Good Sunday Morning! Or as good as we can be under the circumstances…
Not the hoped for news I wanted to share this Sunday. Hearing on the CBC radio news Friday of the close vote recount and that the NDP held on in Surrey for a wafer-thin majority NDP BC government. Cannot help but think, what on earth happened to the “too close to call” US election? Truth be told, the popular vote was very close at almost 50-50. A divided nation, but there is no doubt more Americans voted for Donald Trump than voted for Kamala Harris.
Late night US talk show hosts and citizens of the world collapsed into disbelief and a pile of weeping expletives-deleted moments. For some TV hosts nothing was deleted. The question that cannot be answered is how on earth could citizens anywhere vote for anyone as morally bankrupt and corrupt as Donald Trump? The fact that it is unanswerable will not stop pundits and columnists from trying to answer it; to display their superior grasp of the zeitgeist by explaining it to the rest of us.
To prepare for the next Canadian election we will need to analyze what just happened, to craft messages to blunt the appeal of the siren song of fascism. For Canadians, we have to think about Trump’s message and not be complacent. We must prepare and prevent the possibility that Canadians might be conned as well.
For make no mistake, Donald Trump meets the classic Mussolini definition of fascism. This from his 1928 autobiography: “The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity. The Fascist State with its corporative conception puts men and their possibilities into productive work and interprets for them the duties they have to fulfill.” (p. 280). Mussolini is credited with saying communism is when governments control the economy, socialism is where collective populism controls economic production and fascism is when corporations control governments.
Under Trump we have naked assertions – as policy planks and promises – that billionaires must be rewarded and the poor must be punished. Elon Musk – the world’s wealthiest man – is to be put in charge of how to cut trillions from US government spending. Big Oil was promised that if they donated billions to Trump’s campaign, he would reward them with slashed regulations and the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. No precious area will be safe. And as I pointed out in Question Period on Wednesday, we know Trump thinks climate change is a hoax and will move against the Paris Agreement – as he has done before.
Now is not the time to despair. A short period of mourning is inevitable, but now is the time to organize and commit to being the resistance.
My colleagues, Global Greens Co-Conveners, Bodil Valero (Sweden) & Jose Miguel Quintanilla (Guatemala), shared the following statement:
“This week, a global superpower elected an authoritarian bigot to its Presidency. In times of turbulence and instability, this has been a hard blow.
Someone who is a convicted felon, attempted to cause an insurrection, denies women’s rights, denies the rights of immigrants, denies climate change and clearly acts at the whims of billionaires and the fossil fuel sector.
While the hard reality of this sinks in, the scale of the challenge and what we must do next is clear.
Everything the President-elect of the USA stands for is diametrically opposite to us – and what Greens stand for. As an international Green movement built upon fairness, rights, solidarity and creating a vibrant, healthy world for all inhabitants – people and nature – now is our time to stand together and stand up to tyranny and the rise of fascism.
We have much to do, but our sense of purpose, and our solidarity is strong.
Let’s Green the world, together.”
Amen to that. The next big test for Global Greens will be the 2025 election in Canada. We must campaign for Greens with a clear understanding of what is at stake, The stakes are high, but so is our ambition. As US poetry critic and academic David Orr once wrote: “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.”
As Canadian chair of the Rio Earth Summit, Maurice Strong once told me “We have to be operational optimists.” I have a baby granddaughter and, in her name, I will roll up my sleeves to fight for Mother Earth. We have a lot to do and no time to waste. I am so very deeply grateful for your messages of encouragement. Try – if you are able – to enlist friends to join the Green Party. We are not alone. I believe that when you engage friends in our campaigns you are giving them more than you ask of them. In a time where the risk of despair is huge, finding common cause and a reason for hope is a gift.
Small internal Green Party of Canada reminders – be sure to vote in the Federal Council elections – deadline November 14. And please join our virtual Special General Meeting, Nov 16-17.
Love and thanks,
Elizabeth
P.S.
From this week’s parliamentary work, I am sharing my debate on protection for our southern resident killer whales and the news that we have lost one more member of that endangered group.
This is the 10 minute late night debate, based on my June 5th question, when we had 75. I updated it to 73.
And then this news:
“The endangered southern resident killer whale population has dropped to 72, its lowest point since 2020, after an adult male orca and a calf were both listed as missing, presumed dead.
“Last seen in July 2024, 31-year-old male K26, also known as Lobo, was noted as missing by the Centre for Whale Research after an encounter with his family (K pod) on Oct. 29.
It was a hard week indeed, but we fight on!
Elizabeth