Why the Green Party Leader Failed

 

Former Green Party of Canada leader, Annamie Paul. Image c/o Wikimedia.

Last week the leader of the Green Party of Canada resigned after a disastrously short time at the helm. There have been allegations of racism and antisemitism, but I think that just about all the mainstream media have totally misunderstood what happened to Annamie Paul. I think my readers might benefit from my analysis. But to understand that, I'm going to have to do a bit of a "deep dive" and explain some political concepts that I don't think the vast majority of people think about much.

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In the interests of full disclosure, I founded the Green Party of Canada EDA in Guelph. I also sat for a while on the Green Party of Canada Federal Council as the Communications Chair. I also spear-headed a not very successful campaign to reform the constitution of the GPC. My involvement dramatically declined once Elizabeth May became leader. I don't know much more about the personalities involved in the recent dispute. But for reasons I hope will become obvious in the body of this Op Ed, I think that that's irrelevant. And I have double-checked the points I want to make with regard to the constitution, so I think I'm on pretty firm ground. 

Having said that, as a general case, I see all my statements as being provisional. If new information comes along that would cause me to modify them, so be it. If some reader takes issue with the facts as I describe them below, I'm always interested in listening to constructive criticism. (That's why this blog has a Comments section.) 

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The first thing that people have to understand is that there are different layers to causes. An old nursery rhyme points a finger toward this issue.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost,
for want of a shoe the horse was lost,
for want of a horse the knight was lost,
for want of a knight the battle was lost,
for want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
So a kingdom was lost—all for want of a nail.

The point is that issues that seem insignificant to people can cascade into bigger and bigger problems---to the point of having catastrophic consequences.

President Harry Truman was famous for putting a sign on his desk to the effect that "the buck stopped" with him for any decision that the US government made. 

Harry Truman. Public domain image.

The sentiment sounds good, but unfortunately it doesn't really make any sense. Institutions follow their own internal logic based on the way they were set up. President Truman was at the mercy of the structure of both the Democratic Party and the United States of America. Similarly, I think Annamie Paul was at the mercy of the constitution of the GPC.

I generally believe in what people call "systems analysis" instead of individual responsibility. Our cultural/religious tradition predisposes us to blame individuals for the decisions they make instead of their past history or the institutions they serve. (There's that whole silly story about a talking snake and eating some fruit---.) I would argue that blaming the individual helps people channel their strong emotions, but in most cases if you look beneath the surface you can find a failed system that caused or at least made the problem worse. 

Take the example of Catholic priests raping children. Who was responsible?

Of course, the priests bear some guilt, but I would argue not most of it. How about the Bishops who kept hushing things up and transferring the offenders to new (dare I say "virgin") parishes? How about the teachings of the church---that say that every single person has total and absolute control over their instincts (like the sex drive) and thereby ill-prepare people to channel them into healthy outlets? And how about teaching that the sex instinct isn't normal and natural, but rather the promptings of Satan---doesn't that bear some of the blame too?

Beyond these issues, how about the way the church chooses people for the priesthood? Why did they select so many young men who had such complex issues over sexuality? Could it possibly be that they had a bias towards repressed, up-tight, conformists because the higher-ups didn't want the sort of independent, confident, thoughtful men who might "rock the institutional boat"? 

Looking at problems from the perspective of systems is hard to do. I too get the momentary "rage rush" that comes from wanting to beat some offender to a bloody pulp. But when I am able to put some distance between myself and the situation, I generally can see some sort of institutional mechanism that has fostered the problem before us. At that point my reason steps in and I tell myself "if we really want to fix the problem, reform the system---don't brutalize the individual".

With regard to the Green Party of Canada, I would argue that the constitutional structure of the party makes it almost impossible to govern. Elizabeth May is such a famous and charismatic leader that she was able to keep it a lid on it for her term of office. But leaders like May are few and far between, and I think that someone like Paul didn't have much of a chance to calm down the Brahma bull that is the GPC. 

An apt metaphor for Annamie Paul and the GPC? Public Domain image c/o Wikimedia Commons.

 

When Annamie Paul got elected, I suspect she didn't really understand the situation and assumed that she would be able to take over where May left off. But she lacked the fame and charisma that her predecessor had, which meant that she was never able to get the system to work for her. The result would probably seem to her to be a baffling refusal to comply with the leader's direction. And, I suspect it seemed to her like there was some sort of institutional prejudice. Moreover, with the right (ie: "wrong") mix of personalities, I can see how this would have led to a nasty feedback loop of bruised egos that lead to the very public melt-down we all saw. 

