Party Bio Green Party Leader Cheryle Chagnon-Greyeyes
Leader: Cheryle Chagnon-Greyeyes
Formed: 2011 Current Seats: 0/87 Political Position: Left Wing Contact InfoWebsite: greenpartyofalberta.ca
info@greenpartyofalberta.ca Green Party of Alberta 319-3630 Brentwood Rd NW P.O. Box 45066 Brentwood PO Calgary, AB T2L 1Y4 |
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PARTY INFORMATION
The Green Party of Alberta is part of the world-wide Green Party movement whose six underlying
principles are: Ecological wisdom, Non-violence, Participatory democracy, Respect for diversity, Social
justice and Sustainability.
Our platform is derived from these important themes and can be found below.
Some people mistakenly think we are a one-issue party of granola-crunching tree-huggers. As one can
see, the six principles above offer a far wider perspective. Social justice and a comprehensive social
safety net, as well as significant democratic reforms, are equally important. We believe that
governmental and private sector decisions should be subjected to “triple bottom line” analysis: social
and economic impacts, as well as environmental ones, should be considered.
Greens accept that perpetual economic growth is an impossible dream and tend to favour a steady state
economy with far more equitable distribution of wealth and income than Albertans (and Canadians)
enjoy. We accept market economics, subject to governmental regulations, but deny that the value of
everything important in our lives can be expressed in monetary terms. This is obvious, but many seem
to believe otherwise.
Our democratic reforms begin with a new approach to politics, one of cooperation instead of hyper-
partisanship. Thus, in spite of various rebuffs by other parties, we continue to suggest measures
whereby the centre-left, or self-styled “progressive” parties, can avoid the vote-splitting which have
doomed a majority of non-Progressive Conservative voters in the province to seeing a handful of
opposition MLAs facing an army of PCs in the Legislature. Possible measures include joint or “fusion”
candidacies, such as those we have negotiated with longstanding Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman in
Edmonton-Centre, or Michael Dawe in Red Deer-North. In addition, the Green Party is not running
candidates against Liberal or NDP incumbents, in spite of the NDP’s refusal to consider pre-election
inter-party cooperation. Indeed, Green Party leader Janet Keeping moved her personal candidacy from
Calgary-Fort in order to avoid splitting the centre-left vote with latecomer NDP candidate Joe Ceci.
Our discussions with Albertans convince us that green values are spread across all parties and are not
just the property of our party. Therefore, our attitude is to encourage election of green-oriented
candidates of various parties, instead of pretending that ours is the one true faith.
After the election, we shall submit possible amendments to the Election Finances and Disclosure Act
which presently appears to negate the possibility of having a candidate appear on the ballot with more
than one party designation.
Another important reform the party supports is Proportional Representation, to ensure that smaller
parties (who nevertheless receive thousands of votes across the province) would receive roughly the
same percentage of seats as their percentage of the popular vote. Perhaps the clearest illustration of
the unfair nature of the present system was a federal election where Kim Campbell’s federal Progressive
Conservatives won only two seats with 16% of the national vote, while 19% of the vote earned the
Reform Party 52 seats because of its regional strength in the West. And the federal Green Party was
shut out entirely in one election, in spite of garnering almost 950,000 votes across the country.
The Green Party of Alberta is part of the world-wide Green Party movement whose six underlying
principles are: Ecological wisdom, Non-violence, Participatory democracy, Respect for diversity, Social
justice and Sustainability.
Our platform is derived from these important themes and can be found below.
Some people mistakenly think we are a one-issue party of granola-crunching tree-huggers. As one can
see, the six principles above offer a far wider perspective. Social justice and a comprehensive social
safety net, as well as significant democratic reforms, are equally important. We believe that
governmental and private sector decisions should be subjected to “triple bottom line” analysis: social
and economic impacts, as well as environmental ones, should be considered.
Greens accept that perpetual economic growth is an impossible dream and tend to favour a steady state
economy with far more equitable distribution of wealth and income than Albertans (and Canadians)
enjoy. We accept market economics, subject to governmental regulations, but deny that the value of
everything important in our lives can be expressed in monetary terms. This is obvious, but many seem
to believe otherwise.
Our democratic reforms begin with a new approach to politics, one of cooperation instead of hyper-
partisanship. Thus, in spite of various rebuffs by other parties, we continue to suggest measures
whereby the centre-left, or self-styled “progressive” parties, can avoid the vote-splitting which have
doomed a majority of non-Progressive Conservative voters in the province to seeing a handful of
opposition MLAs facing an army of PCs in the Legislature. Possible measures include joint or “fusion”
candidacies, such as those we have negotiated with longstanding Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman in
Edmonton-Centre, or Michael Dawe in Red Deer-North. In addition, the Green Party is not running
candidates against Liberal or NDP incumbents, in spite of the NDP’s refusal to consider pre-election
inter-party cooperation. Indeed, Green Party leader Janet Keeping moved her personal candidacy from
Calgary-Fort in order to avoid splitting the centre-left vote with latecomer NDP candidate Joe Ceci.
Our discussions with Albertans convince us that green values are spread across all parties and are not
just the property of our party. Therefore, our attitude is to encourage election of green-oriented
candidates of various parties, instead of pretending that ours is the one true faith.
After the election, we shall submit possible amendments to the Election Finances and Disclosure Act
which presently appears to negate the possibility of having a candidate appear on the ballot with more
than one party designation.
Another important reform the party supports is Proportional Representation, to ensure that smaller
parties (who nevertheless receive thousands of votes across the province) would receive roughly the
same percentage of seats as their percentage of the popular vote. Perhaps the clearest illustration of
the unfair nature of the present system was a federal election where Kim Campbell’s federal Progressive
Conservatives won only two seats with 16% of the national vote, while 19% of the vote earned the
Reform Party 52 seats because of its regional strength in the West. And the federal Green Party was
shut out entirely in one election, in spite of garnering almost 950,000 votes across the country.
