Welcome to Good Sunday Morning for November 6th!

It is a pleasure have the opportunity to send you messages 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 alphabetical order by first name. We also include the articles in French when provided.  The order of appearance is randomized weekly.

(Le texte français suit le texte anglais).

 

Anna Keenan

This time next week, voting in the leadership race will be open! And in 2 weeks, we will have a new party leader, or leadership team.

I want to use this last opportunity before voting opens, to share why I believe Chad and I are the leadership team that the party needs at this moment.

1. A new face, and a fresh start. There have already been many media articles outlining the risk of ‘going backwards’ after this leadership race. Our party needs to move forward.

   We offer an opportunity to show that the party has ‘bench strength’. Our story on November 19 will be one of a new beginning for the party, with fresh faces in leadership.

2. A team-building approach. We build leadership teams. This is what we’ve done our whole careers. When we leave our term in leadership (however long that may be) the party will have stable governance, and will be full of experienced leaders, in parliament, Shadow Cabinet, and our EDAs. At that time, we will gracefully hand over the keys, and the house will remain standing.

3. We hold our own in debates, and in the media. We’ve demonstrated this in multiple all-candidates debates and forums, in both languages.

4. We have broad appeal, and can fundraise. Our fundraising numbers are competitive, especially considering the advantage that one of our competitors has in terms of pre-existing national profile. At last reporting, we have the largest number of donors, and the broadest spread of donors across provinces.
   

5. We are electable. In both the 2019 and 2021 elections, I was in the top 6 Greens in Canada.  Chad, has deep roots in his riding, and was the 2nd strongest Green in Quebec when he ran provincially in 2018. We know what it takes to run a strong campaign.

   We also know what national-level support has been missing. If we want a strong caucus, we need a new strategy: what was done in the past decade was not enough to break through.

6. We’ve been in the Green movement, and in the party, for years. Our connections to social movements in Canada, and internationally, run deep. We can bring in new allies from the activist movements we’ve been a part of, and can attract a new generation of Canadians into the party.

   We’ve taken leading roles in our Electoral District Associations. We’ve facilitated Virtual General Meetings. We know the party’s Constitution and Bylaws inside out. We’ve got history here. We know what changes need to be made, and we will work with Council, staff and volunteers to make change happen.

7. We were the first campaign to release our 6 month plan. The other campaigns followed, weeks after, and it is evident that their own plans heavily borrowed from ours. Our plan has received praise from Greens across the country, for being specific, ambitious, realistic, and inclusive.

8. We are the only campaign to publish a credible set of platform priorities.
   

Chad and I are ready to lead.

We ask for your support.

Chad Walcott

Good morning everyone,

Last week Anna and I wrote to you while on tour in Ontario. The trip was fantastic and the conversations with members were enlightening and inspiring. However, while we were there a constitutional crisis was beginning to unfold.

You see, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents 55,000 education workers in Ontario announced their intention to invoke their constitutional right to go on strike because contract negotiations with the Ford government were stalling. CUPE was requesting that its members making under $40,000 a year, be granted an 11.7% wage increase (the equivalent of $3.25/hr) but the Ford government would not budge past its counteroffer of a 2% increase.

Given that inflation is currently hovering around 7%, one could not be blamed for perceiving the Ford government’s offer as a pay cut rather than a raise.

In response to CUPE’s intention to go on strike, Ford announced his government’s intention to invoke the notwithstanding clause to impose legislation that would aggressively fine educators $4,000 and unions $500,000 for every day they were on strike. The use of the notwithstanding clause in this way represents a major violation of these teachers’ constitutionally protected right to strike, as well as, an attack on the very foundations of our democracy.

It bears noting that Ontario’s most recent provincial election had a record-low turnout with only 43.53% of eligible voters casting a vote. Ford’s government was elected with a majority government having achieved only 40% support. This means that his government is ruling with a majority despite only achieving the support of 17.6% of eligible voters.

There are no clearer signs that our electoral system is broken when 57% of eligible voters stay home. The situation is even more concerning when you consider that a majority of electoral seats were allocated to a Party that 60% of voters did not support. It’s completely outrageous that Ford then turns around and use his “majority” to diminish our democracy.

We see similar things happening in Québec, where the Nationalist CAQ government obtained a supermajority with only 37% support. Here, they are using their majority to infringe on the rights of religious minorities.

