Ask-The-Contestants!

Hi Vivian,
Thank you for your question.

Anna and I believe that the path to implementing Proportional representation begins with increasing our capacity as Greens to not only better mobilize our support and campaign in elections, but to be present and active in our communities. As outlined in our plan for the first 6-months of our leadership, Anna and I plan to launch a Green campaign school called the “Green Leaders Network”. The main purpose of this program will be to boost the campaign capacity of our Electoral District Associations, in order to ensure that 60-100 ridings are ready and able to run strong campaigns in the next election. The additional benefit of this program is that it will provide our members with transferable skills they can use in their communities to help move forward important local initiatives.

Our plan is to position the Green Party of Canada as a resource for progressive action in all 338 ridings in the country. If we are successful in our plan we believe we will give Canadians an appetite for a deeper form of democracy. In our opinion, when communities across the country start demanding more engagement, more accountability, and more faithful representation from their elected officials, we will be well on our way to reforming how we do politics in this country.

We want to equip our members with the tools and knowledge to rally their communities around the need to convene regular town halls and push for the use of citizens’ assemblies as a way to determine policy or resolve controversial societal questions.

We want to equip our members with the necessary knowledge to go back into their communities and help their neighbours better understand how to work the levers of government to their advantage. We want to show them how to make their local, provincial, and federal governments and representatives more responsive to their needs.

We want to show Canadians that Greens can lead through action all the time and not just in an election year. In so doing, we expect to increase the credibility of the Green Party and attract enough sustained support that we can elect the necessary 12 or more MPs to the House of Commons, and put real pressure on the government to move towards Proportional Representation.

Given the low support for the Liberals as well as the fear of electing a Poilievre majority government, we expect that we will continue to elect minority governments for the foreseeable future. In this context, Anna and I have committed ourselves to making Proportional Representation a non-negotiable condition of any supply and confidence agreement we would consider. We are so committed that we would be confident in sending Canadians back to an election on the issue, should no other Party have the courage to take us up on this plan.

In the meantime, as we work to grow our numbers in Parliament, we must seek out alliances with like-minded MPs from other Parties and begin the process of building a broad coalition around this issue in the House of Commons. Changing the way we elect governments in this country will be no easy task, and there is no one method that will bring us success in achieving this endeavor. We must ensure that we diversify our tactics and apply pressure both from within government as well as from the outside if we hope to succeed.