EDAs from emerging.
There was another guy in BC who lived in the midst of Hippy country and used to complain bitterly because non of his neighbours were willing to help with the campaigns. It certainly came as no surprise to me as he was a charicature of an arrogant English remittance man.
The head office needs to be able to help good people with no experience learn how to do things. And to organize areas where a small group of flakes and kooks have so devalued the Green brand locally that no one wants to get involved.
Just one example. Mike Nagy tells the story about how he wanted to join the Greens ten years before he did and went to a meeting where the chaos so freaked him out that he stayed away. He came to a meeting where Ben Polley and I talked to him and he was so impressed that he joined and decided to run for us.
Politics all comes down to personal relationships.
As for Frank De Jong, I am open to suggestions to support people that I don't know. But I would certainly pick him over Adrianne Carr without wasting a heart beat.
I would actually rate my EDA as marginal, but I understand that some of the Crappy ones are not crappy of their own doing but rather simple abandonment by the party.
re: Bill's questions about practices in the NDP.
That sounds like something from the very bygone days of the Ontario NDP.
You didn't seem to be referring to control of spending in local election campaigns... but what ridings gets what, if any, resources for the election campaign is highly centralized.
And beyond that it tends to be benign neglect you'd be familiar with in the GPC [without the Twilight Zone overtones].
In practice, from what I've seen, resource distribution for campaigns is at least as centralized in the GPC, and more mysterious/capricious. Granted, the NDP has a lot more to distribute- but the same threshold exists of the vast majority of ridings who get little or nothing. So the two parties aren't witthout legitimate comparability.
That was only a guess that in the ONDP you might have at one time needed an OK from HQ to spend your own money locally. I know that would be a preposterous idea today, even in Ontario. But the ONDP used to have a uniquely anal organizational culture- and I don't know much specific about how bad it could get.
You still can only be a member of the federal NDP by dint of being a member of a provincial or territorial section. But the practical effects of that are much diminished since the shnages of the federal Elections Act.
The Liberal's new political director has ordered their war room on stand down, and is asking for a year to organize before the campaign. If this is the case, without some poison pills in the spring budget, we may not see an election until March 2011.
Of course with the polls where they are, and the economy improving slightly, I think that Harper may throw in some 'deficit reducing' actions including the removal of party financing which may force a spring election before the Liberals hold their mythical march policy tournament.
If we don't have a spring election before the leadership race, I think Elizabeth will run again and win hands overwhelmingly. Most members don't have any idea about the internal politics that go online, and anyone with a sense of Machiavellian instinct should be wary against trying to depose a sitting leader without a strong contender in the wings.
Any candidates, running, will need to be prepared to play the preferential ballot game, hold their own number one choice as well as pull in secondary support from other candidates.
We have a need to reinvent ourselves, but changing the person at the top must be done with well placed plan or we get a divided party. (which we cannot afford to have.)
Post election then everything changes. We have either elected Greens or we have a leadership change. Two strikes, without gains, is the norm.
At that point, I think the party would welcome new blood, we need someone who can inspire membership growth, and essentially keep the party from deflating. We would need a reason to keep our relevance which would probably put in a position where we are willing to take on issues other parties won't in order to galvanize our base.
Yes, the party may need a strong administrator and builder, but frankly without someone who can inspire and attract new blood, you will end up with a well run shell.
I think you can look at the electoral successes of various candidates to see how well they can show this.
If we are looking at provincial leaders, records may speak for themselves.
Carr pulled in 20%+ in each of her provincials runs and 18% in the federal campaign. (she also organized 4000 canvassers for the 2002 Free your vote campaign in BC). De Jong ranged from 2-10% in his 16 years, including some rather low by-election campaigns.
Others listed above have various degrees of track records.
We've got to look at what we want to achieve as well. We can put our eggs in one basket hoping for elusive electoral success, or we can be the social change driver in Canadian politics like we did in 2008 with bringing the carbon tax into national predominance.
Ultimately our success as a party is going to be about getting voters to mark an X next to us on voting day. Our image, and national success is going to be based as much on resonating with our key demographics as it is organizing. Heck, look at 1993. The PC party won only 2 seats despite spending 10 x what we have spend and having a well organized election Campaign.
@Anon 4:49pm - some well thought out points. Thank you for contributing.
I will challenge you on the 1993 comparison to the PC's. There was more going on there than just a lot of money. Campbell was removed from the campaign, making poor comments about Chretian, the internal split of the PCs to the Bloc and Reform Parties and the country was punishing those associated with Mulroney. They also won over 2M votes despite all of that.
As for the comparison of Ms. Carr vs. Mr. de Jong, you have to look at their campaign strategies. Carr focused the party resources on herself while de Jong focuses them on everyone else. Beachhead vs. float all boats... that's why you have varying personal results.
As for the statement that without new blood, all we could end up with is a well run shell.... I'll take that because right now we have a poorly run shell.
I made a significant error in that running total of the amount spent so far in May's quests for a seat.
I left out the total for London North Centre. So that is $400,000, not $300,000 that will have been spent by early next year when the leadership campaign shines a light on all this.
And counting... with probably another $200,000 or even more to go before the SGI actual campaign finaly happens.
Here's some historical stuff that has just resurfaced.
http://greenpolitics.ca/2007/07/so-you-thought-adriane-carr-was-wonderful/
I didn't interact much with Adriane when I was on council, but when I did, it confirmed this opinion.
At one point I asked Adriane - who chair's shadow cabinet - when candidates could expect a copy of the 2008 election platform. I was told that the candidates would receive it a few days before the media did, to minimize security issues.
I made the point that if you don't trust your own candidates, you're off to a bad start..
And it turned out that the party NEVER DID release an election platform. Instead Adriane reprinted copies of "Vision Green", hundreds of pages, useless in a campaign.
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