Welcome to Good Sunday Morning for October 30th, and Happy Hallowe’en!! 
We are so pleased that we have the opportunity to send you information from each of the six wonderful leadership contestants every Sunday. Please enjoy!
Online voting in the Federal Leadership Contest will start on November 12th and conclude on November 19th with a lot of information available on the website. There are many in-person and virtual events still to come or recorded, and we encourage you to visit the Leadership Contest calendar to see what is available to learn more about these remarkable contestants. You can click on a link to view the recording, if available.
Here are this week’s messages from the contestants, in reverse alphabetical order by surname. We also include the articles in French when provided. The order of appearance is randomized weekly.
(Le texte français suit le texte anglais).
Chad Walcott
Good Morning!
This past week has been quite packed, and it seems like that will be the trend for the remainder of the race, with a series of debates planned for November 3rd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th.
Our week began with the completion of our cross-country tour. It was great to hit the road and share our vision of renewal for the Green Party and engage in meaningful conversations about our future. It was also a real treat to be able to attend Sonia Fusterneau and Adam Olsen’s nomination events and see firsthand the benefits strong organizing and positive culture can bring to the Green Party.
Although Anna and I always talk about the value of building a strong positive culture in our message to members, seeing these values in action in the BC events, and this weekend at the Ontario Green Convention has reinforced our faith that we are on the right track.
The day after we got back from BC, I had a chance to sit in the hot seat for my solo town hall. It was a fun, hour-long experience where I answered 28 rapid-fire questions from the 111 members in attendance on a wide range of topics. If you missed the session you can find it here.
Also this week, the Québec Superior Court ruled that racial profiling does indeed exist and that police can’t pull over a driver without cause. I raise this not only because my youngest brother testified in the case, but because this is a landmark decision that challenges a 1990 Supreme Court ruling affirming random stops are necessary. The Superior Court ruling represents a major step toward addressing issues of racial profiling that Black, Indigenous, and communities of colour face far too often.
I raise this point knowing that many members want the Party to keep our focus on environmental issues and less on identity issues. However, these matters are intrinsically linked. If we are unable to have respect for our fellow citizens, how can we make a strong argument about the need to respect our environment?
Flipping back to campaign matters, on the topic of respect. A major theme that came up during our tour was the need to reinforce respect for one another within our Party. Respect for diverging opinions, respect for differences in life experience, and most of all, respect for our volunteers, the life force of our Party.
We need to emphasize respect in our interactions with one another. We need to remember that we are all part of one Green team and lead with respect, even when we disagree. When we bring our internal issues into the public arena, we not only do a disservice to the credibility of our Party, but we harm our volunteers, the very people who work the hardest to spread our policies and lift up our candidates.
Moving forward let’s strive to honour our volunteers and build a strong positive culture within the GPC.
Have a great week!
Jonathan Pedneault
Good Sunday Morning,
I planned to write about capitalism today, but changed my mind and did a short video instead. I did so because today is my six-month anniversary of moving back to Canada from Norway.
This hit me like a ton of bricks two days ago when the shuffle function on my music app played “Nordnorsk julesalme,” a north Norwegian Christmas psalm. I know… wait until after Halloween! But the text moved me.
Living five years in a foreign country, one inevitably builds strong relationships and bonds with the place. When I wasn’t out reporting on human rights violations, I was most often finding inner peace walking in the mountains, by the fjords or through my little, pitch-dark, but fast warming town of Longyearbyen, on Svalbard.
Hearing the song’s lyrics: “Bless the days over the fjords, bless the day over the land (…) God’s peace over the mountains and the hills, let it grow where we build and live,” I wept.
We live in such troubled times. The news from Ukraine and the growing risk of nuclear confrontation continues to worry me everyday. This week, Elizabeth asked for my views on whether Canada should participate in a peacekeeping mission in Haiti. Given the country’s terrible history of exploitation and oppression by its French colonial power and the United States, not to mention the many more recent scandals of sexual abuse by UN peacekeeping forces, I told her the best way we could ever help Haiti was not to throw more “aid” money or soldiers at the country. We should treat it like the sovereign nation it is and encourage France and the US to pay reparations. “God’s peace over the mountains and the hills” won’t “grow where we build and live” on its own. We must work for it.
Leaving Norway to engage in politics in Canada, I knew I was taking a personal risk. I quit my job to spend the little money I had to campaign.
