Juno News - November 05, 2019What's the point of the Green Party of Canada？
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
185.20169
Summary
Elizabeth May is stepping down as leader of the Green Party of Canada, and I suddenly find myself nostalgic for her early years as leader in 2006, when she first became the party's leader, when the green party had a single issue: climate change.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
with monday's news that elizabeth may is stepping down as leader of the green party of canada i
00:00:14.160
suddenly find myself nostalgic for her early years as leader of that party back in 2006
00:00:20.480
that was when she first became leader of the greens and it was very different times back then
00:00:25.960
just 13 years ago very different tone a very different approach to the issues was until a
00:00:32.040
couple years after that in 2008 that stephan dion ran as leader of the liberal party during the
00:00:37.560
election on the green shift one of the first times that a non-green party party actually put an
00:00:43.840
environmental issue front and center in their platform now of course the green shift was
00:00:48.400
destroyed it was decimated no one supported it and they talked about attacks on everything and how
00:00:53.400
that wouldn't be palatable to the canadian people now you move forward to today and it's basically
00:00:58.920
a carbon tax is the same idea and somehow we're all supposed to accept it and it's doug ford and
00:01:04.900
jason kenny and scott moe who are the villains for going to the supreme court of canon saying hold on
00:01:09.080
a second we're not so sure this tax on everything is a good idea what happened what changed then back
00:01:14.960
in 2006 you had elizabeth may stepping forward with her little party that could saying we're going to
00:01:20.520
stand up for the environment we're going to stand up for green issues we're going to talk about climate
00:01:24.560
change and you look at the election results you see the number of people who voted for the party
00:01:28.660
how she struggled to even get one seat and she's still struggling to just get the three seats she
00:01:33.000
has and you go okay that makes sense caring about the environment and these matters sure it's
00:01:39.120
something that some people care about to have a green party front and center as standing pretty much
00:01:44.700
for that single issue kind of makes sense that they would be a fringe party relegated to the fringes
00:01:50.300
now obviously what the green party hopes will happen now that elizabeth may is leaving the
00:01:55.200
leadership is they'll get someone new to sort of refresh the party perhaps some young charismatic
00:02:00.140
individual to fire up all those people who took to the streets to the climate strike rally and maybe
00:02:05.920
then next election that will get them a whole bunch of new seats and they'll rise up higher and higher
00:02:10.460
through the ranks replacing the ndp or what have you that's probably what they what they fantasize
00:02:16.060
about being able to do with their party hold on a second though a bit of a problem with that
00:02:21.100
because there is already another green party in canada it's called the federal liberals
00:02:26.500
justin trudeau and gerald butts and katherine mckenna they don't stop going on about climate change
00:02:34.180
day in day out it's all you hear them harp about justin trudeau
00:02:38.160
in that first press conference he gave after being re-elected the election was on a monday on
00:02:42.920
wednesday he was before the people before the cameras and he said nine times ten times climate
00:02:48.880
change and affordability they are the top two issues for canadians climate change and affordability in
00:02:53.960
that order he put climate change first gerald butts in the few sort of official public pronouncements
00:02:59.380
he has made other than his his tweets that he puts out there the needlessly divisive twitter feed
00:03:05.040
of his in the public letters he's put out there stating his resignation back from the prime
00:03:10.120
minister's office the public letter stating he was back and he is returning to the campaign team
00:03:14.800
he talked a lot about the things they want to do the achievements he was proud of the only issue that
00:03:19.600
he named singularly was climate change it really does seem like the federal liberals are actually a
00:03:26.480
climate activist party run by these core people and then the other things they're doing the other
00:03:31.800
issues that they're dealing with renegotiating nafta tweaking the tax code and so forth they're
00:03:36.920
just doing that because well you have to and you're in government so you got to come up with a
00:03:40.880
few other things other than climate change zealotry to do but the climate change agenda front and center
00:03:46.540
the driving issue more than even back in the 2015 campaign trail it's really been interesting to see
00:03:53.800
this pivot in direction in federal politics there are a whole lot of things the federal government
00:03:58.940
is supposed to be looking after you've got the federal health accord structure you've got foreign
00:04:03.980
affairs you've got interprovincial relations oh no you don't hear about that so much you hear so much
00:04:10.180
non-stop about climate change really has me nostalgic really has me missing the good old days the early
00:04:16.640
years of elizabeth may when she was pretty much the only party leader who was harping on about this issue