It is truly a dark time for Canadian democracy. However, as German theologian, Meister Eckhart once wrote: “Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light”. Now more than ever is the time for Green values to shine brightest.

Now is the time to engage with Canadians and show them the benefits of Proportional Representation. Now is the time to invest in growing our mobilizing capacity and get to work electing 12 MPs so we can use our weight in the house of commons to push for electoral reform.

Now is also the time to elect leaders who have the demonstrated skills and experience to help us achieve these goals. I submit to you that Anna Keenan and I are the leaders for this moment. Please support our campaign.

Elizabeth May

Good Sunday Morning!

Three Sundays from now we will have a new leader, announced Saturday night November 19.

With two Sunday letters until then, I would so love to be in personal contact. All candidates have received members’ phone numbers and mailing addresses from the GPC HQ – but not email addresses. The use of the Good Sunday Morning newsletter has been made available to all candidates. Some candidates have been doing what are called “robo-calls.”  I really hate robocalls.  In my campaigns, I have managed to avoid them.

But the lack of direct access to members is pushing me to consider it. For this newsletter, I thought of trying a different approach. If it works, I may not need to risk interrupting peoples’ lives with an automated call!

This is my personal email: emay@elizabeth-may.ca.  (to be on the safe side, copy campaign@elizabethmay.ca).

If you have questions or concerns, please write me.  If you want a phone chat, just ask.

Our biggest challenge between November 12 and 19 is to engage members and ensure strong participation in the vote.  Just as in electing Greens as MPs, high voter turn-out is essential.  In this leadership race, it will all come down to voter turn-out.  One worry is that people assume Jonathan and I will win.  I make no such assumption.

Please watch your email for the Simply Voting ballot. And please vote the minute you receive it.  I know that I get swamped with emails and then have to go back looking for my password. Voting right away will save you time and stress!

I would also be so grateful if you would share this message.  Please cut and paste this section of GSM and send to friends and family in the Green Party.  Let them know, we want to be in touch and that we need their support.

We also need donations. But more than anything, we need our members to step up and have the highest voter turn-out ever in a Green leadership vote.

We can turn this party around and elect more MPs, rebuild from the grassroots up and be the movement for democracy, fairness and the planet that we have always pledged to be.

Love,
Elizabeth

PS: This week, my private members bill C-226 (to confront environmental racism and promote environmental justice) cleared the Environment Committee through two days of hearings.

I sponsored a non-partisan press conference on Ecocide.

I also raised the perennial issue of anchorages off our shores with the Transport minister in QP.

My speech responding to Chrystia Freeland’s Fall Economic Statement included a call for ending the war in Ukraine by increasing efforts toward peace talks, moving toward nuclear disarmament. I also argued that the higher prices we are experiencing are largely due to the climate crisis, explaining that the tools that work for regular inflation (demand-driven) are unable to solve higher prices driven by real cost increases.

Jonathan Pedneault

Good Sunday Morning,

No task can be more pressing for our generation than securing the possibility of a future. Greens have a role to play and that cannot wait.

From climate change to the weakening of liberal democracies and a changing world order, we must accept that we stand in the midst of accelerating, self-reinforcing and undeniably destructive changes. We need not talk millenniums or centuries to see their effects. They are already here.

But that’s not all. Past fast-approaching tipping points that will unleash positive feedback loops, we will lose any ability to influence the planet’s own course of action.

In other words, barring urgent changes, it will be too late to do anything but deal with the consequences.

Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence of anthropogenic climate change, decision makers fail to engage in any fundamental revision of our socio-economic and political systems.

What we have had plenty of, instead, is a plethora of cosmetic pledges and reforms that have all led to the types of voluntary, non-binding agreements that could have passed for sufficient – if at all implemented – back in the 1980s.

Our collective failure to deal with the climate crisis and other existential threats is but the symptomatic expression of deeper problems. For quite some time now, world cooperation has relied on the assumption that our better nature would prevail, that states would uphold the laws of nations and that the assumed inviolability of certain basic principles would alone constitute enough of a deterrent not to violate them. Yet, time and again, we have seen such premises trumped by the even more basic principles of property, interest, and immediate necessity.

I have seen first-hand such mechanisms at play over the past fourteen years travelling to the frontlines of conflicts, revolutions and tragedies in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and South America. There, I have witnessed how the world’s post-war architecture repeatedly fell short on its promises to reduce suffering and broaden the benefits of freedom, safety, rights, and equality.

