Bonsoir, merci.

Je suis très heureuse d'être ici ce soir pour mon dernier discours dans la course à la chefferie du Parti Vert du Canada.

Pour moi la course à la chefferie n'est pas un exercice par lequel je demande qu'on me confie le rôle de chef, mais plutôt un long processus de demande d'emploi pour un nouveau poste. Évidemment, c'est pas mal plus long et complexe pour ce qui est des entrevues! Il a fallu que je quitte mon ancien poste, j'ai dû faire des discours à travers le Canada et j'ai pris part à deux débats officiels sans compter tous les autres, sans le sceau officiel du Parti Vert.

La grande question au cœur de la course à la chefferie est : Qui est en meilleure position pour jouer ce rôle et être le meilleur porte-parole pour le parti, qui possède le talent et a le plus d'expérience?

En réalité, en vous demandant de m'élire comme chef je vous demande plutôt de me confier le rôle de servante des membres du Parti Vert.

Ma conception du « leadership » a toujours été sous le signe du « service » aux autres, par exemple à mon organisme quand j'étais chef du Club Sierra du Canada, pour mon pays et pour le monde. Maintenant, je veux offrir au Parti Vert mes connaissances, ma crédibilité, mon énergie et mes efforts dans la vie.

For some of you knowledge of my background lies solely with my work in the Sierra Club of Canada. In addition, I have been a practicing lawyer – both in a large downtown corporate law firm and in a public interest law group. I ran a small family business with a staff of 35.

In 1980, I founded the "small party," the seed from which the Green Party of Canada was formed. I ran against the Deputy Prime Minister of the day, Allan J. MacEachern. I did not expect to win. Next time I will!

What in my track record shows skills useful to the Green Party ?

In brief, I have shown an ability to build an organization, taking SCC from no national presence in 1989, to an established and respected national organization… from a budget in 1989 of $10,000 to a 2006 budget of $1.4 million for the Ottawa operation and over $3 million for all country, from one part time staff member (me) to a staff of twenty with national, and another forty in chapters across the country. From two chapters to five across Canada as well as a brilliant national youth wing active on 25 university campuses and many more high schools.

Of course, no one accomplishes so much single handed. I worked with literally hundreds of volunteers across Canada and with a national board, and a great team on staff. My staff was my family and I miss my Sierra Club colleagues enormously. We need strong NGOs…. I want to urge people to support and join Sierra Club of Canada (www.sierraclub.ca) and also the wonderful work of Fair Vote Canada… here tonight to push for Electoral Reform. (go to www.fairvote.ca)

So, as usual, I have interrupted my job interview to plug two great NGOs!

Back to my background: I did recruit and build that team and motivate volunteers and mentor the youth. I have always maintained, "you can accomplish anything you want if you don't care who gets the credit." But in this long job application process, it is worth noting that I have more managerial skills, more of a track record of team building and more fundraising skills than the other applicants.

I am clearly the candidate with the greatest familiarity with the workings of government. I was in a key position in the federal government from 1986-88 and I have worked closely with governments -- local, provincial, federal and First Nations -- for decades..

J'etais dans un poste cadre dans l'equipe du ministre de l'environnement pendant 2 ans. Je connais bien l'appareil gouvernmental. Et j'ai eu beaucoup de succès..

In terms of the Green Party leader job description, the primary role is "spokesperson" and communicator.

I see it in more catalytic terms – communicating a vision, mobilizing and motivating and inspiring people to yearn for a vision of a better world.

"Without vision the people perish." Proverbs 29:18

We need to describe that vision. We must hold out a message of hope.

Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith "All great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it is the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time."

That is the role for the Green Party. "Leadership," as practiced by the old line parties, consists of divining what they believe people want to hear – pabulum for the masses, short-term policies geared to peoples' short-term self-interest.

The Green Party must set forth a more ennobling vision…. One that faces the major threats of our time – the climate crisis, economic instability, increasing militarism and a growing gap between the rich and the poor, with clear eyed realism. The Green Party must come forward with practical solutions -- down to earth policies. We must be willing to explain to and engage Canadians in the positive changes that are essential in order to bequeath a livable world to our children.

Consider our place in Earth history. This metaphor come from my friend and former CEO of Interface Flooring, Ray Anderson. If the 3.8 billion years of the history of life on Earth were placed on a time line 1 kilometre long. Humanity enters 2 centimetres from the end. The Industrial Revolution begins 1/8000ths of a centimetre from now.

In a breathtakingly short period of time, less than the blink of a cosmic eye, a once unexceptional species – hairless apes on a wide savannah -- we have become the dominate force for change on the face of the earth.

We have taken the life-giving, life-creating, life-nurturing systems of Planet Earth and pushed them into reverse.

We are polluting our life support system with toxic chemicals with generational health impacts. We have caused the largest episode of species extinction since the one that took out the dinosaurs. We have weakened and thinned the ozone layer that protects us from the sun's most harmful rays.

And, by burning fossil fuels and destroying forests, we have changed the very chemistry of our atmosphere.

We do stand at a precipice in human history. As noted in the Earth Charter, this is a moment of great peril, but also of enormous promise. Trend lines are not predictions. Trends can be shifted. Catastrophe can be averted. We can beat swords into ploughshares. We can shift from life-destroying to life-nourishing technologies.

Ce n'est pas trop tard, mais le temps presse. On doit se reveiller et poursuivre une vision durable et saine.

We must have and share a vision of a better world. We must express that a better world is possible. Some speak of politics as the "art of the possible." For us as Greens we must embrace the art of the impossible.

As Petra Kelly, founder of the German Green Party said: "We, the generation that faces the next century, can add the solemn injunction "If we don't do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable. "We can turn this world around. We have no other choice.

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