Canadians may find it hard to believe, but there are countries in the world where “Greens” are actually a serious, credible political force … and not so much a collection of extremists, bigots and just plain wackos!
In 2004, Indulis Emsis became Prime Minister of Latvia, the world’s first Green head of government. Greens have also been official members of coalition governments in Scandinavia, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, France, Germany …and others.
And those achievements occurred despite the plethora of other left-wing, socially-conscious parties/movements competing for the environmentally-sensitive vote.
But not so in Canada!
Even in environmentally-conscious BC, the “oldest Green Party in North America”, founded in 1983, has never been government or part of a formal coalition government. In 2017, when the Greens elected three MLAs, the party propped up the NDP minority government under a “Confidence and Supply Agreement”, but were never actually part of government.
In Vancouver, when Greens won/played a significant, if minority role, at City Hall and the Park Board, the voters tossed most of them after one term.
Federally, the Greens’ have done even worse: their popular vote has languished mostly between 2.3% and 3.9% … its all-time-high (2019) reaching only 6.5%.
Why?
I put it to you Canada’s “Greens’ are too extreme, too wacko … to be taken seriously!
Canadians see too many of them as extremists, ideological radicals insensitive to realities faced by working citizens, families, businesses, and even a party harboring terrorism-supporting revolutionaries and anti-Semites.
In Vancouver, many voters still shudder at the “record’ of pain/road disruptions/closures/restrictions and the huge costs inflicted on the citizenry (including severe impacts on families, seniors and the handicapped) when even a few Greens held sway at City Hall and the Vancouver Parks Board.
And it doesn’t look like the Greens in Canada have learned yet that support for extremism does not sell!
At a press conference called by the federal Greens, party leader Elizabeth May last week called on the federal government to stop the deportation of convicted REPEAT criminal offender Zain Haq who, according to news reports “for a period of about 16 months starting in 2021 … was one of the central figures in a series of massively disruptive illegal road blockades targeting the Vancouver area”.
“In court proceedings, Crown prosecutors tallied up the damage: Tens of thousands of transit buses, delivery drivers and motorists snarled in traffic for hours on end. Emergency vehicles unable to access St. Paul’s Hospital. Travellers missing their flights out of Vancouver International, the country’s second-busiest airport,” the National Post reported.
“Haq wasn’t only violating the law, but the terms of the student visa on which he had entered the country in 2019. Haq wasn’t meeting academic requirements, according to the Canada Border Services Agency. And — like all international students — he had entered Canada pledging to abide by the law and to leave once the terms of his study were complete.
“His blockades violated court injunctions and — in some instances — Haq was violating his own release conditions. His August 2022 blockade of Vancouver’s Cambie Street Bridge managed to violate two separate release conditions at the same time: He’d been barred from being on the bridge following his arrest at an earlier blockade, and he’d been released from immigration detention just a few weeks prior on the condition that he not organize any more blockades,” reporter Tristin Hopper explained .
(You can read the entire report here: https://link.postmedia.com/view/5c80100795a7a13c2119b5c2mtd5d.913/0ff2d3de)
“Haq is not a violent criminal, and his mischievous convictions do not meet the legal threshold for serious criminality,” his lawyer, Randall Cohn, said in a statement. “He has made a lawful application for permanent residence as the spouse of a Canadian citizen, and he has properly applied to extend the temporary status that was granted to him in April. This deportation is entirely avoidable, resulting from IRCC’s inability to locate his application.”
May said deporting the Pakistani-born student would unjustly separate him from his Canadian wife while his spousal sponsorship application is still being considered.
I say “To hell with his spousal application”!
Getting married to a Canadian should NEVER guarantee that a repeat, convicted foreign criminal disrupter of the lives of thousands of Canadians … not even a landed immigrant, but here on a student visa …. should get to stay here!
Throw him out!
And I believe May and the Greens once more show how out of touch they remain with the feelings and anger of most Canadians by trying to get him yet another “pass’ … and the Greens are ignoring and insulting more than just the thousands who suffered directly as a result of Haq’s deliberate actions.
If he wants to fight for the climate … let him do so in Pakistan.
According to Human Rights watch “Lahore, city of 14 million people, has – again – topped rankings of world’s most polluted air.”
Here’s something Haq can read on the plane home: https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/11/19/pakistans-deadly-air-pollution-crisis?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-fzQo7mUiwMVrqNaBR20kQKyEAAYASAAEgLaJvD_BwE.
However, I don’t recommend Haq try the same disruptive tactics there that he did here.
Harv Oberfeld
(Follow @harveyoberfeld on “X” for FREE First Alerts to all new postings on this Blog.)
The Green Party needs to understand that Canadians don’t want to go back to the Stone Age. There are Greens around the world that have had success because they’re not so extreme. They focus on a number of issues besides the environment.
