by Pat Carl

We cast our votes. The votes were counted. The Green Party of Canada announced the results on May 8. 

GPC has a partially new Federal Council and Young Greens Council. That’s because elections are held every year but only for a portion of the seats on the two Councils. 

You can imagine what the theory is behind staggering elections, right?  That way, the collective memory of one year’s Council isn’t totally lost by replacing the entire shebang of Council representatives. 

Of note: the proportional representation system of Single Transferable Vote was used to determine seat winners in each region with a seat available, each non-provincial seat available (in this case, VIP-English and Fund Manager), and in the two seats up for grabs in connection with the Young Greens, those people under the age of 30 who will represent the Young Greens Council at the big table (a bit of a disparaging reference made by the Young Greens themselves), that is, at the Federal Council table. 

A further note: 19.7% of all GPC members voted in this election as compared to around 14% who voted in the 2019 elections. Out of the 23,288 active GPC members able to cast ballots, 4,596 chose to do so. A bit low, don’t ya think? 

Or said a different way, some 18,692 GPC members did not vote. Kind of embarrassing when one of our Green Principles is – wait for it – participatory democracy.

Now, one person I know said she wouldn’t have cast a ballot at all had it not been for the 7 candidate forums tirelessly organized by a few members of your North Island Powell River (NIPR) Electoral District Association (EDA). The well published, virtual forums served to give those of us who chose to attend a peek at the candidates and allowed us to ask them questions. The candidate behaviour during the forums and their responses to questions certainly helped me decide who’d get my vote.

As I said, the NIPR EDA organized these forums with the Federal Council candidates. The Green Party itself organized only one 5-1/2 hour long forum with all available candidates at once. The end result was that each candidate got a handful of minutes to speak to important issues. This doesn’t encourage informed, participatory democracy.

Thinking about the next set of Federal Council elections, Council could direct staff well in advance to provide a much longer campaign period, and to organize a series of candidate forums for each available seat. This would allow candidates an opportunity to truly present themselves to the membership before voting opens.

If this is put in place, voter engagement – the basis of participatory democracy – will be enhanced. 

Because…the number of votes cast in this year’s election was piss poor.