Saturday October 12th
6:00pm - 9:00pm
Steel Wheel Brewery
105 Powerline Road, Brantford, Ontario Canada
BBQ with local organic beef burgs and beyond meat burgs, potato salad, and some munchies. And of course, the full Steel Wheel selection of local craft brew to go with it! Enjoyable evening of local food, good fun, and generous fundraising.
This is also a fundraiser for the Bob Jonkman federal election campaign!
A CBC headline trumpeted, “Political advocacy group North99 uses misleading petitions to gather voter data”
But one of the two founders of north99 wrote an angry Facebook post denying misleading anyone, insisting CBC had made a mistake
“This morning CBC published a misleading and factually incorrect piece about North99. We have already filed an official complaint with the CBC and asked for a correction to be issued.
If you’ve read the piece and are wondering what’s true and what’s not, here’s the facts: people sign up to our email list through issue campaigns, surveys, petitions, and our newsletter. We always make it clear up front what issue or campaign people are joining when they sign up.The CBC claimed we were not being clear with people about this, and that we were signing them up for campaigns they didn’t want to be a part of. Let me be clear: this is 100% untrue. It’s as untrue as saying the sky is green. Their so-called “analysis” of the forms on our website was wrong, and this led them to report a falsehood. That’s unfortunate, and we hope they will correct this embrassing error. Canadians deserve the unvarnished truth from our public broadcaster.
But you know who doesn’t give a damn about the truth? The Conservatives. And they have already seized on the mistakes made by the CBC to attack us and the North99 community.
This morning Lisa Raitt — a former Harper Cabinet Minister and the Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party — took to Twitter to attack North99. She made wild allegations about us — the sort of stuff you’d expect from The Rebel, not someone trying to lead the country.Look, none of this is surprising. Our community is disrupting politics in this country, and we have to expect the forces of the right and the status-quo to come after us with everyone they’ve got. Now that we are growing in size and our community is having an impact, people are going to try to tear us down. Lisa Raitt won’t be the last politician to smear and slander us. They hate what we stand for. But you know what: we aren’t going to back down from a fight.
Here’s my commitment to you:
1) We take your trust seriously, and we take accuracy seriously. We won’t always be perfect, and sometimes — like the CBC! — we’ll make mistakes. But we’ll always correct them and be honest with you.
2) We will never stop fighting for a Canada that works for the many, not just the richest few — even when we’re attacked by powerful politicians like Lisa Raitt. As long as you’re with us, we’ll keep on working.If you ever want to get in touch with questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to send an email to priority@north99.org.
Thanks for your support,
Taylor
Co-Founder, North99
https://www.facebook.com/OntarioVotesToStopDougFord/posts/514137532666333
Perhaps most interesting is how deftly Mr Scollon this message of righteous indignation was transformed into a Conservative attack piece.
While I don’t know the truth of the misleading petition allegation, it is nonetheless clear that the two gentlemen who are behind North99 are indeed Liberals.
A quick internet search revealed that Taylor Scollon had been the U of T Liberals’ communications director
https://www.facebook.com/uoftliberal/posts/taylor-scollon-uoft-liberals-communications-director-reminds-us-its-the-economy-/396372270425866/
and cofounder Geoff Sharpe had been the President of the BC Young Liberals
https://web.archive.org/web/20170728231036/http://abacusinsider.com/canadian-millennials/interview-geoff-sharpe-consultant-navigator-canadian-millennial-watch/
But are they operating with the blessing of theLiberal Party of Canada or are they acting alone in support of it. Presumably North 99 is a third party advertiser in this, the new “Pre-Election Period” devised by the latter, else they’ll fall afoul of the LPC’s own new law which lays down rules about third party advertisers and possible collusion with political parties.