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But before I get to that, I want to discuss another issue that I think most folks really haven't thought much about. Just what exactly is "politics"? I would argue that the basic, molecular building block of politics are personal relationships between individuals. 

Consider where politics comes from. In the pre-modern era, politics was all about networks of personal relationships. The Queen exerted her control over the state through appointing a group of courtiers, or, a retinue.  Here's a painting of Queen Elizabeth the First and her retinue, painted by Robert Peake in 1601.

Public domain image, photo c/o Wikigallery

Each of these courtiers would in turn have their own retinue, who would help him or her undertake the tasks that the monarch had entrusted to them. If it was needed, some of this "staff" would also have a retinue that they would assemble to help with their responsibilities. This entire system was called "patronage". Patronage is how authoritarian states are able to operate. It's also why they tend to be both very decentralized and prone to corruption. That's because loyalty only comes from being purchased (hence corruption), and, people tend to only be loyal to their patron (hence decentralization). 

Power flows from the top down in an authoritarian state, but in a democracy it is supposed to come from the bottom up. People who wish to amass power and influence in a democracy have to be elected by a group of supporters, not appoint a retinue of followers. 

But there is more than one of way to build supporters in a political party. The problem is that some methods are more inherently democratic and make the party more resilient while others are more top-down and make the party more fragile. My concern with the Green Party is that early on it sleep-walked into a system that is not very democratic and quite unstable. 

Under Canadian election law the basic building block of any political party is supposed to be the Electoral District Association (EDA). These aren't national organizations but instead are rooted in a specific geographic community, such as Guelph. 

The idea is that a group of people want to support some political ideal so they reach out to find similarly-minded individuals, sell party memberships to them, form an executive, raise money, bring in speakers, hold rallies, etc. They build a war chest, train volunteers how you run an election campaign, and, seek out people with a local profile to run as a candidate. Do this in communities across the country and you end up with a strong political party.

The key point to understand about this system is that it "roots" the member in a specific community. This carries with it two intangible, but extremely important virtues. 

First of all, in an EDA people have a much better chance to get to know the personalities and past history that each of us "carry around on our shoulders" (to use a phrase from Wendell Berry). For example, you can learn if someone can or can't be trusted to complete a task they've taken on, whether they can get along with different types of people, if they have a real commitment to the project or are just trying to build their own "brand", etc.    

Secondly, in a local EDA you have to work with other people who often don't see the world the way you do. This means that to accomplish anything you have to learn how to explain yourself, negotiate compromises with different points of view, and, prove to the other members that you will honour whatever collective decisions made---whether you agree with them or not. 

Under this old way of amassing political power, a pyramid is created where a small number of individuals build a "power base" of supporters in their local EDAs. This is then used to build connections with other local leaders within the party. Eventually a small number of people build followings of other local leaders, which gives them influence in the party-as-a-whole. They jostle with each other until some individual gets enough supporters among this group to end up in a leadership position.

In contrast, there is another road to political power that recently emerged from modern media. I suppose you can trace it all the way back to Pierre Eliot Trudeau and "Trudeaumania". That is, the leader of a party can become so famous that they end up being able get followers all across the country whom have never met and know almost nothing about him or her. This allows leaders to totally by-pass the local EDAs, which then becomes much less important to the internal political structure than things like social media and television news. 

This new way of building support involves creating a "brand" through manipulating the media. I suggest Trudeau the elder as the beginning of this in Canada because he was really good at pulling "stunts" that endeared him to his supporters. To understand what I'm talking about, take a look at the following short video.

 

I don't know if this pirouette was on purpose or just a quirk of Trudeau's personality, but it was certainly part of his "brand" to make fun of the monarchy, hang out with rock stars,  and generally "ham it up" for the cameras. This wasn't a liability, but key to his enduring popularity as a politician. That's because the average Canadian really didn't know much about him as a human being---they just responded to a two-dimensional persona that had been crafted by the mass-media. 

This really came home to me when he died. I---probably like the vast majority of other citizens---had no idea that Pierre Trudeau was a devout Catholic. Which just goes to show that it's tremendously important to keep reminding yourself that no matter how much you think you know something about a person in the "public eye", you really only know what little manages to get through the keyhole that is the media. Another example that should make you think is Bill Cosby. How many folks who thought of  him as "America's Dad" would have believed he was a serial rapist?

The thing is that Trudeau used his personal popularity to cement a close tie to the Liberal party---which was (and still is) firmly embedded in community EDAs. But now it is possible to build your brand to the point where you can thumb your nose at the local branches of your party and still end up being the head of a political party---hence Donald Trump.

