On the basis of the 2011 election results, none of the seats were in any doubt. In each case, the outgoing MP had won with more than 50% of the vote. Each was what pundits like to call ‘a safe seat.’

The Green Party looked at Calgary Centre right away. The Alberta provincial election had exposed a split among Conservative voters. Stephen Harper and his Alberta MPs had been pretty transparent in promoting the Wild Rose Party and its leader Danielle Smith. It might have been wise for Harper’s team to be less exuberant about the prospects of a majority Wild Rose government in Alberta based on polls—polls which turned out to be spectacularly wrong. Lee Richardson is an old school, decent, Progressive Conservative. (I have known him since the 1980s when he was in Mulroney’s PMO and lent a hand in creating Gwaii Haanas National Park). It was shocking when he announced his departure in the House and every party rose in turn to pay tribute to his long record of service—except the Conservatives. When I was at the Calgary Stampede, for the first time, people would say ‘I am an Alison Redford Conservative; not a Stephen Harper Conservative.’ Greens had always done relatively well in Calgary Centre, with a high of 17% of the vote in 2008. So we had something of a base and only needed a great candidate. When nationally renowned author Chris Turner agreed to seek the Green Party nomination (after a lot of soul-searching, as he had never imagined himself in politics), we decided we were all in to try to win a seat in Stephen Harper’s backyard.

It was a shock when Denise resigned. Unlike the Calgary Centre nomination, where no one in media wondered how the Green Party would do, within hours the local media was full of speculation. The usual media ‘conventional wisdom’ decided that Victoria was a test for the Green Party and for me. Unlike Calgary, where we hoped for a surprise upset, suddenly in Victoria we had no choice but to run a really serious campaign. We had never done so before because Denise was such a strong MP. Even Greens voted for her. But now, if we didn’t make a serious effort to at least significantly improve our vote, we would be judged harshly.

When one of my oldest friends, Donald Galloway, agreed to run (another wonderful person who had never imagined running for office), we began to get organized in Victoria as well. In Durham, Green candidate Virginia Ervin ran a great campaign, but we could not see any likelihood of the Conservative grip on that riding slipping at all. So we did not emphasize the Durham by-election.

Now that the dust has settled, it is clear we made good choices in deciding to run hard in both Calgary and Victoria. Where the previous winning candidates had won with over 50% of the vote, in the by-election, the races became very close. In both cases, they were squeakers. In Calgary, it turned into a three-way race, with only a ten-point spread between the winner Conservative Joan Crockatt and Green candidate Chris Turner.

Liberals, who came in second, have spoken bitterly of the Green vote ‘splitting’ their vote. As Chris Turner pointed out in a column in the Globe and Mail, the first poll gave the Liberal 30% of the vote and Chris Turner 8%. By election day, the Greens had over 25% of the vote and the Liberal candidate 32%. So it is hard to make a claim we took votes from the Liberal column. Chris believes he engaged people who otherwise would not have voted at all.

Victoria was a lot closer. In fact, the majority of the votes cast on November 26 were for Donald Galloway. It was the votes cast in Advance Polls that gave the win to a very strong candidate (and another old friend of mine) new NDP MP Murray Rankin.

Some pundits have said this shows that Thomas Mulcair is not as popular as the late Jack Layton, to explain the difference between NDP votes in 2011 and 2012. I doubt there is much in that. I think that a lot of the votes in 2011 were not NDP votes at all. They were Denise Savoie votes. With the chance to look at all the candidates, Donald Galloway really impressed. Especially for those who attended the all-candidates debates, Donald won people over by being the most impressive in a field of good candidates. Economist Paul Summerville had been an NDPcandidate in Ontario and ran a one-issue campaign (which I regret as it allowed media to ignore important issues like climate, and parliamentary democracy and fracking and so on). Dale Gann was as good a candidate as the Conservatives could ever hope to have. He runs the Vancouver Island Technology Centre, is progressive and articulate.

The real story here is the collapse of the Conservative vote. Having come in second in 2011 in Victoria with 23% of the vote, the Conservative vote dropped to third place and a poor one at that, with 14% of the vote. The Liberals were just behind in fourth place. My belief is that the Conservative vote was torpedoed way before Denise resigned. It evaporated in the wake of nasty partisan swipes at anyone in BC who opposes supertankers full of bitumen crude. Epithets of ‘radicals’ and ‘against Canada’ and ‘foreign-funded’ opponents of the national interest turned off Conservatives in droves. If I were a Conservative MP in BC, these results would make me very nervous.

And that is very good news indeed. I keep working to stop the ratification of the Canada-China Investment Treaty where our only hope lies now in Conservative MPs pressuring the Prime Minister. Conservative MPs know their voters want them to reject the treaty—or face their wrath at the polls.

Something seems to be getting through. Lately, Stephen Harper’s messaging around Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project has started to re-align to reality. I can see the ground shifting, such that even the Prime Minister may walk away from that one. (However, with Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline twinning coming onstream, I do not want to declare any premature victories for fear of losing the energy of the campaign to prevent supertankers on our coast.)

The by-elections have been a boost for the Green Party. It is wonderful to see such a large rise in the Green vote overall. And, yes, I do wish I had another Green MP to help me with the work I am doing in Parliament and to represent the people of Victoria, not just deliver partisan messages disseminated from the leader’s office. Donald Galloway was a superb candidate and, like Chris Turner, I hope they will take the Green banner forward again in the future.

My goal now is to work to get the Liberals and New Democrats to agree to cooperation in the next election. We need to develop a one-time pact to cooperate, and then after one election, get rid of first-past-the post elections for good.