The WRONG KIND OF GREEN writes:
“While it shouldn’t be surprising that online partisan front groups stir the pot, what is remarkable is how effective they have been with so little accountability. All of these groups are scooping up massive amounts of data, often directly collecting information through their own cynical petitions on hot issues. These groups show how empty much of the political landscape has become. Digital media strategists are running a shell game that treats ordinary working people as something to be manipulated and toyed with. Forget about all that nonsense about Russians on distorting democracy through social media. We need to look no further than the communication specialists and political parties in this country to see who the true manipulators are.”
The WRONG KIND OF GREEN article NAVIGATING ONTARIO’S ONLINE POLITICAL FRONT GROUPS looks at North99 and Ontario Proud, and who is behind them. Yet the closest WRONG KIND OF GREEN gets to revealing who is behind *it* is characterizing itsellf as “a 100% volunteer, critical-thinking collective.”
Whoever WRONG KIND OF GREEN is, I share their concern about who is driving our politics. Both North99 and Ontario Proud are working to build an us against them political culture that polarizes Canadians, and certainly seems to impose undue influence on our electoral process by demonizing the other side’s politicians.
This is, of course, why we still have the atrocious First Past The Post voting system. Attacking the enemy is a time honoured strategy that often leads to winning elections and becoming the winner who takes all in our majoritan political system.
The Liberals and Conservatives take turns getting elected by convincing their base and any swing voters they can woo that only they will save us from the other.
But what is it doing to our country?
[guest post by Stand.Earth]
The Canadian federal government’s announcement reapproving the Trans Mountain Pipeline is inconsistent with the government’s declaration of a climate emergency the day before. This will likely lead to more legal challenges and protests that will continue to delay and block the controversial project, said international environmental organization Stand.earth.
“Approving the Trans Mountain Pipeline is inconsistent with our government’s declaration of a climate emergency. Oil and gas emissions are the largest and fastest growing component of Canada’s emissions. If we are going to fight climate change in Canada, we need to face the fact that we can no longer expand fossil fuel production and infrastructure. Canada’s oil is high cost and high carbon, and it is struggling to compete in a global market. Investing pipeline profits into clean energy? How about you just put the $10 billion directly into clean energy, instead of wasting taxpayer money on this risky investment?” said Tzeporah Berman, International Program Director at Stand.earth. “We stand by city leaders, the B.C. government, and First Nations who oppose this project, and we call on organizations and individuals around the world to stand with us.”
“No matter who forms the next government in Ottawa, the Trans Mountain Pipeline will never be built,” said said Sven Biggs, Climate and Energy Campaigner at Stand.earth. “People care deeply about protecting the BC coast, and British Columbians remain opposed to this pipeline and the risks of a devastating oil spill that come with it. Whenever construction resumes, another wave of protests is guaranteed in British Columbia.”
Pipeline opposition
Opposition to the pipeline remains strong, with tens of thousands of people pledging to stop the pipeline and multiple cities, municipalities, and the province of B.C. also stating opposition.
Project risks
Construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline and the likelihood of a spill associated with the project poses significant risks to the climate, the public safety of the communities it passes through, the economy, and the critically endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales.
Republished from Tzeporah Berman: Approving the Trans Mountain Pipeline is inconsistent with Canada’s declaration of a climate emergency
Image Credits
White Rock, BC – Coast Salish housepost and Haida totem pole © by Joe Mabel is licensed to share under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Oil Flag of Canada © by Laurel Russwurm photographed at Jobs.Justice.Climate 2015 Toronto is licensed to share under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
#FridaysForFuture Save Orcas © by Laurel Russwurm, photographed at #FridaysForFuture Waterloo (2019) is licensed to share under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
by Andrew Woolford, University of Manitoba
When the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released its final report, it described the ongoing violence as a Canadian genocide. In the aftermath of the report’s release, many public intellectuals and journalists in Canadian news outlets and others on social media have contested the use of the term genocide.
I am a genocide scholar who has written widely about settler colonial genocide.
Genocide, originally defined near the end of the Second World War in 1944 by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin and consequently taken up by sociologists, historians, lawyers and others, is for Lemkin “a co-ordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.”