It’s not always easy. Whenever I am on the campaign trail, whether in BC, Ontario or Alberta, members ask me: “where is home,” and I reply jokingly that it is wherever my suitcase is. The truth is, I’ve spent the last 6 months sleeping on the couches of various friends throughout the country, having decided my money (or whatever is left of it) was best spent working alongside Greens to grow the peace that protects “the mountains and the hills” in the places “where we build and live.”
I’m grateful to all of you, who have taught me so much and made this experience an overwhelmingly positive one. Working with Elizabeth and meeting Greens throughout the country fills me with hope. Together, we can and will face the coming storms.
With three weeks left to this campaign, I once again ask for your support and, most importantly, for your own thoughts on how we can grow peace, in our country, our party and our own hearts: jp@jonathanpedneault.ca
Elizabeth May
After last week’s newsletter, a subscriber encouraged me to be more direct in making the case that Jonathan Pedneault and I will be the party’s best option as co-leaders.
Here goes:
The party’s future depends on the Four R’s – rebuilding credibility, repairing reputation, replenishing our bank accounts, and restoring trust. We have no time to waste. Canada needs the Green voice back in Canadian politics – stronger and more effectively than ever.
With no disrespect to other candidates, Jonathan and I are far stronger in delivering on the Four R’s.
- Credibility is far more quickly restored with a well-known political force (embarrassed to say, that would be me. In 2019, national polls found me the most ethical leader. I was the only leader found with more positive than negative public impressions.) Credibility takes time to build. And we do not have time to develop that level of public profile for other candidates. We can build their profiles to get them elected, but right now they are not household names.
- Repairing reputation is massively assisted by running as co-leaders. A young, new face in Canadian politics, a francophone gay man of colour, Jonathan connects with youth. Reputation will be more quickly restored as people see our faith and trust in each other.
- As to our fundraising chops, we have this hands down. As Executive Director, I was also the fundraiser for Sierra Club of Canada. I took the organization from $20K a year to a few million/year when I left to run for leader of the GPC. Jonathan also has experience in the essential task of asking for charitable donations. We are both very good fundraisers. As well, our plan to reduce the costs of leadership by cutting or eliminating our own salaries is how we demonstrate to donors that we put our money where our mouth is.
- Restoring trust is essential. With me working in Parliament and regaining our media profile and Jonathan focusing on getting our internal house in order, we will restore trust.
I know there are concerns that I should not offer to be of service again. Why not? When I was leader, we experienced our only big wins. I never did it alone, but we can do it again! With a leader in Parliament, we will win more seats in by-elections before 2025 and go into the next election with more sitting MPs.
Since 2019, we have had three leaders. Media is not interested in leaders outside Parliament and they are not interested in former leaders in Parliament. The essential element in reigniting excitement about our potential is a leader with a seat in Parliament.
By 2025, having worked for years as co-leaders, Jonathan will be better known. He may well be the stronger choice as the public face of the party in 2025. This is one of the strengths of the co-leadership model. Time to test and assess the upcoming successor.
Check out our plans at elizabethmay.ca and jonathanpedneault.ca
P.S. Two moments in Parliament this week here and here.
Anna Keenan
With 13 days to go until voting opens on November 12, the momentum is building!
We enjoyed touring BC so much last week that we are at it again, this time to Green hotspots in Ontario. We’ve spent the last two days soaking up the buzz, energy and party unity at the Green Party of Ontario Convention in downtown Toronto.
I consider the Green parties in Ontario, BC and New Brunswick to be the strongest examples of the organizational and governance culture that the federal Greens should model ourselves after. Stable, focused, and with strong internal processes for handling disagreement and breaches of codes of conduct, leaving their representatives free of drama, to focus on the issues that matter to Canadians.
I’ve said it many times during this race: the best way not to ‘air your dirty laundry in public’, is simple: do your laundry regularly. That’s what good governance is all about.
In the coming days, we will be spending time with members in Green hotspots in suburban Toronto, Muskoka, Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo. Our calendar of events and debates is packed, both in person and online, between now and the start of voting.
Listening to the concerns and hopes of Greens across the country, it’s clear that members are seeking out opportunities for genuine renewal, and that they are ready for the unique combination of electoral and professional experience that Chad and I both bring to the table.