The progression of this new way of building power in a political party manifests itself in things like directly electing the leader through a one-person, one ballot system. In contrast, under a community-based system each EDA elects delegates (based on the number of dues-paying members in that riding) who then go to a convention and negotiate among themselves to elect a leader. In addition, parties that go for this direct vote system usually allow leadership candidates to sell memberships and allow these new members---many of which have zero history or loyalty to the EDA where they live, or even the party itself---to vote for "their guy". 

The GPC chooses its leaders through a direct member voting system, just like most of the others. (I understand the Ontario provincial Liberals still use a delegate/convention system---I don't know about the NDP.) But it has gone one step further than the other parties and doesn't even have EDA delegates at their conventions (which they call "General Meetings")---which I think all the other parties still do.

If you look at the constitution of the GPC you will see the following clause: 

Article 8 General Meetings of the Entire Membership of the Party
8.1 General Meetings shall consist of:
8.1.1 individual Members in good standing who have one vote, and
8.1.2 delegates or Members carrying proxies, who are in good standing, and who have voting rights under one or more Bylaws that provide for voting by proxy. (Proviso: This clause shall not come into effect until the Members adopt such a Bylaw or Bylaws.)
8.2 A quorum shall be fifty (50) Members present at a General Meeting who are in good standing, representing at least two regions, as defined in the Bylaws.
8.3 General Meetings shall be held at least once every two years.
8.4 Sixty (60) days notice to Members is required to call a General Meeting.
8.5 General Meetings of Members shall be called in accordance with the Bylaws.
8.6 Special General Meetings of Members shall be called in accordance with the Bylaws.

Yes, you read that right. Some of the Green Party of Canada's most important decisions aren't made through consulting duly elected delegates from local EDAs across the country (like every other party I've ever heard of), instead they are made by whomever can afford and wants to show up at the convention. All you need to get things passed at a GPC General Meeting is for 49 random members from the area where the meeting is being held plus one more from somewhere else.

Think about the above state of affairs. Someone can show up at a Green Party of Canada convention who has amassed a great deal of credibility in his community, has inspired hundreds of members to join the party, and, built up the EDA into a major force---but his vote is no more important or weighty than someone who is considered a "flake" by the members of his community and hasn't lifted a finger to build the party. 

There are attempts to deal with this imbalance by having on-line referendums, but even if there were no problems with that system (I think that there are, but that's not the point I'm trying to make in this article) it still dramatically weakens the authority of the EDA in the structure of the party. What this means is that if you want to become a real influence in the GPC, there's no real sense in trying to build up a strong membership base and local organization. In fact, it's just a waste of your time and effort.  

To consider where real power lies within the GPC, consider the following two clauses in its constitution:

Article 6 Accountability
6.1 All Units and individuals within the Party are accountable to:
6.1.1 the membership in General Meeting,
6.1.2 the Federal Council when the membership is not in General Meeting.
6.2 Decisions of the Members in General Meeting shall have precedence over decisions of Federal Council, and any Federal Council decision that is inconsistent with a decision of the Members in General Meeting shall be null and void to the extent of the inconsistency.
6.3 Filings, and appointments, of the Party required by the Canada Elections Act, or other statute or regulation, including the endorsement of a candidate during an election, are under the direction of the membership in General Meeting or Federal Council as per Articles 6.1 and 6.2.
6.4 Unless otherwise specified by this Constitution, the Bylaws, or by the membership as the case may be, Federal Council, on behalf of the membership, is responsible for the overall implementation of actions as called for in this Constitution, the Bylaws, or in other decisions of the membership in General Meeting.

Article 9 Federal Council
9.1Composition of Federal Council The Federal Council shall be composed of:
9.1.1 A President.
9.1.2 The Leader.
9.1.3 One (1) representative from each Province of Canada.
9.1.4 One (1) representative representing the Territories of Canada.
9.1.5 A Fund Representative.
9.1.6 The Executive Director.
9.1.7 Two (2) Youth Representatives.
9.1.8 A Vice President English.
9.1.9 A Vice President French.

Real structural power resides with the Federal Council---who are elected on-line through the general membership, just like the Leader. And these people aren't beholding to their local EDA, which means that if you want power within the party, it makes a lot more sense to become nationally famous for one reason or another. This is hard to do, though, so another route is to become associated with someone else who is. If someone is really famous, their endorsement will go a long way towards getting you the votes you need to get your seat. At this point, the party begins to look like an old-fashioned patronage system with the party leader being able to rule through creating a retinue that rules the party. Does this remind you of anything?