As a sociologist, I’m not interested in adjudicating this case according to an official legal definition of genocide. Rigid legal concepts can interfere with understanding the social nature of group destruction. It can flatten the analysis of group relations. It can serve as a hammer to pound a complicated history into a singular event.
One genocide is never the same as another, and therefore a static law or a fixed concept of genocide is of little use to protect us from its horrors. Understanding genocide as a process can help Canadians grapple with the ongoing threat faced by Indigenous peoples in Canada and Indigenous women and girls as outlined in the final MMIWG report.
Legal professionals over time have had to adjust their reading of genocide law. Since the Second World War, contesting ideas and debate have brought about changes to how legal scholars and courts interpret genocide. The authors of the genocide supplement for the MMIWG report draw upon these interpretations but also pose new challenges to the laws of genocide.
These questions are necessary because the history of settler colonialism in Canada includes a variety of efforts to remove, assimilate, starve and erase Indigenous nations. When one approach failed, the settler colonial mesh recalibrated.
For example, residential schools mutated into child removals and mass incarceration. Moreover, the strands of the mesh continue to entrap and strangle communities long after the supposed end of any one manifestation of group destruction.
This is the destruction to which the report draws our attention.
The 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (UNGC) is the basis for both international and national laws on genocide. The law is the product of a socio-political moment. In the meetings leading up to the convention on genocide, delegates from colonial nations such as South Africa, Canada, the U.S., Sweden and New Zealand voted against inclusion of cultural genocide (Article III) in the genocide convention..
Colonial and masculine assumptions are evident in genocide law, as is the political will of the drafting parties to protect their own nations from accusations of genocide, hence the withdrawal of Article III from the final document.
Despite these beginnings, the law develops as people engage with it, and genocide case law has gradually addressed some of the limitations of the UNGC.
For example, through decisions from bodies such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the groups protected from genocide have been expanded beyond narrow understandings of ethnicity, nationhood, religion and race.
As well, the social death caused by mass rape has been interpreted as genocidal.
The MMIWG final report seeks to bring a grassroots, gendered and Indigenous reading of these laws to the discussion of MMIWG and how Canada’s actions and omissions contributed to their deaths.
This is a valuable contribution and pushes the boundaries of the definition of genocide. Thinking on this topic always needs to be pushed.
Genocide is a transgressive act. It overturns all expectations, violates social norms and continuously mutates to take on new and surprising forms. Different readings and interpretations of genocide are needed to truly confront the many evolving methods of group destruction.
Many genocide scholars view genocide as a process rather than an event. In my book, This Benevolent Experiment: Indigenous Boarding Schools, Genocide, and Redress in Canada and the United States I focus on “cultural genocide,” though I treat cultural genocide as one technique of genocide rather than as a separate and distinct type.
I chart the development of Indigenous residential and boarding schools in North America and highlight the settler colonial practice of attempting to assimilate children through education.
Residential schools can be seen as situated within a series of nets that operated on all levels in society, including at the upper echelons of society among elite social influencers, and also through government and missionary institutions as well as individual teachers, principals and communities. There was a complex coordination of activities, habits, ideologies, motives and intents that were generally directed toward eliminating Indigenous peoples as distinct peoples.
These layers of destructive action can be likened to a settler colonial mesh constructed to entrap Indigenous peoples within an assimilative project. But the mesh is prone to snags and tears allowing for the emergence of resistance and subversion. Indigenous people were not passive; parents refused to send their children, children ran away and communities sometimes preserved their cultures when conditions allowed.
The MMIWG report is about the results of such processes and their effects on community and family relationships: harmful relations established through settler colonialism, their impact on intimate and everyday group relations and the possibility of better relations in the future.
It demands more of genocide law, and more from Canadian society, to address the intersecting settler colonial and hetero-patriarchal wrongs that have led to the injustice of MMIWG.
