Is the Green Party in a tacit alliance with the Liberal Party of Christy Clark in B.C.’s election? A lot of people in B.C. think so and here in Powell River the suspicions have been confirmed by the bizarre hosting of a meet-and-greet with Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver by the Chamber of Commerce. The president of the Chamber is none other than Jack Barr, the fundraising chair for the Liberal candidate, Mathew Wilson (though he claims he only found out about it after the fact). The Chamber has not hosted any other leader — in fact it virtually has never before expressed a political bias.
At first glance these two parties make strange bedfellows. The Liberals have an absolutely appalling environmental record and happily take millions of dollars from mining companies, oil giants and the LNG industry.
Progressives are desperate to end the 16-year nightmare of Liberal corruption and rule for the rich. But the Greens are desperate for more seats and steadfastly deny that a vote for Greens could help re-elect the Liberals. The Liberals are an echo chamber on the vote-splitting issue with Wilson’s father, former Liberal leader Gordon Wilson, on Facebook dismissing the vote-splitting claim as spurious: “To suggest that voting for a candidate running for the Greens will elect anyone other than that candidate is offensive.”
The Liberal-Green Alliance was wonderfully illustrated in a recent Vancouver Sun group photo of the three party leaders: Christy Clark has a preternaturally large grin on her face while she shakes Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver’s hand. NDP Leader John Horgan is left out of the love-fest.
If this seems odd to those outside B.C. it isn’t at all strange here — sleazy, yes, but par for the course for Weaver’s Green Party. The Greens are so desperate to get beyond the one seat they have they’re happy to make backroom deals with the devil. And the devil will make deals with anyone to stay in power. It reminds me of the federal election when an equally desperate Elizabeth May used phony opinion polls to suggest that the race was between the Greens and the NDP on Vancouver Island. It seems the Greens, both federally and provincially, have a chronic integrity problem.
Though there is no smoking gun — no actual accord signed between the two parties — the anecdotal evidence keeps piling up: Andrew Weaver promoting a totally misleading Liberal Party attack on the NDP platform costs; Scott Hamilton, the Liberal candidate for Delta North, signing (illegally) the nomination papers for Jacquie Miller, his Green Party opponent; Christy Clark’s press secretary retweeting a prominent Green supporter discussing the Greens’ growing popularity; Andrew Weaver promoting a Liberal accusation of sexism against the NDP leader on Twitter (then quickly removing it); a major Liberal donor and owner of the Kingsgate Mall in Vancouver allowing the Green Party to erect a huge sign on its mall property; Andrew Weaver attacking the NDP’s Horgan far more than Christy Clark in the TV debate.
While this may look like a case of “an enemy of my enemy is my friend” it is actually much worse. There are also clear hints that the Greens are just as likely to support the Liberals as they are to support the NDP if neither party gets a majority.
The Green Party’s campaign chair, Adam Olsen, reinforced suspicions when he was asked about the possibility of vote-splitting re-electing the Liberals. He told the Vancouver Sun: “I’m not concerned about Christy Clark getting back in.” Given the opportunity to backtrack on Olsen’s statement by The Tyee columnist Bill Tieleman, the party declined. But this political stance is hardly news for those who actually follow the Green Party’s record and its leader’s statements — rather than just assume that the Green brand means progressive and green. Tieleman also asked why Weaver failed to support a sewage treatment plant for Victoria which dumps raw sewage into the ocean and why he similarly refused support for a massive public transit plan sought by the Metro Vancouver Mayor’s Council. The answer is simple enough: Weaver is unashamedly pro-business and an advocate of “small government.”
Weaver himself has repeatedly left the door open to allowing the Liberals a fifth term. He supported two Liberal Party budgets. He supported the Liberals’ run-of-the-river hydro privatization that will keep hydro rates sky-high for the next two decades. He supported the idea of an oil refinery at Kitimat to refine tar sands bitumen — when most environmentalists are saying we have to keep most of it in the ground.
And just this week he came as close as possible to endorsing Clark when asked in a Global News interview which leader he would be “most comfortable” working with. Weaver would not answer but repeatedly referred to Horgan’s temper and how he would have to control it if Weaver was to work with him. And then he praised Clark: “[Y]ou can have a respectful disagreement in a one-on-one conversation and it’s not personal.”
All of this is highly reminiscent of the last provincial election when the Greens and Liberals played the same game. The most shameless example of this was a full-page ad for the Greens in the Victoria Times-Colonist — paid for by the Liberals. This divide-and-conquer strategy has been used in the Legislature ever since the last election, with Clark repeatedly giving kudos to Weaver — and Weaver gleefully accepting them.
The Weaver Greens are also reminiscent of the former leader of the federal Green Party, Jim Harris. In 2005 I wrote a feature article for The Walrus on the Greens under Harris entitled “Green Party Blues.” It revealed a party with policies and a lack of internal democracy more reflective of the Conservatives than any other party. Of course Harris had been in the Conservative Party so it was not at all embarrassing to him. He was confident, as is Weaver, that the Green brand would fool enough people to elect a bunch of MPs. He was wrong. Elizabeth May was confident, too. She was wrong, too.
It seems that people’s good instincts can still kick in, in the nick of time — as they grip the pencil to mark their ballot.