The Green Party secured a historic local election victory on 2 May. Just days after parliament declared a “climate emergency”, Greens won more seats in UK elections than ever before. “The biggest election night in our history” With votes still coming in at the time of writing, the so-called #greenwave is clear to see. At the time of writing, there are now around 200 Green councillors, a rise of roughly 150. A record breaking morning for the Greens – not just in terms of council seats won, but new members joining. Join the #GreenWave today 🥳https://t.co/OlwL9RZ3z7 pic.twitter.com/knTrMzmvPv — The Green Party (@TheGreenParty) May 3, 2019 As Green Party co-leader Jonathan Bartley said: This is the biggest election night in our history. Greens are winning right across the country, and taking seats from a wide range of other parties. The Green message is clearly taking hold and can win anywhere. Green MP Caroline Lucas, meanwhile, said: Huge congratulations to everyone for such a brilliant campaign and to all our wonderful new councillors! #Greensurge https://t.co/rmK61HdQE1 — Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) May 3, 2019 Media downplaying the green wave? As ever, much of the corporate media seems to be downplaying the huge loss of the Conservatives (roughly 1,000 councillors at the time of writing) and focusing on Labour losing around 100. But while the age-old two-party bickering continues, there’s no hiding this historic Green Party victory. And this came without the level of media attention given to other parties. On election day, author Matt Haig made a poignant point: If the Green Party were racist they'd get much more coverage on the BBC. — Matt Haig (@matthaig1) May 2, 2019 These Green Party votes suggest that concern about the ongoing impacts of climate chaos are – as they should be – gathering huge support from voters. For some people, meanwhile, the Green Party represents a left-wing alternative to Brexit. This is in stark contrast to the Liberal Democrats, who also made huge gains (presumably as a backlash to Tory uselessness on Brexit) but have in recent years set up camp on the centre-right. Green issues matter The planet’s climate catastrophe is a massive issue. And Green successes in the local elections may be a sign that more and more people are taking a stand. As a devastating climate report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) revealed, time’s running out. And political parties would do well to remember that Brexit is totally irrelevant if we don’t take climate action immediately. Featured images via The Green Party of England and Wales/Wikimedia and Tanoshimi/Wikimedia<doc-sep>Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the Green Party’s victory in Monday’s federal byelection shows that Canadians are “preoccupied” with climate change -- but Green Party Leader Elizabeth May wants voters to know that her platform is about more than the environment. “We’ve always had a comprehensive platform…we’ve always pressed for pharmacare, we’ve pressed for social justice, for guaranteed minimum income -- actually ending poverty,” May told CTV’s Power Play host Don Martin on Tuesday. “We have a more comprehensive foreign policy online that people can find more than any of the other parties.” “I don’t know that they even know their own foreign policy to hear some of the other leaders talk,” she continued. Green Party candidate Paul Manly received 37.4 per cent of the vote in the B.C. Nanaimo-Ladysmith byelection on Monday -- a far lead over second-place Conservative candidate John Hirst, who got about 25 per cent. “Paul Manly’s campaign was terrific,” said May. “He’s a wonderful candidate.” May also wanted to be clear that while her party platform is comprehensive, Manly’s win does show that “the voters of Nanaimo-Ladysmith are very concerned about the climate crisis” among other issues such as housing, local representation and fracking. B.C. is a prominent area for the Green Party, with John Kidder, May’s husband, getting ready to run in his riding of Mission-Matsqui-Fraser-Canyon – but May was quick to point out the results from the provincial election in P.E.I, where the Green Party is now the Official Opposition. Professor of political science at Simon Fraser University Stewart Prest told CTV News Channel Tuesday that this result is indicative of “voters saying we need something else instead.” Prest said that normally when voters are unhappy with the major parties, the “protest vote” usually goes to the NDP. “Voters are clearly looking for nuanced ways to express their opinions,” Prest said. “These big tent parties are not coming through and providing answers to questions -- like issues of social justice, issues of environmental action.” “Voters are clearly signalling there’s something wanting.” May told reporters on Parliament Hill that this momentum can translate to wins at the federal level. “Anything is possible in the next federal election,” she said. “If we can as a smaller party get our message out and let Canadians know we want to go to work for them.”