Rather than staunchly defend a narrow conception of genocide, it is time to demand this concept to do what it was intended to do: enable human thriving through respectful collective relations.
Andrew Woolford, Professor, University of Manitoba
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported (CC BY-ND 3.0) license.
Read the original article.
I’m a Canadian settler. My paternal ancestors settled on Turtle island (aka North America) before Canadian Confederation.
Canadian government policies are continuing Canada’s Indigenous genocide today. It is *not* something in the past. It is something that needs to stop.
Now.
It is not going to stop so long as settlers continue being afraid to acknowledge it for what it is.
Carol Eugene Park: ‘The Time for Talk Is Over’: Survivors React to the Missing Women’s Inquiry. Systemic colonial violence creates genocide against Indigenous Peoples, says final report. he hundreds of recommendations for Canadian society and government by the National Inquiry of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls are in response to what is properly called genocide, said a First Nations lawyer at a press conference in Vancouver Monday.
The inquiry report’s use of the term genocide to describe what it called systematic race- and gender-based violence against Indigenous women, girls, trans and two-spirit people was hotly debated on social media since the report’s leak on Friday.
But Sharon McIvor, Nlaka’pamux from the Lower Nicola Indian Band and an activist, lawyer and college professor said, “It was good to acknowledge that what’s been happening for the last 200 years is genocide.”
McIvor said Canada must acknowledge its role in creating and perpetuating the colonial structures that have led to the high murder rates Indigenous women and girls have and continue to face.
“They have a huge role to play to put us where we are, and they have a role to play to get us back from where we are,” McIvor said. “I call on the government to take [the report] seriously and tomorrow make me equal to my male counterparts in law.”
The inquiry’s report, released Monday, is 1,200 pages long and contains 231 recommendations the inquiry says will end violence against Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.
The recommendations include calls for action on human rights, policing, the justice system, corrections, health care, education, media, social work and child welfare.
“He gave us this national inquiry of MMIWG,” Williams said. “However, he approved the pipelines to go into Mother Earth, raping her and creating more places for women to go missing and be murdered along these pipelines? It is a known fact that our Indigenous women and girls go missing and are murdered along these pipelines.”
Williams said Trudeau does not represent Indigenous peoples in Canada, or the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. “We are the original nations of Turtle Island,” she said.
The introduction to the inquiry’s report reads, “The fact that this National Inquiry is happening now doesn’t mean that Indigenous peoples waited this long to speak up; it means it took this long for Canada to listen.”
But that statement falls short for Summer-Rain Bentham, manager at Battered Women’s Support Services.
“Listening is not action,” she said. “Listening does not stop men from being able to target and harm Indigenous women and girls, trans, and two-spirit with near impunity.”
Bentham said the ongoing disappearance and murder of women and girls since the inquiry’s start three years ago is evidence that Canada is ignoring the genocide against Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.
Implementing the calls to justice are the first steps Canada can take to show that “Indigenous women and girls are valuable, sacred,” Bentham said.
“Our sisters and two-spirit relatives who have been missing or murdered — they paid with their lives for this movement. They gave their lives so that we would be able to fight for the safety of other Indigenous women and girls and two-spirit folks…. We have a responsibility to them.”
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, was the final speaker to respond to the National Inquiry of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
He said real change must be fought for, and Canada’s genocidal history described in the report must be acknowledged.
“It’s our responsibility to hold all governments at all levels to account, to ensure that the recommendations of this report do not gather dust on some bureaucratic shelf in Ottawa like the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples,” he said.
Phillip criticized Trudeau for what he said were his lack of concrete solutions to Canada’s genocidal history and present.
“We can’t allow Prime Minister Trudeau to prance in here and offer good intentions,” Phillip said. “We need action. Enough talk, enough consultation. The time for talk is over, now is the time for action. It’s our responsibility to ensure that happens.”