Elizabeth May is no alternative to the Liberals. We know she loves terrorists and environme tal criminals. In the USA, the country she’s originally from, she’d get along with politicians like Alexandra Ocasio Cortez and Ilhan Omar.
(Response: Maybe not back to the stone age, but more to a new age …of bicycles, public transit and walking …lots of walking, with only the very rich (and politicians) able to afford regularly driving vehicles! And to hell with the handicapped, elderly and families unable to hop on transit for all their shopping, appointments, enjoyment (although the last one could be banned totally, if it consumes energy.) H.o)
Your response to me and Daniel are kind of my point about diminishing support for climate action. I am not a scientist. I don’t know what to believe so I am relying on the expertise of others.
Scientists are telling us that climate change is real. That things can only get worse unless we do something now. But we don’t want to pay for it. Poilievre and Rustad and other people shouting Ax the Tax are not offering any alternatives to combat climate. Freeland and Eby are hinting at scrapping the tax without any alternatives to fighting climate.
Sorry to say this but nothing is free. We can pay for something now (whatever that something is) or we can throw our hands in the air and pay for what ever devastation occurs in the future.
Here’s the good news. I just read an article that listed the 10 countries that are the most resilient to climate change. Canada, the US and countries in northern Europe fill that list. Part of that is because we are among the richest countries in the world and will have some money to combat the devastation when it happens and part of that is because we live in a moderate climate and aren’t already suffering extreme circumstances like Africa and much of Asia and South America.
But if we are worried about migration now and much of that is climate related just imagine the future.
Instead of tackling the big issue we get bogged down in plastic bags, an activist being sent back home and the failings of an insignificant party.
We always talk about leaving huge debts for our kids to pay off. How much do we care about leaving them the cost of mopping up climate disasters.
(Response: I certainly agree that any politician who says get rid of the carbon tax should have specific alternatives how to replace the revenues or deal with the problem of climate change. My problem with the carbon tax… And I believe it reflects the opinions of many other Canadians… Is that it is highly punitive against working people, who have to travel every day to go to work just to earn a living. And if you recall, Trudeau‘s liberal government didn’t just apply the carbon tax once, it kept increasing it over and over and over again, squeezing every penny out of the working class it could. I believe Piilievre or whoever replaces Trudeau will have to come up with a plan to deal with car climate change without the carbon tax.
And it would certainly help motivate Canadians if we did not see what I have seen in Florida, where people trash cans, beer bottles, paper, plastics, all without abandon…… No deposits no return returns.
And if you think that is terrible, have a look at Asia and Africa were so many coastal nations just throw their trash into the river to be carried out to see… Those big patches of several square miles of garbage floating in the ocean more likely came from Asia and Africa and not North America.
That’s the problem: people here feel we pay far too high price while others around the world do absolutely nothing or very little to fight climate change, even though their cities and nations may suffer more than Canada ever would. H.o)
I agree somewhat.
The current government response to global Warming is nil, despite the fact they are taxing us to oblivion to fund more bureaucrats to tells of the horrors of global warming, but that’s all.
$10 billion to widen HWY 1, so more cars can use it. $16 billion to extend the light metro system a mere 21.7 km, yet it will take very few cars off the road and give transit users a more inconvenient service.
I can go on.
There is a belief in the bureaucracy that the more you tax citizens, the more the people think that the government is doing something.
In Canada, climate change is recognized as a taxation vehicle, nothing more, with the carbon tax.
The Greens had a chance to address policy for the future, but instead they joined the “tax and spend” chorus. Fursteneau’s free transit election platform was a joke and underlined the Greens lack of anything to do with climate change. Do you really want to make transit a public service? Just look at the DTES.
Until the Greens get real and address the real problem, with realistic solutions, they will only garner 1 or 2 seats provincially and federally.
Deport Haq.
Next plane out.
No appeal.
Send a message to all non citizen Visa holders.
You have ZERO rights if you break our laws.
(Response: He has already had several
appeals…. the latest attempt is based on his effort to stay here while his spousal application to stay goes through its various machinations. I don’t buy it! After how he abused his welcome, repeatedly, it’s time for him to go home… and he can take his loving spouse with him! H.o)
I totally agree with your response to Not Sure, Harvey.
It almost seems pointless for Canadian efforts to continue working at being green when you have the likes of China, India, and Pakistan burning coal like there is no tomorrow.
One step forward and two steps back.
(Response: it is not that we should not fight climate change, and global warming; it’s just that for Canadians to sacrifice so much (the carbon tax is just part of the price we pay) … to the point that many are really hurting …while some of the much worse polluters get a free pass or just don’t give a damn make a mockery of the whole process. Any time governments ask ordinary people to suffer for a cause, the people MUST be able to see everyone is sacrificing… not just them and their kids! H.o)
Harv …thanks for cluing me in….i thought he was getting a “raw” deal from the government.
