Photos of 1st Green MP's 1st event: Rally in Guelph to support Campaign to Elect Mike Nagy!!!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080830.wgreenparty3...

I've received a private email from someone worried that I am prone to hyperbole.

So if one person's writing me others might be thinking it . . . so I thought I'd reply.

Why the grand comparisons to other historic moments? I have blogged about it at http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/6589 but here's the most important point:

In the 1988 federal election the Reform Party won 275,000 votes and no seat – and then in the subsequent 1993 general election, the party won 2.5 million votes and 52 seats – just missing becoming the official opposition by just two seats. What accounted for the 52 seat jump and winning almost 10 times more votes? One simple thing.

In between the elections the Reform Party won a single seat in a by-election. Deb Grey became the lone voice in parliament arguing for the party’s position. Then in the 1993 election Reform Leader Preston Manning was included in the debates – millions of Canadians heard the Reform message and the party won almost 10 times more votes.

We are on the precipice of that same shift. With our first Green MP in Parliament, I see no way that the broadcast consortium can exclude Elizabeth from the televised leaders debates. The Green Party in turn is on the precipice of a profound shift.

I'll tell one more story that I don't think that I've told anywhere else. David Suzuki told this one 15 years ago -- and it's stuck with me ever since.

Some scientists at a university were studying the formation of sand piles. (How they get grants to study this stuff is beyond me -- but it turns out to be quite interesting).

They would drop grains of sand one at a time and watch the pile form. At some critical point, one more grain of sand dropped on the pile would create a landslide and sand would rush down the sides and broaden the base of the pile. Was it the last grain of sand that was responsible for the landslide?

Like some Zen paradox the answer is both yes and no. Yes, the last grain was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but no it wasn't -- in that all the other grains that preceded it were essential -- otherwise nothing would have happened.

The scientists could never predict which grain of sand would cause the landslide.

All they could predict was the ratio of small landslides to big ones. (I'll make up this next part) for instance for every five small landslide's there's one big one.

It is the same way with the profound environmental shift we have been waiting for is in the process of occuring:

Canada's 'natural governing party' -- the Liberal Party -- seeing the rapid rise of the Green Party has taken our primary plank -- the Green Tax Shift and adopted it as their own (albeit watering it down by 80% -- by only proposing a $10 a tonne carbon tax while we advocate $50). The Green Party is driving the political agenda in Canada.

If you ever doubt the power of the Green Party you only need to look to this.

During the 2007 Ontario provincial election campaign Frank de Jong, GPO leader, every day used the line "pay for what you burn, not what you earn" highlighting how the Green Party would raise taxes on non-renewable resrouces such as fossil fuels and decrease personal and corporate income taxes. Frequently I now read quotes in the newspaper from Liberal MPs using this line verbatim. The Green Party is defining the terms of political discourse in Canada.

In the Guelph by-election the NDP candidate has been talking about "green collar jobs" -- a term that I used extensively in the 2004 and 2006 federal elections. As far as I am aware of I was the first federal politician to talk about "green collar jobs." Imitation is the most sincere part of flattery.

Now Blair Wilson has become the first Green MP.

And Mike Nagy on the precipice of winning the Guelph by-election.

All of these are the shifts that precede the inevitable tsunami of change. But most people don't see the tsumani, you don't see the landslide of sand, you don't see the Reform Party winning 52 seats until after it has occured. In hindsight it's easy to realize how profound the shifts were that led up to the revolutionary change.

As Greens we need to recognige the mini-landslides for what they are as they are happening. . . (but an independent MP joining the Green Party isn't a small shift, nor is our rapid rise, nor is forcing the 'natural governing party to adopt in a watered down form our policy).

And so I say again . . . we are living in the time of all times -- the time when society, humanity, political institutions have to recognize the sacredness of this garden planet of the universe and create a new economy, a green economy that is not based on destroying, polluting the earth.

And there is only one party that understands how profound this threat is, and only one party that understands how profound the change must be . . . and that, of course, is the Green Party.

And so we are living in the day of days. . .

I ate it! But it was a tough decision --- eat the corn of the first ever Green MP or sell it on Ebay!

M

Great pictures from the day! I'm sure my mom will just love that one of me is up here!

- Amanda Judd
Female Organizing Chair of the Council of the Young Greens of Canada

What a great campaign advertisement. Whoever put that together deserves a pat on the back.

A great pictorial record from a day which wrought sheer joy and hope to the people of Guelph!

I have to strongly concur with both David and Michael. I am in Canada because of communism. In 1983 my parents left their family in Poland believing they may not see them again, to try to guarantee greater opportunities for their children.

Very little if anything compares with the end of a state where people feared for years being sent away to Gulags in Siberia - a reality some of my relatives faced, scarcity of goods and choice, a stranglehold on democracy, consistent fear of invasion, ideological indoctrination, religious intolerance etc etc.

We have the benefit of being able to care about the environment, and it's a duty we have to our world and our country. People under communist times did not have that luxury - they wondered how to live and succeed in a world of one-party rule, a bleak future for their children, scarcity and secret police.

The fall of communism was a paradigm shift, in the sense of Thomas Kuhn, as it led to a utterly and completely new global geopolitical orientation. In history and political science we now recognize the eras of the post-communist world and the communist world. The collapse marked the end of a politically, economically, socially and ideologically polarized world in which far, far too many people had to make horrific decisions and far too many more faced horrific fates.

I was as surprised and am as happy as anyone that we finally have our Green MP! It was monumental, there is no doubt, and I certainly felt the weight of how much potential impact it could have on the future of our country. It IS historical, and political science textbooks will be re-written in Canada with Blair's name beside the word Green. But please, please do not compare it to the fall of communism.

Thanks.