The times call on us all to step up our game. We must link our thinking and actions to the achievement of a greater good for future generations. We are in a state of exception. We will only make it through if we shake ourselves off the blinding chains of irresponsible non-consequentialism.

The choices we take with our party and this leadership race have an impact. Let’s make sure they fortify our ability to respond to our most pressing task at hand: responding to the climate emergency.

With Elizabeth and me, you know what you get. We know members drive the policy process and inform the platform. Our joint experience as strong advocates on climate change, the environment and human rights, at home and abroad, makes us your best bet for a stable, empowered and growing party ready to take on Trudeau, Singh and Poilièvre.

With the voting starting in less than a week, we hope to count on your support and your vote.

Sarah Gabrielle Baron

Since our inception in 1983, Greens haven’t always had easy electoral victories, we have had to take our wins in the little things. It was those little things that built our movement. How do we get through this as Greens? Because sometimes that old growth forest gets chopped down. Sometimes that fragile wetland gets paved over. We feel we are losing in the race against extreme climate change.

We take these losses hard, at an emotional and even spiritual level. But we have a superpower that keeps us going: each other.

We experience this magic at local Riding Team and Campus Club events. This is the heart of a grassroots movement. Your leader’s office, Federal Council, staff and Fund must hereafter value our local volunteer base as our top priority. EDA activity between elections is what wins elections. Volunteer teams that are tight-knit and love their candidate win elections. We’ve unlearned this truth so many times.

But this trend is turning around, not due to appeals for cash from a third party phone service, or to celebrity-style leaders at the top. It’s turning around thanks to volunteers and staff who see this truth and live up to it.

Thank you to EDA executives who keep your EDA alive. Thank you to Greens who create events, even those small “kitchen tables.”

Thank you to the volunteers who gave the experimental Action Teams a go. It will be revived and actualized with my leadership. Miigwechwendam kinoweya Indigenous People’s Advisory Circle.

Thank you to staff devoted to a grassroots philosophy, especially Dana Taylor who has shepherded our organization through a tremendously difficult two years.

Thank you to every volunteer who has served on the Fund.

Thank you to every tech volunteer for our new website for policy collaboration. Thank you to all who made our 2021/’22 Virtual General Meetings such fun, exciting successes.

We will evolve to a continual, “living” policy process that is still Member-led. I am responsible for this motion – it’s why I’m running.

These are the initiatives that my leader’s office will support and grow. Please consider donating to my campaign, so I can spread this message further in the last weeks of the race.

Thank you for loving this Green family. We are here for each other, now and always.

Simon Gnocchini-Messier

Good Sunday Morning!

I started my first message for Good Sunday Morning by acknowledging Elizabeth May’s encouragement to Good Sunday Morning to open its pages to all the Leadership contestants. Throughout this campaign, Elizabeth has spoken of the need during this contest to build up each other and not tear one another down. She is right. If we cannot unite behind a new Green Party of Canada leader after November 19 and fight together against the two most important threats of our times, Climate Change and Dystopian Capitalism, then we have learned nothing from the failed leadership of the past. I have campaigned on ideas, not personality or personal ego. I believe resolutely that as Greens, we must strive for creating a Green Social Democracy in Canada, and we must ensure that this beautiful vision leaves no one is left behind.

The question this November is who should the members elect to put the party on a clear path for achieving electoral gains to one day bring about this vision. I have fought many campaigns as a social democrat: as a candidate, campaign manager and riding association president. When I was with the NDP in 2011, our campaign swept the province of Quebec. As a school board trustee, I have been elected and re-elected. I know what it is like to win and to lose. Understanding and speaking to voters in language they understand and with ideas validated outside the echo chambers is what is needed to win elections.