By Courtney Skye June 4
Courtney Skye is Mohawk, Turtle Clan, from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. She is a research fellow at Yellowhead Institute, a First Nations-led policy think tank at the Faculty of Arts, Ryerson University.
This week, family members of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people, survivors of violence, community activists and Indigenous leaders gathered in Ottawa for the release of “Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.” They were there to acknowledge the inquiry’s work in a collective ceremony to honor the lives of those who have experienced violence. It was an demonstration of the love that exists within Indigenous communities for Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people — and a recognition of the overwhelming levels of violence they have had to endure for generations.
The report, released Monday, finds that “persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses are the root cause behind Canada’s staggering rates of violence.” The inquiry concluded that Canada has committed a genocide against the Indigenous peoples within its colonial borders, and is continuing to maintain systems and structures that result in Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people experiencing a disproportionate amount of violence.
Even with a two-year mandate, the inquiry was unable to determine a definitive number of Indigenous people who are missing or have been murdered. But Indigenous women were reported to be at least six times more likely to be victims of homicide than non-Indigenous women.
The new report, which consists of more than 1,200 pages, contains hundreds of calls for justice that methodically address the interrelated ways Canadian and Indigenous structures, programs and services must change to promote the substantive equality of Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people. These calls include establishing a “National Indigenous and Human Rights Ombudsperson” and a “National Indigenous Human Rights Tribunal,” developing and implementing a national action plan, and providing long-term funding for educational programs and violence prevention campaigns.
The report affirms what Indigenous people have long understood — that the violence they experience is a product of settler colonialism. The continuation of the Canadian settler state requires the destabilization of Indigenous communities — and a part of this stabilization has involved rampant gender-based violence to uphold the legitimacy of the settler state’s rule over land and water.
While settler colonialism impacts Indigenous peoples of all genders, it makes women, girls and Two-Spirit people especially vulnerable to violence. In 1924, the Canadian state imposed a government structure within First Nations communities, removing their traditional leadership. And since 1876, Canada has enforced the Indian Act, which at times forced “Indian” women out of leadership positions and removed their legal status if they chose to go to university or marry a non-Indigenous person, or if their fathers chose to enfranchise them. The sex-based discrimination in the Indian Act is identified as one of the root causes of violence toward First Nations women in the report.
Over time, advancements in the rights of Indigenous peoples have resulted in Supreme Court challenges and findings of discrimination from international bodies. However, Canada has maintained a state definition of “Status Indians,” defining membership in communities from outside the norms and traditions of those people, and has yet to fully eliminate how these structures perpetuate sex-based discrimination.
The national inquiry report outlines in great detail how the nature of settler colonialism in Canada has evolved into an insidious and distinctly Canadian social reality that ignores reports of brutal murders and missing persons, even as these numbers reached alarming levels.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples sets a minimum standard for the recognition of their collective rights and sees improvement in the lives of Indigenous peoples as contingent upon their ability to exercise self-determination. Now, the inquiry’s report makes clear that responding to the calls for justice and undertaking actions to end violence require restoring Indigenous jurisdiction in ways that prioritize the safety of Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people.
For too long, our communities have feared that shedding light on violence would undermine Indigenous leadership. Communities have viewed crises as something that must remain hidden in order for Indigenous structures to be restored, and enduring the violence we experience has been seen as the cost of nation-building.
The inquiry has established that violence in Indigenous communities and the ongoing refusal to recognize Indigenous-led ways of governance reinforce one another, to the benefit of the settler state. Immediate action on the calls for justice is needed in order to protect Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people. We must be able to not only express our aspirations openly but also confront our challenges and seek our own solutions to the issues we face, including gender-based violence. As Indigenous communities continue to assert their sovereignty, the role of the paternalistic settler state must be limited and clearly defined.
The release of the final report marks a pivotal moment in the recognition and advancement of the individual and collective rights of Indigenous people. As Indigenous people continue to overcome the violence and trauma instilled in their communities by a settler state, the inquiry insists “the exclusion of Indigenous women, girls, 2SLGBTQQIA people, Elders, and children from the exercise of Indigenous self-determination must end.” Honoring missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people requires it.
