Greens Vs. NDP: Who's Greener?
Posted on Monday, June 21 at 14:30 by Anonymous
by Joan Russow
June 21, 2004
I left the Green Party because the German Greens, when in government, sacrificed principle for power, and the Mexican Greens, when in government, sacrificed policy for power. The German Greens sacrificed the Green Party principle of non-violence when they supported the invasion not only of Kosovo, but also of Afghanistan. The Mexican Greens sacrificed policy for power when they formed the government with the right wing PAN and abandoned their opposition to NAFTA.
It became increasingly difficult for me to claim that the Green Party was more principled than other parties and that the Green Party, if elected, would stand by their principles and policy.
As its former leader, I have become increasingly disappointed with the development of the Green Party of Canada and its loss of broader socialist concerns, its weakened opposition to militarism, its proposals for reduced government, and its “market-based” environmentalism. However, it was only after I was asked by the media to compare the Green Party platform with the NDP platform that I realized how much the platform has changed since I was the leader.
Flexible policies and platform
I joined the Green Party because I believed its policies were based on principles. Today, the party proposes “regional interpretation of values.” Worse, visitors to the Party's website can now vote on the platform by choosing a thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon, and a policy is deemed “endangered” and re-evaluated if support falls below 50 per cent.
The Green Party had made firm commitments to universal day care, Pharmacare and a publicly-funded, not-for-profit, non two-tier health care system (while preventing environmentally-induced diseases and poverty-related health problems) — as has the NDP. Now, in the new Green Party platform there will be a referendum on day care and Pharmacare, and it could completely undermine medicare through its proposal of “respecting the right of provinces to opt out of federal and provincial initiatives without financial penalty.”
Voluntary compliance
While I was the leader of the Green Party of Canada, we advocated a strong mandatory regulatory regime to drive industry to comply with environmental standards. When I ran and won against Jim Harris for the leadership of the Green Party in 1997, I became concerned about his business of giving motivational talks to corporations. Now in the 2004 Green Party Platform, the Green Party is “Encourage [ing] ISO 14000 Certification — Achieving progress requires measuring performance. The Green Party will assist and encourage Canadian companies to attain ISO 14000 certification, the international standard for management.”
Along with the WTO and so-called “free trade,” ISO 14000 is a centre-piece of the corporate agenda. It is the corporate scheme of voluntary compliance. In ISO 14000, polluters set their own environmental management objective, and the means to attain it — with no external evaluation. For example, one company claimed that it was reducing greenhouse gases by moving more towards civil nuclear energy. It is quite possible that Green Party candidates or the public may not realize the implications of what the party is supporting through its endorsement of ISO 14000.
In the 2004 NDP election platform, the NDP makes a commitment to reverse years of government procrastination arising from collusion with corporations and their agenda of voluntary compliance. The NDP platform calls for “overhauling the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to reverse the current focus on voluntary action, and replace it with mandatory pollution prevention measures for corporations and institutions” and enforce the polluter-pay principle.
Labelling of genetically engineered foods and crops
In the 1997 and 2000 federal elections, while I was leader of the Green Party of Canada, we called for banning genetically engineered foods and crops, with a fair and just transition for farmers and communities affected by the conversion to organic or other ecologically-sound forms of farming.
The Green Party 2004 platform is calling for only labelling: “Require the labelling of foods that are known to contain, or that might contain, genetically modified material.”
Labelling does not address the environmental issue of genetic drift. Labelling doesn't address the equity issue either. Not everyone can buy organic food, and genetically engineered foods are being dumped on the poor and into developing countries. In addition, labelling does not address the democratic and economic issues: few citizens from Canada or the global community want genetically engineered foods and crops.
The NDP policy is stronger because it calls for a moratorium on any new releases.
Taxing the baddies, not the goodies
I have always been concerned about the appetite in the Green Party for “green taxes” which are best summarized by the Ontario Greens' proposal of “taxing the baddies not the goodies.” It's time that the notion of “green taxes” be examined. To some extent, green taxes, if implemented, would give a license to pollute and would undermine strong regulatory regimes.
In addition, green taxes are usually linked to promises of reduced income taxes. The problem is that green taxation undermines the principle of a “progressive” tax regime which re-distributes wealth from the rich, who pay a higher rate, to the poor. The use of “green taxes” is a market-based approach rather than a principle-based approach.