Traveling to meet Canadians face to face is essential for national leaders. Not only is it an opportunity to build relationships more deeply than is possible through Zoom, it also allows us to truly understand the differing circumstances, needs and values of communities – both human and ecological – across this beautiful and vast country. By keenly listening and learning, astute leaders shift and sharpen their message and their priorities, to better serve the country as a whole.
And we have been listening. We took our policy priorities on tour with us, and we heard feedback from members. On Friday, we published our platform priorities: www.KeenanWalcott.ca/platformpriorities
Our priorities are true to our party’s member-driven 120-page policy book, but are more focused. We understand that a major part of the role of a leader is to not only know the member-created policy, but also to make decisions about priorities, and deciding how best to communicate those policies to Canadians. That is leadership: listening deeply to craft a clear vision of where to direct our energy and time, and then moving forward, motivating and mobilising members to join in an aligned, strategic effort.
In choosing our priorities, Chad and I looked for policies that:
- respond to the pressing needs and concerns of voters in this moment (primarily, the rising cost of living, the state of our healthcare system),
- can make a difference in the lives of Canadians today, and
- build momentum towards longer-term, transformative Green values shifts.
We hope you enjoy reading it! And as always, we welcome your feedback.
Simon Gnocchini-Messier
Good Sunday Morning!
I would like to address an issue that is very close to my heart.
As a Canadian, I feel a tremendous sense of sadness and shame about our collective failure every time I pass a homeless person in Canada. I know only too well that this person could have been a classmate, a relative or even me had my personal circumstances been otherwise. I too at one point in my life felt lost and confused. My fellow candidate, Jonathan Pedneault, once spoke of cannibalistic capitalism and his own youth lived in economic insecurity. He is right in denouncing a predatory economic model that pushes many of our fellow citizens to the brink and shucks aside those who fall between the cracks. In the consumerist capitalist system in which we live, with its failing medical and social services, it is all too easy for families to disintegrate, children pushed onto the streets, fathers and mothers psychologically traumatized, women sexually trafficked, and unemployed men shunned and called “bums.”
On June 6, 2019, newly elected Green Member of Parliament Paul Manly rose in the House of Commons to speak of homelessness and housing affordability. He tenaciously continued to defend the human right to housing during his two years in parliament. Paul is a real Green who does not give up on what he believes, and I invite all of you to read his extensive analysis of homelessness here. After his defeat in Nanaimo-Ladysmith, he went to work as the director of a program for the homeless and most recently, was elected to the Nanaimo City Council on an election platform, in which support for the homeless was a key element. If elected Leader of the Green Party of Canada, I promise to be as tenacious about solving homelessness on the national scale as Paul Manly has been in Nanaimo. And I commit to devoting considerable party resources to get Paul re-elected in Nanaimo-Ladysmith.
What exactly would I do to resolve homelessness in Canada? I would certainly urge the party to go beyond the 2021 Election Commitments regarding homelessness and adopt a much more ambitious and targeted approach to the problem. This would include bringing governments at all levels together to release public lands for the construction of transitional appropriate homes for unhoused individuals and enlist trade schools and NGOs to build these homes. At the same time, it would include a major push for cooperative housing as a longer-term solution. Health, social and professional development trainers would be brought together in a holistic approach to enable unhoused individuals to regain their physical and mental health, self-confidence and skills set to transition back to better lives in their communities. I invite you to visit my website at www.simongmessier.ca/en to learn more about this approach.
Thank you, Merci, Meegwech, HÍ SW KE
Simon Gnocchini-Messier
Sarah Gabrielle Baron
Dear SGI Greens.
Please welcome my first pick for deputy leader, Christian Proulx. Christian is a francophone from Ottawa. He has run provincially and federally for the Greens. Christian represents a shift in GPC messaging towards a more grassroots approach. We are all ages, all ethnicities, all genders and all vocations. We are nurses, carpenters, engineers, teachers, students, parents, and plumbers. Christian took his lunch break from his job installing new district heating and cooling systems for the city of Ottawa to join me at this press conference.
Most EDAs are running on skeleton crews, just a CEO and Financial Agent who are lucky to get in an annual meeting and are seeking replacements. How does your new leader ensure the lifeblood of our movement gains new energy? One thing Christian and the Ottawa Greens have in common with other successful, strong EDAs, like yours in Saanich Gulf Islands, is that Greens have a superpower: we have fun!