<doc-sep>If there were any doubts that the upcoming federal election really has become Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives to lose, the results of Monday’s byelection in the B.C. riding of Nanaimo-Ladysmith should have dispelled them. No, the last byelection to be held before next fall’s federal campaign did not feature a great surge to the right. The Conservative share of the vote barely went up a couple of points from 2015. And yes, the Green Party was the night’s big winner. But from Scheer’s perspective, a win for Elizabeth May’s party may be as promising a harbinger of greater things to come for his own party next fall as a Conservative byelection victory could have been. By all indications, the very pattern of a divided progressive vote — which drove Justin Trudeau to espouse electoral reform when the Liberals were in third place in the House of Commons — is reasserting itself with a vengeance. The Liberals will find out this fall whether they were terribly short-sighted when they unceremoniously dumped the promise to move to a more proportional voting system. They apparently believed they were back where they naturally belonged — in charge of the national government and in control of a majority of seats in Parliament. But they may only have momentarily been in the right place at the right time. A fragmented landscape to the left of the Conservatives may be the new normal. Read more: Elizabeth May’s new husband to run for the Green Party in B.C. Opinion | Chantal Hébert: Jagmeet Singh must keep an eye on the strengthening Green party ‘Intense sense of emergency’ drives Canadian version of Green New Deal The non-conservative vote is fragmenting even as the chronic weakness of the NDP under Jagmeet Singh’s leadership remains constant. Hopes that his belated entrance into the Commons earlier this year would reverse the tide may have amounted to little more than wishful thinking. The loss of a seat this close to the election will take a toll on party morale. With just a few seats fewer than Quebec, B.C. accounts for Singh’s second-largest provincial caucus. If the New Democrats cannot hold their ground in either province, they could be in for their worst election night in three decades this October. But at the same time, the Liberals’ assumption that a weaker NDP would virtually ensure their re-election to government is not standing up in the face of what comes across as an anybody-but-Trudeau trend in the electorate. On Monday, the Liberals lost a dozen points from their 2015 score to finish with only 11 per cent of the vote. The NDP lost 10 points. Many of the voters who had supported Trudeau or Thomas Mulcair in the last election stayed home or switched to the Green Party. Not only is May poised to win over some of the lapsed NDP supporters the Liberals had been counting on to make up for predictable losses to the Conservatives in places like Alberta and Atlantic Canada, but her party is also attracting disillusioned Trudeau fans. By all indications, disaffection with the prime minister and his NDP rival — rather than a sudden attraction for the Greens — accounts for the Green victory in Nanaimo-Ladysmith. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... The opposite happened when the same voters participated in a provincial byelection earlier this year. On that occasion, Andrew Weaver’s provincial Green Party lost ground to Premier John Horgan’s NDP. Concerns over climate change are increasingly finding their way in the ballot box at both the federal and provincial level. The addition of a second Green seat in the Commons comes on the heels of breakthroughs in a number of provinces. Last month, the Greens beat the Liberals for second place in P.E.I., where they now make up the official opposition. That being said, the federal riding of Nanaimo-Ladysmith sits in May’s political backyard. On Canada’s electoral map, it would be hard to find a better place for the Green Party to successfully test whether its provincial momentum has federal legs. But Monday’s success could be hard to replicate in less auspicious territory. There are no more than a handful of ridings that offer a profile as auspicious for May’s party as the Vancouver Island riding. Over the last provincial election cycle, parties that are closely identified with the environmental issue have tended to surpass expectations, that was true in Quebec and also in New-Brunswick last fall. But with the notable