Neither left nor right
When I was the Green Party leader, I cringed when some members would proclaim that they “were neither left nor right but straight ahead.” This claim is now proudly stated on the Green Party's website. I am increasingly concerned about the Green Party's denial of the left. I worked so hard, with others, to try to establish the Green Party as a progressive party on the left. When NDP leader Jack Layton was recently in B.C. talking about social justice, Andrew Lewis, the deputy leader of the Greens, was quoted as stating that Layton's speech was only “socialist rhetoric.”
Humanitarian intervention and green militarism
In 1997 and 2000, the Green Party I led called for the relocation of 50 per cent of the federal military budget into health care and higher education, and for at least a 50 per cent reduction of the global military budget — the peace dividend — into global social justice. Today's Green Party proposes to maintain a “rapid response and deployment force capable of supporting humanitarian, environmental and peace-keeping missions.” Humanitarian intervention, however, has been used to legitimize military intervention.
I have joined the NDP because I think that the NDP is revitalized.
The NDP has made a firm commitment to re-introduce MP Lorne Nystrom's bill which proposes some form of mixed proportional representation. Jack Layton has promised that a commitment to some form of proportional representation will be a minimum prerequisite for NDP support or a minority government. It is in the interests of the Green Party to support the NDP at this time.
Unfortunately, in many key ridings the NDP may lose because of the Green vote. The promising option of progressives holding the balance of power in a minority government becomes less likely.
The implications in this election are serious, particularly for issues of militarism. In the U.S., the Green Party appears to have taken a stand not to endorse Ralph Nader because they realize the implications of George W. Bush's re-election.
Joan Russow (PhD), former leader of the Green Party of Canada wrote this in collaboration with David White, former chair of the Green Party of British Columbia.
http://www.rabble.ca/in_her_own_words.shtml?sh_itm=287599993dd0a959f86cd63e95d0e34a&r=1
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The NDP has a greener policy than the Jim Harris Greens.
Kevin
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"Love actually, is all around us" --From the movie Love Actually.
That helps the Libs and Cons !!
If any Green members are conflicted, then by all means, vote NDP because what you see is what you get.
No corporate agenda, no tax cuts or "shifting", and as the Greens are proud to say, they are not left or right.
With a right-wing leader, how can they say that and expect us to become believers ??
They have a long way to go to get my vote.
BTW, I've already voted.
Can't wait for the results !!!!!!!!!!!!
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"Arrogance in Politics is unacceptable"
Jim Callaghan
Minden, Ontario
705-286-1860
www.misterc.ca
Now if someone told you he could make the ants go away by just making the plants taste bad, giving them no incentive to keep eating your garden, you might believe that, right? And it would be much cheaper, and if it didn't work, you'd still have a garden, and could try some other method later.
The NDP proposes to raise taxes, requiring more industrial activity to pay the taxes, which means more pollution, more logging, more fishing, more mining. So there is more of an ecological problem to deal with on day one. Then, the huge bureaucracies they propose to create will demand training, care and feeding, and will always be fighting with provinces who claim jurisdiction over the same things. In the end, they can do nothing but punish industry for not being creative enough to save energy and materials, which industrial enterprises are always trying to do anyway. Do you send inspectors with the power to punish into arts or educational institutions to stomp on people who aren't very creative? No. The number of intentional polluters and eco-destroyers if very low. The number of uncreative managers who do not understand their own work processes enough to cut energy or material use, or reduce pollution, is high.
The Green Party solution is to make all forms of waste and pollution expensive. Then they show up on the bottom line. "Big penalties" against polluters never work - they are not enforced evenly, and even if they are charged, the criminal courts have too high a standard of evidence. The civil lawsuits are better launched by citizens who are the ones harmed, than by governments. And, the creativity of the ordinary workers in industry is what is very important.
This is what the NDP doesn't trust: the creativity of the ordinary workers, and the innovations they come up with to prevent pollution, save energy, save materials. Joan Russow is with her friends now. Her friends the dinosaurs.
It was the leader of the B.C. Green Party that initiated the petition to push for electoral reform in B.C. and because I feel like that is the MOST critical issue that has to take place before we can ever take back out government and our country from Corporateworld I volunteered to collect signatures. If everyone here wants to get rid of the Liberal/Conservative - Conservative/Liberal majorities, get out and start collecting signatures for electoral reform!
