I remember loving the Sunday ritual of Thomas Teuwen’s weekly message – with equal doses of information, insight and inspiration. And, like you, I have missed it.
What started in 2015 as an update to share the news from the canvassing team became a very informative weekly newsletter. It is time to bring it back!
With the support of my local Electoral District Association in Saanich-Gulf Islands, we are re-launching Good Sunday Morning.
I do not have a lot of time on my hands as the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands, but now that I have stepped down as party leader, I have a bit more. And I love writing… so here we go!
The timing is good. Greens are getting used to the idea that, after 13 years it is time to elect a new leader. I am excited about the leadership race and convention in Charlottetown in October 2020. By writing you every week, I hope I will provide re-assuring continuity. In other words, I am not going anywhere. Or as, I put it to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday of last week, “as former leader, I promise to be just as annoying.”
I laughed and he laughed. That was my hope. We have far too little good will and laughter in political life. We need to be able to laugh at ourselves, in particular. I do not think that Trudeau actually finds me annoying. But I am relentless in pressing him to do the right thing. As Mark Twain once said, “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.” So maybe I am annoying.
In this election, we set a good example. We did not run any attack ads. We did not put out campaign material lying about other parties or leaders. We never have. We ran a carbon neutral campaign, as we always do. We took ground travel as much as possible with volunteers and their electric vehicles, commercial flights in economy, trains as much as possible, buses and ferries. We tracked our carbon and will offset (we know this is far from perfect, but it was a 40 day campaign and Canada is a big country). Unlike all the other parties, we did not have a campaign plane… and, unlike the Liberals, we had no back up campaign plane for the one we didn’t have.
Just as in Parliament, where Greens never heckle, we ran our campaign on the high road.
And now we have a minority parliament where maybe, just maybe, we can make progress.
I will keep you posted every Sunday morning. I will try to share, as Thomas did, fascinating articles that enlighten.
Here is a bit of what is coming up:
I will be in Ottawa on November 27th to celebrate as Paul Manly and Jenica Atwin take the oath to become Members of Parliament. I will have the deep honour of being sworn in for the third time!
Parliament opens on December 5th with the Speech from the Throne and the election of the Speaker (in case you had not heard, despite rumours, I am not running for Speaker).
On December 7th, I am off to Madrid for the climate negotiations at COP25. I am so pleased that other Greens – great candidates from the 2019 campaign – my husband John Kidder, Claire Kelly, Tim Thompson and Amita Kuttner have found the funds to attend as well. We have secured credentials for them through the Palestinian delegation. Canada has added me to our national delegation, but only me.
I will have more news to share before the Christmas break!
So have a wonderful Sunday. Until next week!
Elizabeth
This weekly blog is published by Elizabeth’s EDA in Saanich-Gulf Islands. You can sign up for it here.