By Tanya Talaga
Indigenous Issues Columnist
Mon., June 3, 2019GATINEAU—Almost four years to the day after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission said Canada committed a cultural genocide against Indigenous people, the national inquiry into our murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls took it a step further.
They said the death of our women, by the thousands, was simply a genocide.
The echo is not coincidental.
The genocidal process was the same.
In the words of the four-person commission, the epidemic of deaths and disappearances is the direct result of a “persistent and deliberate pattern of systemic racial and gendered … rights violations and abuses, perpetuated historically and maintained today by the Canadian state, designed to displace Indigenous people from their lands, social structures and governments, and to eradicate their existence as nations, communities, families and individuals.”
As expected, the protests quickly emerged. This is no “genocide,” the critics said. The coast-to-coast-to-coast commission, which interviewed over 2,000 families, survivors and knowledge keepers, exaggerated or got it wrong. Former aboriginal affairs minister Bernard Valcourt, who served under Stephen Harper, started off the bashing with a bang:
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“What has been the cost to Canadians for this propagandist report?” he tweeted.
For his part, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refused to say the word “genocide” as he addressed the assembled families, survivors and commissioners.
But those of us who have been on the wrong side of the “persistent and deliberate pattern” know that “genocide” is the right word.
As the ceremony began, it was Chief Commissioner Marion Buller who said the hard truth is that “we live in a country whose laws and institutions perpetuate violations of fundamental rights, amounting to a genocide.”
Buller, the first appointed First Nations female judge in British Columbia, took a lot of heat when the inquiry began. Members of her team were quitting, families weren’t being properly notified or compensated. Many said her mandate was overly narrow. Yet she weathered it all and fulfilled her highest purpose. She gave voice to the victims.
The inescapable conclusion of all their harrowing and beautiful testimony is that “genocide” is the only word for the state-enabled deaths of thousands of sisters, aunties, grandmothers, cousins and friends.
So why won’t our prime minister say it? What’s he afraid of?
Perhaps he understands that calling the genocide a genocide would acknowledge that his government — and others — are morally culpable for the losses of the thousands of our women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people. Or maybe it was the legal culpability that worried him; lawyers no doubt advised Trudeau not to say it. The pollsters, too, were probably against it, as we edge towards an election. It isn’t as easy to take a principled stand when votes are potentially at stake.
Whatever his reasons, his omission was telling. But it hardly dampened the power of the day.
“We don’t need to hear the word genocide come out of the prime minister’s mouth because families have told us their truth,” Buller said during the press conference.
The families of the taken, not forgotten women, agree. They don’t need to hear arguments over what constitutes genocide. They know it to be true because they live it.
As the ceremony drew to a close on Monday, Thunder Bay’s Maddy Murray stopped me and asked me to remember Alinda Lahteenmaki, who died in Winnipeg on Jan. 30, 2009 after plunging 11 storeys. She was 23 years old and her boyfriend pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
“There is no closure,” she said to me as the drums began to beat the warrior song.
But there can be an end to the violence.
The murders and rapes, the violence against Indigenous women and girls will continue until Canada confronts the genocide and the long-promised new relationship is finally delivered.
This requires that Canada confront the historical disadvantages, intergenerational trauma, and discrimination experienced by Indigenous people, the report explained. And that begins with making significant strides toward substantive equality through changes to our justice system, to policing, to social and health services, to education, to everything Canada prides itself on and holds dear.
To many, these institutions are a symbol of what makes Canada great. But the report makes clear that they are far from perfect. That they are rigged against Canada’s first peoples. That they are tools of colonial violence, of genocide.
That is the conclusion of Buller and her team of commissioners.
It is disappointing that many of our politicians refuse to say the word. It would be far worse — a terrible tragedy — if they continued to be complicit in the act.
