Wednesday, 23 April 2008

  • Activists & Politicos

    Mark Taylor
    Recently I was asked to do a review of the Alberta election and how the provincial Green Party did in this campaign. The Alberta campaign post-mortem will be the subject of a separate post.  As I was pulling notes together on the election and the provincial campaign, several themes were presenting themselves.  Having been involved with the federal Greens as well, as an elected Federal Councillor, I saw these same themes forming in the upcoming federal campaign.  The problems stem from the internal culture within the Green Party. 

    If the Greens truly want to succeed in the political arena, the culture needs to be changed otherwise the party will remain a “one-issue” protest vote who will eventually return to fringe status and be nothing more than a footnote in Canadian history.

    Keep in mind that the Greens are a relatively young party, compared to other national parties, having been formed roughly 25 years ago.  The rationale of the formation of the party was simply to create another avenue to bring environmental issues forward during elections. 

    It is clearly evident that party development and party building was not a priority for the Greens in the early days.   As examples:

    • There was 5 years between the first two general meetings of the Party (1983 & 1988).
    • Between 1983 and 2000, the GPC slate never ran more than 111 candidates or earned more than 0.81% of the national vote.
    • Former Leader Jim Harris has stated that in his leadership campaign in 2003 he called the entire membership of 800 people.

     This final point is particularly noteworthy when you compare this fact to:

    • Art Hanger, while campaigning for the nomination in Calgary Northeast, signed up 12,000 new members in that one riding, or
    • Joe Volpe, in his failed campaign to become federal Liberal Party leader, signed up 35,000 new members.

    It would be safe to say that up until 2003, the Green Party was only a political party in name only.  Most of the membership was environmental activists who were not only Green Party members but also heavily involved with a range of environmental groups (i.e. Greenpeace, Sierra Club, etc.).  As such, the Party was being run by people who were exceptionally strong at organizing protests and rallies against government but had little to no experience in forming an organization whose mandate is to become government.

    This is where the distinction between activism and politics, and their respective participants, has to be defined. 

    Activism is an end-goal driven activity.  Regardless of the cause, the purpose of activism is to reach a specific goal and activists are focused on obtaining this goal by any and all means possible. 

    Politics, on the other hand, is a process driven activity.  While there is generally an end-goal defined, politicos focus on following proper processes in order to reach the end-goal.

    The best way to define this difference is how the activists and politicos interact with people in order to reach the end goal. 

    Activists use a range of tactics starting with letter writing campaigns to sit-ins to rallies/demonstrations to direct confrontation to force a change in actions in order of obtaining a final solution.  Force is the correct word because the actions are all centered on forcing a change of action by frustration, embarrassment, harassment or intimidation.  Regardless of whether the actions of the activists are successful, relations between the parties are extremely volatile as things like decorum, trust and respect are non-existent and unlikely to ever form. 

    Not only are the personal interactions of a negative scope but so is the outlook. Many of these activists will be heard stating that they are “happy” that other parties are “stealing” Green policies.  This is a defeatist attitude because they are more focused on the idea being forwarded than the party.

    Politicos, with their focus on processes, develop relationships with decision makers in order to affect change.  The tools of politicos are influence, barter and negotiation.  In all of these cases there is either the exchange of goods or ideas that result obtaining final results.  However to use these tools, personal relationships need to be formed and these require things like trust and respect to be in place throughout. 

    The politicos believe in the institution of democracy and see the party system as the means of implementing policy.  The outlook is based that the ideas can only be implemented by forwarding the party via the processes defined by democracy (i.e. Elections Canada and Parliament) and building relationships with the voters.

    This is where the culture within the Green Party needs to change.  The Green Party is a registered political party that operates within the rules of democracy in Canada.  If the Green Party wants to truly participate in the political system, the volunteers and staff within the party needs to embrace the fact they are a political party and not an environmental non-profit organization. 

    If/when this epiphany happens, this is when the focus of the party will be on party development and growth. 

    • Riding associations will be formed in all electoral districts.
    • Volunteers will be trained in voter identification, getting out the vote and fundraising. 
    • Candidates will learn policy outside of environmentalism and develop skills like public speaking and networking. 
    • Members will spend more time becoming better political players instead of better environmentalists.

     Mark Taylor was elected to the Federal Council of the GPC but resigned in Mar 08. Mark was a campaign manager in the recent Alberta election. Mark's day job is as an engineer in the oil and gas industry. He and his wife are “chasing two little soon-to-be politicos around the house.” He blogs here. 

     

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