greenpolitics.ca

greenpolitics.ca now available in three book formats
Like the struggle to protect the environment, this blog has always been about democracy. Democracy is never served by covert decision-making, but perhaps even more important is that the environment and non-human species will never protected by manipulative, self-serving, and secretive human-centric politics. The best of greenpolitics.ca is now available in book format
as a printed paperback or an epub or pdf e-book

Book Review Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May has written an interesting but politically disappointing book on the dysfunctional state of Canada’s parliamentary democracy. Although it could be used as a lay-person’s guide to Canada’s Westminster-style politics, May provides no real insight as to how this inauthentic, fractious, and ethically corrupt mess can be cleaned up and genuine democracy attained. She knows the score, but fails to understand the nature of the game.

Book Review Political activist Judy Rebick has written a visionary and inspiring book that shows how applied people-power can transform politics from being élitist, secretive, and corrupt, into genuinely open, grassroots, and democratic systems. Her writing is highly-charged and visionary, but her focus on South American politics glosses over the fact that Canadian political culture is very different. Can western democracy be transformed, or are we just too affluent to organise for change?

Introduction Will Canadian politics be simply a continuation of the feudal class struggles of the past, or have globalisation and the Internet brought about a political sea change that will result in a radically transformed and more polarised political landscape? Here are two books that each represent radically different visions of the past and future of Canadian democracy.

A trip to a ferry terminal turned into a reminder of the fragility of democratic rights and the insidious way that both Liberal and Conservative governments have secretly adopted the self-serving corporate agenda of North American integration. Is the repressive, anti-democratic Security and Prosperity Partnership the beginning of The Age of Razor Wire? Wake up, froggies! The water is beginning to boil!

In this concluding article, John Ryan explains why there is enough common ground for the federal Liberal, NDP and Green parties to form a mutually-acceptable and visionary political partnership that can defeat Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, form a coalition government, and lead Canada towards a progressive and independent future.

Long-time political observer John Ryan believes that a strategic political agreement between the Liberals, NDP, and Greens will enable them to win the next Canadian federal election and form a coalition government. Only then would the majority of Canadians have a government that would reflect their views, values, and interests, he explains.

Despite the intent to create a more democratic political process, many Green parties from the start adopted the same ‘top-down’ hierarchical structure as mainstream political parties. Their leadership progressively sealed themselves off from the party’s grass roots, and in many cases membership and fundraising declined precipitously. This analysis looks at why.

Seeking to end two decades on the fringes of politics, BC Greens took their first tentative steps on the slippery slope to power. Whether it leads towards the Green ideals of world peace, ecological and social justice, and grassroots democracy depends on whether the party sells its soul in its quest for influence.

We cannot continue to flounder around with the outmoded ideas of the past. Our very survival is at stake: the future of this planet and the vitality and well-being of the Green movement in Canada, is on the line. The goal of this discussion paper is to raise the prospect of achieving a regionalized structure for the Green movement, one that will allow it to evolve along fully democratic lines. A secondary aim to outline a new concept of federal organisation, one that can be applied to all national Canadian institutions.