exception of the 2017 B.C. vote, every other provincial election has also resulted in the victory of a party no more and often less committed to the environment than its predecessor in government. The polarization of the debate over climate change has so far benefited the Conservatives at the expense of parties with more activist environmental agendas. And that is a more probable consequence of an enduring rise in support for May’s party next fall than the election of a strong contingent of Green MPs. If the upcoming federal campaign turns into a plebiscite on climate change policy, advocates of carbon-pricing could well win the debate but lose the election to the Conservatives. Chantal Hébert is a columnist based in Ottawa covering politics. Follow her on Twitter: @ChantalHbert Read more about:<doc-sep>
Voters in Nanaimo-Ladysmith may have wondered if a by-election so near to this fall’s federal vote was worth the trip to the ballot box. But their decision to send a Green MP to Parliament – the second seat for the party – is being taken seriously by political parties, commentators and citizens as an indication of the Greens’ rise to mainstream politics. On Monday, Paul Manly won 37.3 per cent of the vote, ahead of second-place John Hirst of the Conservative Party with 24.8 per cent. Despite holding the riding since 2011, the NDP fell to third place, with 21.1 per cent. The Liberals’ Michelle Corfield trailed with 11 per cent of the vote. Pollster Nik Nanos said the win is indicative of a broader narrative that some Canadians are skipping over the Liberals and the NDP and seriously looking at the Greens as an alternative progressive party focused on the environment. Story continues below advertisement “It shows that the Green Party brand is on the political menu for Canadians,” he said. “The Nanos polling suggests that the Greens eat the lunch of both the Liberals and the New Democrats – that for disappointed Liberals, or New Democrats who are not as enthusiastic about [leader] Jagmeet Singh, they’re looking at the Greens as an alternative to both of the other traditional parties.” But if the Greens want to carry their recent success forward to the general election, they will have to be ready for a higher level of scrutiny on their platform and their vision for Canada, Mr. Nanos said. They will also need to use their momentum to attract solid local candidates, he added, which is especially important in campaigns when people are disappointed by the mainstream parties. Mr. Manly said his hometown advantage was a factor in his victory. “In other places in Canada where the Greens have won provincially – in PEI, in Guelph, [Ont. ], and New Brunswick – there’s ground teams that have had success and built capacity, so when they have a good, local candidate that people know and respect in the community, they can win,” he said. From the comments: Nanaimo results ‘indicate a more fractured vote coming this fall.’ Readers weigh in on Green Party victory Opinion: If B.C. by-election is a harbinger of things to come, then the Liberals and NDP had better watch out Green Party’s Paul Manly wins Nanaimo-Ladysmith by-election B.C. Premier John Horgan played down the result, saying by-elections don’t foreshadow general votes. Story continues below advertisement “I’m saddened that Bob Chamberlin, who is an outstanding candidate for the NDP, was not successful,” he said. “But I believe that the message that was sent to Ottawa by the people of Nanaimo is that in the by-election, people have an opportunity to make a statement, and they made a statement.” Mr. Horgan said he has known Mr. Manly since he was a teenager, and wished him well in his career as a Member of Parliament, following in his father’s footsteps. Jim Manly served two consecutive terms as an MP for the New Democrats in the Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands riding from 1980-1988. NDP spokesman Glen Sanford said it’s possible his team was burned out from successive campaigns. “It’s just a reminder of how we’ve got to put a ton of energy into every campaign that we do,” he said. “I think that we didn’t really do a good job of converting that sense of urgency to our base.” Climate has become the biggest issue for voters in Nanaimo, high school teacher Alistair King said. Story continues below advertisement “That was the ballot box question: What are we going to do about our future? And I think the answer is pretty clear – that we need to do something different as a community,” he said. “And I think everyone in the back of their minds, at least I did, recognized that this is only going to be a temporary posting, so we just said, ‘Try it before you buy it,’ and people are going to try out Paul Manly and see what the Green Party has to offer.”