A Multi-Partisan Approach to Environmental Protection

I am a strong believer in the Green Party. It plays an essential role. Environmentalists cannot afford to patiently wait around for traditional parties to see the light and pass the necessary laws to avert catastrophe.

That being said, Canadians have been slow to embrace the Green Party, and that slowness has been magnified by an unfair and unrepresentative electoral system. The Greens’ single-member delegation in the House of Commons — a triumph in its own right — is too small a basket for environmentalists to consolidate all our eggs. And in the face of the slowly unfolding plans of Stephen Harper’s majority government to eviscerate environmental regulations in Canada (the “streamlining” of the assessment process that I’ve written about before was just a start), we need to try something new.

Green leader Elizabeth May, with the help of any other MPs concerned about the environment, needs to create a multi-partisan Environmental Caucus in the House of Commons — somewhat akin to the (misleadingly named) Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, or the various congressional caucuses in the US and all-party parliamentary groups in the UK. It would be considerably less “official” and more “activist” than the House’s Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. Open to MPs from all parties, this informal caucus could potentially present the most formidable and unified challenge to Harper’s radically anti-environmental agenda. If joined by a handful of green-leaning Conservatives, it could even sow the seeds of division within the governing party. (Please allow my indulgence in fantasy. It’s all I’ve got!)

Might this strategy result in the appropriation of my beloved Green Party’s values and the stealing of its political thunder? It’s possible — especially if the strategy is successful. But environmentalists’ allegiance is to the planet, not to any party, and at the moment this represents our best path forward. We cannot wait another three years to boot the bastards out. The environment needs parliamentary protection against a short-sighted and power-hungry executive right now.