And Ms May should take a close look in the mirror and read her pamphlet
Nice to have something other than something on Trump.
Once again thanks…
I don’t understand how anyone can vote for Elizabeth May. She’s so far to the left she almost makes Justin Trudeau look moderate. She’s so soft on crime that she must be an attractive candidate for criminals. I feel sorry for Mr. Haq’s wife. Her life in Pakistan could be difficult.
I have little sympathy for Zain Haq. He broke the law and he wasn’t honoring his requirements as a foreign student. Elizabeth May can support him but she has to realize that doing so is likely losing more fence sitters than gaining some.
Public support for some kind of climate action is diminishing. If people are worried about the price of eggs during an inflationary period that seems to be abating then good luck with the price of any food products when floods, hurricanes, droughts, wildfires etc continue to do their damage.
But why should I worry. I am 73 and likely to be dead in 20 years when the worst is supposed to happen. Hell I won’t even have to worry about saying sorry to my 5 month old granddaughter.
Drill Baby Drill. Ax the Tax. That is not going to save us and Elizabeth May – any politician who believes in climate action – has to come up with more compelling arguments and policies. Writing something nice about a lawbreaker hardly counts.
(Response: Your comment about Canadians losing interest in the environmental issues should be of concern. But what really bothers me is that, while Canadians are busy recycling all our cans, jars, compostables, papers, etc. …. pay 25cents for a paper bag if we dare to require one for our takeout foods or groceries, I am currently sitting in Florida… in a 200-building condo community … where there is NO recycling program, no deposits on pop cans or bottles, and where grocery stores still pack seven or eight items in four or five plastic bags!
Given Florida alone’s population of 22 million … it makes all the trouble and expense we go through in BC seem futile!
And there’s Greens leader Elizabeth May supporting a foreign “student” who repeatedly committed what many would regard as environmental terrorism and disrupted the lives of thousands! The Greens are ludicrous! H.o)
And now, here is the real story: the Greens in Canada are not “Green” and never were.
I first become interested in the “Green” movement when I lived in Nottingham in 1974, which was one of the first cities to adhere to the UK’s “clean air Act”, banning coal fired stoves and heaters. I was told that when coal was banned, their “killer” fogs literally disappeared. (Same thing happened in Vancouver when sawmill beehive burners were banned.)
My interest in transit started in Notts, when I attended a free lecture on modern public transit, put on by a local transit/Green (they were not called Green then) and was both very informative. (Nottingham has a very successful tram light rail system, opened in 2004)
OK enough of that.
To be Green, one must be realistic in their approach and not go willy-nilly taxing this or banning that because every action may have unintended consequences. Sadly this is what the current Canadian./BC Green movement has done.
The Federal Green Party was nothing more than a platform for those who were antisemitic or racist to join, when other politcal parties would not have them. Thus the “Greens” were “Green” in name only and the BC/Vancouver Greens are just a rebranded bicycle lobby, using “the Green” movement to implement their daft ideas.
The Vancouver Greens on city council were not “Green” at all, rather they were the cycle lobby, which showcased their largely daft ideas.
Today in Canada/BC, the Carbon Tax is nothing more than a placebo for government to pretend it is doing something about the environment, when in reality they are doing nothing. The Carbon Tax, despite the claims it isn’t is a revenue generator for government and a handy tool to bribe the public with their own money, with rebates etc.
“You cannot tax Global Warming and Climate Change out of existance”
Here is the key to being Green. If one wants to reduce auto use and the associated gridlock and pollution, one must invest in rail transit or to be more direct the tram and regional railways, which will provide the user-friendly alternative to the car.
Not SkyTrain (which due to the volumes of cement used, is extremely polluting), not electric cars, not driverless cars, not free transit, but a robust regional/urban transit system.
The litmus test for being Green in Canada/BC has failed; converting the E&N railway to a modern regional railway was all but ignored by the Greens (estimated cost $3 to $4 billion) or the Rail for the Valley Marpole to Chilliwack regional railway (estimated to cost $2 billion). To clarify things I an involved with RftV.
A note: the current 21.7 km extensions to the E&M lines is now surpassing $16 billion! The Highway Number 1 project is now around $10 billion!
If a politcal movement is really “Green” they must have viable alternatives. Both the federal and provincial “Greens” do not and merely become a soap box for those who are not welcome in other politcal parties.
The federal/provincial Green parties are not just out of touch with the public, they are out of touch with the real Green Movement.
(Response:Certainly, not all Green members or supporters … federal or provincial … are radical or extremist or anti-Semitic. I always found Andrew Weaver quite interesting and often agreed with him … although, notably, he has more recently distanced himself from them too. The Greens now, municipally, provincially (in BC) and federally, just seem to me to be unrealistic extremists who abuse power whenever they get even a little, with a membership who too often support disruptive people and actions and couldn’t seem to care less about working people, seniors or families. h.o.)