This was written immediately following the Jan. 2006 Federal Election
Thoughts on the Election
I ended up with 2192 votes, and although I was hoping for a better result, I think circumstances such as a broken electoral system, a failure of leadership from within the Green Party, continued exclusion from the media, and even something like having Rondo Thomas run in this riding, all contributed to the modest, as opposed to significant, increase from the 2004 election.
Unfortunately, we are conditioned to believe that there are only two alternatives, Big Red or Big Blue, and it always comes down to who you hate more. Ask most people who voted Liberal why, and they will tell you everything that’s wrong with the Conservatives. As a Conservative voter the same question and they will tell you everything wrong with the Liberals. Our electoral system (seemingly) forces people to vote against something instead of for something, and then people don’t understand why they don’t have the government they really want. How is that possible if you never vote for what you believe in?
Of course, the blame cannot all be on the media, although having Jim Harris included in the televised leaders’ debate surely would have propelled us over 10%. Even so, the only way this kind of manipulation can work in on a willing audience, much like hypnosis. A big part of the problem is that there are far too many, what I like to call, Sheeple. Because ultimately, it is very easy to break the manipulation, and that is by simply thinking for yourself and not allowing the media to dictate what your choices are. If everyone did that I have no doubt that the Green Party would already be in Parliament, if not the ruling party. I had so many people tell me, “I love what you are doing, I admire what the Green Party stands for and I really think you have the best ideas. But I can’t vote for you.” My response to that is, if people feel that they cannot vote for the party with the best ideas, then our democracy is in serious trouble, not to mention any sense of independent or critical thinking.
In this riding of course, with Rondo running, there were a significant number of people who were genuinely concerned about him winning, and so as much as they would liked to vote for either myself or Kevin Modeste, they had to ensure that Rondo didn’t win, and thus were forced to vote for Mark Holland. As much as I hate to admit it – and in yet another knock against our electoral system – but had some of these people not voted for Holland, then Rondo might have won, seeing as how he got almost 17,000 votes. An astoundingly high number which is again indicative of the sheeple principle, because I refuse to believe that there are 17,000 people willing to vote for a religious zealot like Rondo Thomas (although undoubtedly there are some, and I respect them for voting for what they believe in). This means that most of them simply didn’t bother to inform themselves of what each candidate stood for.
We desperately need some form of proportional representation, so that firstly people will feel that their votes are not wasted, which would by itself seriously address the issue of voter apathy. As well, it would eliminate some of the major discrepancies between the percentage of the national vote that a party gets and the percentage of seats it holds in Parliament.
The Green Party got 665,000 votes or 4.5%. Based on 308 seats in Parliament that should equal almost 14 seats, but we got none. Even more striking, the Bloc Quebecois got 10.5% of the vote and won 51 seats, while the NDP, with 17.5% of the vote, only got 29 seats. How does that make any sense? It just doesn’t. We need a fairer system, and one that gives more people a voice in Parliament.
I also think that Jim Harris and the Green Party in general needs to stay more focused on getting our message out, and staying in the public eye between elections. We had an incredible amount of momentum after the 2004 election, in which we more than tripled our vote from the 2000 election, and I feel like most of that momentum was squandered by being invisible in the 18 months between elections. This has certainly been acknowledged and everyone within the Green Party is going to make a concerted effort to ensure that people don’t forget about us, especially since I can see a no-confidence vote or at least a budget clash, which will bring on another election, possibly before the end of the year.
Whether you voted for me or not, I know that every day, more and more people are realizing that the Green Party must be taken more seriously, if we are to have any sort of future.
I really believe that old-line political parties just don’t get it. They think more of the same “unlimited economic growth and consumerism” will bring prosperity and happiness to all. But the reality is unavoidable: the Earth can only yield so many trees, fish, minerals and other “resources” before we destroy the very life support systems we all depend on. With the economies of China and India booming, their billions of people want the lifestyles we model for them. That they cannot ever reach our level of consumption, because the Earth simply doesn’t have enough raw materials, is never talked about by other parties. This economy, with its emphasis on endless production and consumption, says David Suzuki, has become one of the most destructive forces ever unleashed on the planet.
The Green Party of Canada is the only party that recognizes there are limits to growth on a finite planet. We’re the only party that challenges the taken-for-granted economic model of global free trade and the unending consumption of Nature. We’re saying we need to stop consuming the world, stop forcing other species into extinction, and see expanding economic growth for what it is – a cruel delusion.
Plundering the planet in the last century was made easy by the availability of cheap fossil fuel. But those days are over. The only fossil fuel left on the planet is expensive to extract, and with increased global demand for more food and consumer goods, prices have nowhere to go up. If we don’t start planning for this eventuality now, our children will face a world of social upheaval. Every aspect of our global society – all food production, all communication, all transportation, all manufacturing etc. – is completely dependent on fossil fuel. What’s going to happen when we run out, especially if we’re not prepared?