Again Green party supporters are resorting to name calling when lashing out against the NDP. Did it ever occur to you that the NDP has an environmental platform to rival the Greens? that they're not just about higher taxes? Or is the Green party the only official source of environmental dogma for the world?
And did it also occur to the Green party that the capitalist economic system that you propose to reform through tax incentives is the same system that got us into this environmental meltdown that we are in the midst of today?
The real "dinosaurs" are in fact the corporations that you are in bed with with your proposals of voluntary self-regulation. And workers, while we are the ones that run this planet and we are quite capable of running it without shareholders and CEOS and managers, will not lift a finger to make more money for our companies if there is nothing in it for us. So you might want to address labour and environmental legislation, you know, those things that governments are supposed to do for the benefit of all society.
First of all, Joan is being "trotted out" by the NDP to attack the Green Party. If she didn't have old credentials to lean on, no one would pay any attention to what she has to say.
Secondly, those credentials are a lot less than you might think. As a party that had almost no money until recently, it was an appallingly onerous job to be leader simply becaue almost all your own travelling expenses came out of your own pocket. Joan was leader because almost no one else wanted the job.
Thirdly, and most importantly, Joan and others like her, simply never really "got" the Green Party. Greens believe that we are facing a tremendous, unprecedented crisis. This means that we honestly want to change society from top to bottom in order to save as much of the ecosystem as possible before it fails catastrophically. This trumps EVERYTHING.
Social Democrats, like Joan and the NDP, simply do not understand this fact. That is why their policies are based on a continued exponential growth in the economy (ie: the very human activity that is destroying the planet.) As Greens we have had to ask ourselves "how can we get humans to change their behaviour in ways that will stop them from committing collective suicide?" The result, with a LOT of help from economists like Herman Daly and the work of Green Parties around the world, is the idea of the "tax shift" and
strategies for doing more with less in terms of the welfare state.
I know that a lot of folks who are "old style Lefties" (and sincerely good folks), simply cannot wrap their heads around this new way of looking at things. When I speak to them I cannot figure out if it is because they don't believe that we are facing a really big environmental proglem; or because the reasoning behind the new economics is too difficult for them to understand. (Probably a mixture of both.) For these folks I constantly try to figure out new ways of explaining the issues.
Unfortunately, some folks try to wilfully mislead people of goodwill on what the Greens stand for. I won't attempt to identify them, as they will only know themselves by looking in their own hearts. But I say "shame on you".
Suffice it to say that the charicature of the Green Party being portrayed by the likes of Joan Russow and Murray Dobbin is wildly out of touch with the reality.
Bill Hulet
Editor, "The Green Party Review"
http://www.greenpartyreview.ca
Government isn't a static entity; it's a constantly changing organism, constantly evolving and improving. This is the nature of democracy. It doesn't always work, but we learn (Or should learn) from when we fail, and progress from there. The only governments that don't change are Dictatorships. Society progresses, thus, shouldn't governments as well?
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Ændrew Rininsland
Helping our environment requires some heavy-duty doing. But doing it in a way that would excessively hurt companies is not the way to go about it. The Green Party's economic plan looks much better, and it makes more sense from an economic and social point of view.
After all, we all depend on the environment, but we also depend on all those businesses, big and small, for our livelihood. The Green Party, I think, has found a model that would increase environmental protection while preserving AND creating jobs.
The only thought I had reading this was what a waste of time in bickering about various parties and what they 'stand for' or how they conduct business.
That's why a direct democracy party makes sense. In many cases an environmental response is easily done and if it brings about a higher standard while creating jobs (such as subsidizing renewables and not oil) then people would see that as being the way to go. That's not always possible, but people are quite capable of deciding on each issue. I like some things about the Greens, but I"m not going to vote for them because of ONE thing they do. Likewise the NDP, in fact, there are a couple of things done by the BQ, Liberals and conservatives that I like, but I don't support them at the polls because of that. If we simply had the opportunity to look at each issue, get out all the facts and viewpoints, then decide, life would be so much easier.
Marcarc,I agree with you,DD is the only way to go.
What ever party gets in,they will do the party thing.
The people have to have ALL the power.
I am voting DD next time!