Christian and the Ottawa Greens have a weekly pub meetup. At events, they bring a button maker and other crafts that attract families with children. They do picnics, community cleanups, and workshops. As leader, I will strongly support communication networks between EDAs and cooperative growth at the regional level.
You deserve a leader who gives the collective the credit at every turn. Greens deserve a leader’s office that activates your interest and empowerment, through Policy Table Talks that any member can attend. With your Shadow Cabinet rep listening, we will co-create new policies and generate election-ready materials.
Most importantly, we need a cohesion of political messaging. My leadership represents Green practicality and caring: we see every issue through the lens of the climate crisis reality. Using seven generation thinking, we are creating the infrastructures now that future Canadians will need to survive, and thrive.
Greens are leaders in our communities developing local food security networks, small scale energy resiliency, and caring social systems. When our organization is built to value Greens like you, like Christian, we showcase to Canadians our climate-ready leadership.
Please reach out with your stories, sgb@greenparty.ca and please consider supporting my leadership race campaign.
…………………………………
Simon Gnocchini-Messier
Bon dimanche matin !
Aujourd’hui, je veux vous parler d’un sujet qui me tient à cœur.
En tant que Canadien, je ressens un immense sentiment de tristesse et j’ai honte de notre échec collectif chaque fois que je passe à côté d’un sans-abri au Canada. Je sais trop bien que cette personne aurait pu être un camarade de classe, un parent ou moi si ma situation personnelle avait été différente. Moi aussi, à un moment dans ma vie, je me suis senti perdu et désorienté. Mon collègue candidat, Jonathan Pedneault, a déjà parlé du capitalisme cannibale et de sa propre jeunesse vécue dans l’insécurité économique. Il a raison de dénoncer un modèle économique prédateur qui pousse beaucoup de nos concitoyens au bord du gouffre et laisse de côté ceux qui passent entre les mailles du filet. Au sein du système capitaliste consumériste dans lequel nous vivons, avec ses services médicaux et sociaux défaillants, il est facile pour les familles de se désintégrer, pour les enfants d’être poussés dans la rue, pour les pères et les mères d’être traumatisés psychologiquement, pour les femmes d’être victimes de trafic sexuel et pour les hommes au chômage d’être ostracisés et traités de “clochards”.
Le 6 juin 2019, Paul Manly, député vert nouvellement élu, s’est levé à la Chambre des communes pour parler de l’itinérance et de l’accessibilité au logement. Il a par la suite continué avec ténacité à défendre le droit au logement pendant ses deux années au parlement. Paul est un vrai Vert qui ne renonce pas à ce qu’il croit, et je vous invite tous à lire son analyse approfondie du sans-abrisme ici. Après sa défaite dans Nanaimo-Ladysmith, il a travaillé comme directeur d’un programme pour les sans-abris et, plus récemment, il a été élu au conseil municipal de Nanaimo en mettant de l’avant un programme électoral dont le soutien aux sans-abri était un élément clé. Si je suis élu chef du Parti vert du Canada, je promets d’être aussi tenace que Paul Manly l’a été à Nanaimo afin de résoudre le problème des sans-abri à l’échelle nationale. Je m’engage aussi à consacrer des ressources considérables du parti afin de faire réélire Paul dans Nanaimo-Ladysmith.
Que ferai-je exactement pour résoudre le problème des sans-abri au Canada ? J’inciterai certainement le parti à aller au-delà des engagements électoraux de 2021 concernant l’itinérance et à adopter une approche beaucoup plus ambitieuse et ciblée du problème. Il s’agira notamment de réunir tous les paliers de gouvernements afin de libérer des terres publiques en vue de la construction de maisons transitoires appropriées pour les personnes sans-abri. Il s’agira également de faire appel à des écoles de métiers et à des ONG pour construire ces maisons. Parallèlement, nous devrons encourager la mise sur pied de coopératives d’habitation comme solution à long terme. Les professionnels de la santé, de l’action sociale et du développement professionnel seront réunis dans une approche holistique pour permettre aux personnes non logées de retrouver leur santé physique et mentale, leur confiance en soi et les aptitudes nécessaires pour reprendre une vie meilleure au sein de leur communauté. Je vous invite à visiter mon site web à l’adresse www.simongmessier.ca pour en savoir plus sur cette approche.
Merci, Meegwech et HÍ SW KE
Simon Gnocchini-Messier