The post What to make of the federal by-elections? appeared first on Elizabeth May.

The book, entitled Paradise Won: The Struggle for South Moresby was written in 1990 after an epic 12-year struggle to stop logging in a unique global ecosystem – referred to as “Canada’s Galapagos” – which stretches 90 km and includes 138 islands and is steeped in thousands of years of Haida culture.

“I wrote this book to celebrate the creation of Gwaii Haanas which was a major achievement for the Haida Nation as they asserted their sovereign rights and the environmentalists who worked selflessly with them,” explained May.  “After their courageous blockades and other forms of civil protest, it took the leadership of former prime minister Brian Mulroney to make this extraordinary conservation dream a reality.”

Paradise Won: The Struggle for South Moresby is now on the Elizabeth May MP website (www.elizabethmaymp.ca). Originally, published by McClelland and Stewart, the copyright has now reverted to the author and is no longer in publication.

PDF – http://elizabethmaymp.ca/wp-content/uploads/Elizabeth_May__Paradise_Won.pdf
eBook – http://issuu.com/canadiangreens/docs/elizabeth-may-paradise-won

“As Canadians face the most anti-nature prime minister in our history, I think it is important to revisit this historic triumph,” May said.  “The strategies and tactics that worked to save Gwaii Haanas from the chainsaw are needed once again to fight climate change and to protect fragile ecosystems from coast to coast to coast. 

“This book is a gift to all Canadians with the hope that it will entertain, inspire, and spur people to action.”

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As Executive Director of Sierra Club of Canada, I continued to be engaged in many British Columbia conservation campaigns, from Clayoquot Sound to Great Bear Rainforest. Our yearly progress reports, the ‘Rio Report Card,’ allowed me to track and write about the struggle to meet Canada’s international commitments to protect threatened ecosystems.

For at least the last dozen years or so, the work to create the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve has been so very encouraging. Creating a national park in the southern regions of Canada is the most uphill of struggles. Lands are already committed and tied up in different private ownership. Resource allocations have been made. Yet, the threats to habitat are most severe. Creating a national park in the Gulf Islands has presented more than its fair share of challenges.

Our area is within the Garry oak ecosystem, with more endangered species than nearly anywhere else in Canada. In the area, less than 5% of the habitat remains in anything like a natural state. The Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team has been established out of a community-based concern for the recovery of these ecosystems and is able to work within Species at Risk Act provisions to develop policies and programmes to keep the over one hundred endangered species on our area from becoming extinct.

The Garry Oak ecosystem is about far more than the Garry Oak. Species associated with this ecosystem include everything from the Marbled Murrelet to the Golden Paintbrush to Orca whales. And all of those species face threats to their survival. One key component of keeping these species from slipping over the brink to extinction is the existence of the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve.

Despite the fact that we see Parks Canada facilities scattered through the Islands and see the park described and mapped while we travel on the ferries, the park is still not formally established under the Canada National Parks Act. Although it was announced as established in 2003, a number of legal steps are still incomplete. The key factor has been to remove all encumbrances on a large number of separate properties. Much great work has been done. Through a non-coercive process, key lands have been drawn into the park. Much of this is due to the cooperation of the provincial government. The federal government has been able to buy lands to expand the reach of national park status and protection. All told, the park protects about 35 square kilometres of precious habitat.

Meanwhile, some critical issues need to be resolved with First Nations. The designation ‘reserve’ connotes that the establishment of the park does not extinguish aboriginal title. Nevertheless, the proper recognition of First Nations’ traditional use and occupation requires a very high order of meaningful consultation—especially in this case where nineteen First Nations exert some level of claim.

Marine Component

The largest job requiring some new energy and concerted political will is to link all the land-based parts of the park within a marine park. That process has been moving along (or not moving at all) on a parallel track. The creation of a complete network in all 29 marine regions of Canada takes place through the National Marine Conservation Area (NMCA) process. It is, in every region of Canada, woefully behind schedule.

The proposal for the Gulf Islands area is called the Southern Strait of Georgia NMCA and it is currently stuck in what may be the world’s longest feasibility study. The memorandum of understanding between the British Columbia government and the federal government in 2003 launched this process. If you check the website for Parks Canada, you will see the feasibility study is described as underway and likely to take several years. The end point is still identified as ‘sometime in late 2008.’

The beauty of a marine park component linking the scattered bits of protection on Saturna, Mayne, Pender and smaller unpopulated islands is that it would protect key habitat. The levels of protection by law are not particularly onerous. All that is legally forbidden would be off-shore mineral exploration and development. In other words, it does not interrupt the ferries, commercial vessels, nor does it automatically create ‘no take’ fishery zones.

What it would do would be to shift consciousness about the richness of our marine biodiversity. That shift in awareness is being advanced by the newly opened Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre in Sidney. It offers a brilliant array of exhibits to inform and inspire. (If you have not yet visited, make a point of doing so next time you are in the area. About ten minutes from Swartz Bay, next door to the Pier Hotel in Sidney, it is a must, especially if you can bring along children or grandchildren.) Awareness is also being advanced by the move to rename our offshore areas the ‘Salish Sea,’ providing a unity to our mental map and imagining of our home territory. Let’s move to have our marine park created soon. Why not re-name it the Salish Sea NMCA?

It is time for residents of the Saanich-Gulf Islands to start asking some pointed questions. When will we see real progress on the marine component of the Gulf Islands national park reserve? What can we do to help?

Elizabeth E. May is leader of the Green Party of Canada, candidate in Saanich–Gulf Islands and Officer of the Order of Canada.

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