The Green Party says it time to look at another way. We have a vision for a different kind of world, one based on living in harmony with nature, where we all have access to what we need; not what corporate advertising tells us we should want. We will create local economies where food and goods are produced and consumed regionally using alternative sources of energy like wind and sun. Our food production system would be organic, grown and processed locally. We will support entrepreneurs, small-scale farmers, small business, and training for jobs in a different kind of economy based on reduced consumption and energy conservation.
It is only within the Green Party that a certain kind of agonizing debate is taking place, about the fundamental shift in consciousness needed in how we humans have to relate to the Earth. We support deep ecology, which provides the philosophical basis to oppose ‘resourcism’, the dominant human-centered worldview of industrial capitalist society, in which the Natural world exists primarily as raw material for the human purpose.
We all understand that having more doesn’t necessarily equate with being happier and that most Canadians want a return to a simpler society with more time to enjoy life. Hopefully the Green Party will help this country get there.
This was originally written prior to the Jan. 2006 Federal Election
My name is Russell Korus, and on January 23, I’m going to ask for your vote. I am running as a member of the Green Party in Ajax-Pickering.
As a husband and a father, I care deeply about the quality of life that we are passing on to future generations. I spend a long time thinking about the kind of life my children will live in 30 years when they are my age, and I am greatly concerned that there are short-sighted decisions being made today which are going to have a significant impact on the quality of live of my children down the road.
Why should you vote for me? Because I am a different kind of politician, and I think most people are ready for a different kind of politics.
For starters, how about a government run by individuals who are not primarily motivated by political survival and personal ambition, and instead have politicians motivated by a true desire to improve the state of their communities? After all, if all you’re worried about is getting re-elected, how can you ever see past the next election?
Ultimately, you should always vote for what you believe in. The real wasted vote is the strategic one made against your own principles and against what you stand for. If you never vote for what you believe in, how will you ever get the government you really want?
I am not a career politician, and I have little interest in engaging in politics as it has come to be known in present day Canada.
The steady stream of bad news from the government, for years on end, has deeply embedded feelings of cynicism, disillusionment and distrust within the general public. A profound sense of apathy regarding the entire political process has never seemed more deeply ingrained within our society. For the last few decades, the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP have taken turns leading, but fundamentally, all that is wrong with politics never changes, and in fact only seems to get worse and worse.
Politics is no longer synonymous with democracy, strong moral leadership, or anything even remotely resembling ‘in the best interests of the people’. Instead, the concept of government in this country is now defined by scandal, corruption, abuse of power, and fiscal irresponsibility bordering on the absurd. The discovery of yet another government official acting for the benefit of special interests at best, or outright illegally at worst, has become an almost daily occurrence.
The result of this degradation of democracy is that we end up with a society that suffers. Although Canada is still the greatest country in the world in which to live, that is simply not good enough. We should strive to be better.
We are taxed at some of the highest levels in the world, and yet we have a health care system in shambles, social services are woefully inadequate, violent crime has dangerously elevated, our environment is being systematically corrupted, and overwhelmingly, elected officials utterly fail to serve in the best interests of the very people that elected them.
This must stop.
When I first came upon the Green Party, and I read the Party’s stance on the issues that mattered to me I was initially stunned at how obvious these concepts seemed. It was amazing. As I was reading, I just remember thinking the whole time, ‘well of course, it’s just common sense, no one can argue with these concepts.’ Obviously accountability, transparency, and elimination of special interests should be fundamental to government. Every politician in this country will agree with that. And yet, accountability, transparency and elimination of special interests is the exact polar opposite of what our government has come to represent.
I previously ran in the last federal election, and the experience was truly enlightening. So many people offered positive encouragement and endorsement of what the Green Party stands for. As I’ve said many times, I challenge ANYONE to read through the Green Party platform and say that it is not more logical than what we see in government today.
Amazingly enough, the objection that I here most often is that the Green Party is simply idealistic, and that good government is in fact impossible. I must say, when you see just how deeply ingrained the cynicism is regarding politics and government within our collective thoughts, it really is striking. One of my biggest challenges is to just getting people to believe that good government is even possible.
Think about it; a political movement emerges stating that, within government, you CAN have accountability, so that elected representatives are answerable for the decisions and the promises that they make. You CAN have transparency, so that the decision-making process is accessible to the public, as well as financial records and expense reports. And you CAN fundamentally act in the best interests of your entire constituency, by absolutely refusing to accommodate corporate special interests. And the biggest objection to this is, “It seems great, but it’ll never work. The powers that be will never let it happen. I think we’ll just stick with the financially irresponsible, special-interest-pandering, morally corrupt system that we have now.”
Thankfully, hundreds of thousands of Canadians recognized that it is the voters that are, in fact, the powers that be, and the only way to ever get a government that you really want is to vote for what you believe in. We garnered 4.3% of the vote, or almost 600,000 votes. Exceptionally encouraging when you consider that in 1988, the Reform Party won 2.1% of the vote or 276,535 votes and no seats. The following election in 1993 the Reform Party won 52 seats.
This is the election that we finally break though. Be a part of history.