Donald Trump and his cabinet. Public domain government image c/o Wikimedia.

Once Elizabeth May's mandate ended and she became a "lame duck" leader, Paul tried to fill her shoes. But she lacks the extreme public profile of May, which means that she'd never had the ability to get the Federal Council to abide by what she told them to do---because they aren't part of her retinue. 

Indicative of the point I'm trying to make is the actual policy where all of this blew apart. One of Paul's staff members made an outrageous threat against a sitting Green MP, namely that he would organize a campaign against her re-election if she didn't stop criticizing the government of Israel. Paul refused to fire him, and she crossed the floor to join the Liberals. (Here's an interesting article by Yves Engler that describes his take on the conflict.) I won't get into the specifics, but I would like to point out that the Greens are supposed to be focused primarily around an environmental understanding of politics and the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is pretty far removed from that. A party that is firmly rooted in local Canadian communities wouldn't be stripping its gears over something so peripheral to the group's core mandate. Instead, this is exactly the sort of argument that one can expect from atomized individuals who's political engagement begins and ends with what they see on the Web. (Which isn't to deny that this is a big issue---but it just doesn't directly affect the vast majority of Canadians or environmentalists in particular. Instead, it's just one more generic issue that people have flame wars over on discussion boards.)

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Parties need the ability to survive ups and downs. This isn't going to happen if you build yours around something as volatile as celebrity leaders and web-based outrage. I contacted several party members for this article and the phrase I heard repeatedly was "dumpster fire". As the Biblical adage suggests, "a house built on sand cannot stand".

Unfortunately, the structural tendencies that I identified above are at work with all the other parties right now. I suspect that they are just more well-developed with the Greens because they don't have the long historical baggage of the others---including the retention of a delegate system for conventions. But I think that these parties have also been weakened by the same processes that I believe plague the Greens.

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How can the Greens---and by extension all the other parties---overcome the problem of centralizing power through rule by popularity contest and social media flash mob?  

In Marxism there is this idea called Parliamentary Cretinism. This is the idea that politics begins and ends with elections. I meet people over and over again who believe that there is this sort of iron curtain between activism and politics---you simply cannot be involved with both. This is complete and utter nonsense! This is a ridiculous idea---on par with reducing farming to just picking the crop without taking into account preparing the field, planting, weeding, fertilizing, etc.

For example, the NDP and public healthcare didn't spring fully-formed onto Parliament, they developed because of a long, intensive program that involved local EDAs---first in Saskatchewan and then across the country---organizing public meetings where people like Tommy Douglas explained what a single-payer healthcare could look like. And the Quiet Revolution that changed Quebec from a priest-ridden backwater into a powerful modern economy didn't just happen because of a vote in the Legislative Assembly. There was an entire generation of activists who fought against the status quo through things like the Asbestos Strike of 1949. That dispute involved activists who later became prominent leaders of the Liberal party---including a young Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

The Green Party of Canada could build for the long-term by getting back to it's roots. The Greens started out trying to be a party of activists who tried to be on the fore-front of big issues. When I was building the Greens in Guelph the operating principle was that we would only become successful if we served the people of Guelph---and we didn't need to wait to get people elected to do that. To that end, we "spark-plugged" a lot of different events in the community---from hosting "slow food" dinners, through organizing a slate of reform-minded candidates for municipal council, launching province-wide protests against solid waste, to bringing together representatives from all the environmental groups we could find along the Grand River for Watershed conferences.

The EDAs of political parties have potential resources that other activists can only dream of. They can fundraise by issuing tax receipts worth up to 75% of the donation. And they can use connections to other EDAs across the country and other similar parties around the world. (When I was with the Guelph Greens we helped the Irish Green Party with recycling information, Russian Greens concerned about solid waste from fast food restaurants, and, the Romanian Greens researching a Canadian-designed nuclear reactor that had been built in their country with slave labour.)

Politics is an integral part of democratic citizenship---it doesn't just happen during elections. And the Green Party needs to make building strong EDAs dedicated to helping raise the political literacy of local citizens key to success within the party---instead of trying to find already famous people to join and fill its key slots. The way to build strong EDAs is to serve the people, and this should be the only way to become a leader of the party. If the GPC doesn't take this route, IMHO, it doesn't deserve to survive as a political force. And the way to do this is to reform the constitution so it becomes a genuinely community-based party. 

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That's as good a place as any to end this. Remember to keep a positive attitude and work for good any way you can. 

Moreover I say unto you, the Climate Emergency must be dealt with!