Anne Kingston: Elizabeth May's party has emerged as the potential sleeper at an increasingly polarized political moment
On May 29, 2018, the day the government announced it was buying the Trans Mountain pipeline, lifelong Liberal David Merner joined the Green Party of Canada. “It was the final straw,” says the lawyer who had been active in the federal Liberal party since he was a University of Alberta student in the ’80s. He ran in the 2015 election, placing second to the NDP in Vancouver Island’s Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke riding. He’s running again there in 2019, but this time for the Greens.
The numbers are tiny, but they represent what could be a looming battle with the NDP for the Canadian progressive vote, one that also risks benefitting the Conservatives, the party least concerned with climate change. at 5 per cent, the People’s Party at 3 percent, and “Others” at 1 per cent. That leaves 60 per cent of the electorate who aren’t feeling a tremendously strong connection to current choices up for grabs, says Graves, as well as for a group he dubs the “promiscuous progressives” people who vote any way but Conservative. Many defected from NDP to Liberal in 2015.
Historically, poll support for Greens doesn’t play out when votes are cast. The Green majority predicted in P.E.I. didn’t materialize. Graves blames lower voter turnout: “The Greens didn’t have the same ground game as the Conservatives and had fewer recognizable candidates in a province where the emphasis is on the local candidate.
Whether the Green party lineup will include former marquee Liberals Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott, now Independents, is uncertain. May’s invitation to them to join the party remains unanswered, at least publicly. A spokesperson for Philpott told Maclean’s that the MP hadn’t “made a firm decision about running” and will make an announcement in the coming weeks.
The party’s fully costed platform will be released by summer’s end, says Roberts. “The Greens’ success will hinge on producing a plausible blueprint for the economy,” Graves says.
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