If elected leader, I will pursue the following plan to elect twenty Green members of parliament in 2025 and then realize a Green Wave in 2029 for the GPC to become the largest party in parliament. In 2025, we will pursue a Quebec-first strategy, targeting the 59 ridings won there by the NDP in 2011. Our minimal goal will be to take 15 of these ridings. Our campaign in Quebec will emphasize four things: 1) the environment and social democratic values, 2) a distinct francophone secular society in Quebec, 3) respect for provincial jurisdictions, and 4) the future of Quebec in a strong united Canadian confederation. We will replace the NDP in Quebec, draw significant numbers of voters away from the Bloc Québécois and block the drift of disenchanted federalist voters to the Conservatives. In the rest of Canada, we will focus on re-electing Elizabeth May, winning back Nanaimo-Ladysmith for Paul Manly, re-electing Mike Morrice and taking one or two more ridings in the Kitchener-Waterloo-Guelph area, and electing Anna Keenan in Prince Edward Island. After electing twenty MPs, our focus will be on concluding an ironclad coalition government agreement with the NDP and the remnants of the Liberal Party to introduce proportional representation in 2029. We will ask for four ministries in that coalition government: environment, infrastructure, health and indigenous affairs. In 2029, we will elect the largest number of members of parliament under the new proportional representation system. That is the plan. That is my commitment to you.

Thank you, Merci, Meegwech, HÍ SW KE
Simon Gnocchini-Messier
www.simongmessier.ca/en

Bon dimanche matin !

J’ai commencé mon premier message pour Good Sunday Morning en reconnaissant l’encouragement d’Elizabeth May à Good Sunday Morning d’ouvrir ses pages à tous les candidats à la Chefferie. Tout au long de cette campagne, Elizabeth a parlé de la nécessité de se renforcer mutuellement et de ne pas s’entre-déchirer. Elle a raison. Si nous ne pouvons pas nous unir derrière un nouveau chef du Parti Vert du Canada après le 19 novembre et lutter ensemble contre les deux plus importantes menaces de notre époque, le changement climatique et le capitalisme dystopique, alors nous n’avons rien appris des échecs du leadership du passé. J’ai fait campagne sur des idées, pas sur la personnalité ou l’ego personnel. Je crois résolument qu’en tant que Verts, nous devons nous efforcer de créer une social-démocratie verte au Canada et nous devons nous assurer que cette belle vision ne laisse personne de côté.

La question qui se pose en novembre est de savoir qui les membres doivent élire pour mettre le parti sur la voie des gains électoraux qui permettront un jour de concrétiser cette vision. J’ai mené de nombreuses campagnes en tant que social-démocrate : comme candidat, directeur de campagne et président d’association de circonscription. Lorsque j’étais avec le NPD en 2011, notre campagne a balayé le Québec. En tant que conseiller scolaire, j’ai été élue et réélue. Je sais ce que c’est que de gagner et de perdre. Comprendre et parler aux électeurs dans un langage qu’ils comprennent et avec des idées validées auprès de la population, voilà ce qu’il faut pour gagner des élections.

Si je suis élu chef, je poursuivrai le plan suivant : élire vingt députés verts au Parlement en 2025, puis réaliser une vague verte en 2029 pour que le PVC devienne le plus grand parti au Parlement. En 2025, nous poursuivrons une stratégie axée sur le Québec, en ciblant les 59 circonscriptions remportées par le NPD en 2011. Notre objectif minimal sera de prendre 15 de ces circonscriptions. Notre campagne au Québec mettra l’accent sur quatre éléments : 1) l’environnement et les valeurs sociales-démocrates, 2) une société laïque francophone distincte au Québec, 3) le respect des compétences provinciales, et 4) l’avenir du Québec dans une confédération canadienne unie et forte. Nous remplacerons le NPD au Québec, attirerons un nombre important d’électeurs du Bloc Québécois et bloquerons la dérive des électeurs fédéralistes désenchantés vers les conservateurs. Dans le reste du Canada, nous nous attacherons à réélire Elizabeth May, à reprendre Nanaimo-Ladysmith pour Paul Manly, à réélire Mike Morrice et à gagner une ou deux autres circonscriptions dans la région de Kitchener-Waterloo-Guelph, et à élire Anna Keenan à l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard. Après l’élection de vingt députés, nous nous concentrerons sur la conclusion d’un accord irrévocable de gouvernement de coalition avec le NPD et les restes du Parti libéral pour introduire la représentation proportionnelle en 2029. Nous demanderons quatre ministères dans ce gouvernement de coalition : l’environnement, les infrastructures, la santé et les affaires autochtones. En 2029, nous élirons le plus grand nombre de députés dans le cadre du nouveau système de représentation proportionnelle. Tel est le plan. Tel est l’engagement que je prends envers vous.

Merci, Meegwech et HÍ SW KE
Simon Gnocchini-Messier
www.simongmessier.ca