Tanya Talaga is a Toronto-based columnist covering Indigenous issues. Follow her on Twitter: @tanyatalaga
Back in 2015, Peter Bevan-Baker was the first Green ever elected in PEI. It was only the second time any third party had ever won a seat in PEI.
Then, in a 2017 by-election, Hannah Bell won a second Green seat.
I’m not a big believer in Opinion Polls in politics. Parties used to do them as research, to get a feel for how voters felt, and to get an idea which way they might vote (and what they could change to get voters to vote for their party). Largely because I think they’re misused. But it’s a good bet the only Opinion Polls we see today are only the ones whoever paid for them wants us to see. They are used as advertising. Propaganda to convince us how to vote. And in these days of decimated news rooms, main stream media outlets have taken to writing entire articles about Opinion Poll results: they’re treated as news by the main stream media.
The only Opinion Poll that counts is the one on Election Day. Even so, for the last year or so, the third party Greens have been consistently polling ahead of PEI’s Liberal Government. That’s not a single Opinion Poll, it’s a trend— and in a traditionally 2 party province. Clearly such a trend is a strong indication that voters are looking for change.
This trend made people start thinking and talking about the unthinkable… what if the upstart Greens, going into the election with only 2 MLAs — were to come out the other side with enough support to form government? Pretty wild idea, right?
Last night, PEI Greens MLA’s Peter Bevan-Baker and Hannah Bell were both re-elected to the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island. That was the first time any third party MLA had ever been re-elected in PEI.
It was also the first time a third party became a second party in PEI. The Greens are likely to form the Official Opposition (at minimum).
Although the Greens didn’t win enough seats (14) to claim a majority, they did win 8 seats. Clearly a Green record for Canada.
A clear majority— five of the eight elected Greens— are women. I understand no PEI party has ever managed anything like this before.
Added to the single female PC candidate, that makes six: a record number women sitting MLAs in PEI. Another First.
The ruling Liberals dropped to third place. The PEI Progressive Conservative Party had gone through 5 leaders in 5 years, but 2 months before this election, they chose a new leader. Under Dennis King’s leadership, the PC’s won 12 seats, two shy of a majority, but certainly enough for a minority government if he can get the Confidence of the House. The CBC commentators talked about how Mr King’s leadership style had contributed to the civility of the election. Listening to his own post election speech, peppered with words like collaboration and sustainability, he seems to be an old style PC, and it sounds as though the reimagined PC party will actually be both progressive and conservative under his leadership.
But its early days; we will need to see how it unfolds.
Under Westminster rules, Liberal Premier Wade MacLauchlan will be given an opportunity to win the confidence of the house. This seems unlikely as the outgoing Premier was unable to retain his own seat, and his party is down to 6 MLAs.
More likely possibilities are that Dennis King’s PCs could form an actual minority government on their own. Or his PCs could forge a Confidence and Supply Agreement with the Greens. Or the Liberals to ensure electoral stability for the next 4 years. Or the PCs could join with another party to form a ruling coalition.
Just as the Greens and Liberals could form a majority ruling coalition. My best guess is the PEI Greens won’t join a coalition with anyone; they’ve worked too hard to build a viable third party to turn PEI back into a 2 party province.
Is it really a Green wave sweeping the country? It sure looks like it. But if we had some form of Proportional Representation, there would be many more Green MPs in Parliament. Nearly a million voters voted Green federally in 2008. And not a single Green was elected that year. The GPC hasn’t earned that many votes since. That doesn’t mean those Green voter stopped being Green, they just stopped voting Green because voting Green wasn’t effective. So maybe it isn’t a “Green Wave” … maybe it’s just a case of the people who want to vote Green actually voting Green. Because they believe in the policy that’s been formed out of Green values. And they believe in the candidates who would best represent them.
However it plays out, it will be interesting. Go Greens!
More Reading: Tragedy and politics on Prince Edward Island