Old London vs Green London ...

    

Credit to Hannah McKinnon at the Global Youth Climate Movement.

As mentioned in an earlier post the GPC has started an online petition for Canadians who want to try to ensure that Elizabeth May is included in the Leaders' debate in the next federal election.  A couple of days ago I read the first editorial I've seen supporting Elizabeth's inclusion in the Winnipeg Sun.  I'm sure there will be more, but here is the comment that caught my eye:

It is no longer fair, or even rational, to keep treating the Greens as a fringe party.

The point I wanted to make is that rationality is often in the eye of the beholder.  If the criteria for making a rational decision on who gets included in the debate is an objective answer to the question "What is best for Canada and Canadians?", then clearly the Sun's analysis of the issue makes sense.  The Greens should be included in the debate.

However, the individuals on the broadcast consortium that have decided to exclude the Greens from the last two debates have done so on "editorial" grounds.  This is because the question they are trying to answer is not the one being asked by the Sun.  Rather, they are asking "What is best for the interests I represent?"  So, to understand the reasoning behind the exclusion of the Greens, one needs to understand the point of view of the individuals making the decision.  When the decision is examined from that point of view it starts to become more clear.

The first reason that could explain the decision is that the individuals representing the consortium members (e.g. the CBC, Global, CTV, Radio Canada, and TVA) support other parties.  Consider the following:  In 2004 Peter Kent was the consortium representative for Global.  In the 2006 election he ran as a candidate for the Conservative Party in Toronto.  If Peter Kent supported the Conservatives in 2004, then a rational decision for Mr. Kent would have been to exclude the Greens.  It is almost certain that including us would be to the detriment of the other parties in both the short term and in the long term.

A second, and more subtle reason to exclude the Greens is what is referred to in the technology industry as a "disruption" of the status quo.  Here is the first sentence in the Wikipedia definition on disruptive technologies:

A disruptive technology or disruptive innovation is a technological innovation, product, or service that eventually overturns the existing dominant technology or product in the market.

I believe that same concept can be applied to the rising influence of the Green Party on the Canadian federal political scene.  We are a disruptive "product," and I think it is entirely possible that we will overturn the existing dominant "products" by winning Parliament at some point in the not-too-distant future. 

The problem with this disruption is that the dynamics of the existing political marketplace are well understood by the media, business, the non-political parts of government and so on.  Once we start electing MPs we are going to change this dynamic in ways that are unpredictable.  The individuals who are making the consortium decisions have risen to a level of seniority based on their understanding of the existing political model.  Successful media and business organizations have become successful within the existing model.  As such, it is rational for them to try to minimize the potential disruptive force to this model that the Greens represent.  One way to do this is to try to slow us down by minimizing public understanding of our "product".

Needless to say, I think that the best interests of Canadians should come ahead of the best interest of media organizations when it comes to our federal elections. But so long as the decision about who to include in the debate is based on subjectively rational grounds rather than, say, objective and measurable grounds, then there will be no guarantee that the Greens or other new parties will ever be included in a Leaders' debate.  It may take a change in Canada's Elections Act to fix the problem.

Please visit this website to sign the petition to include Elizabeth May in the leaders' debates in the next federal election.

Check out the following article discussing recent EKOS poll results.  Here's what the pollster has to say:

"There is a shock result here for the NDP," Graves said. "Nationally, the Greens are within sight of the NDP."

The NDP is at 10.2% and the Greens are at 7.6% in the poll.  These numbers are middle-of-the-road for the Greens, but the shock result is that the NDP is falling so much from the 17.5% they won in the January election (and the 20% of so they were hovering at in the months after the election).  Two other recent Decima polls (here and here) have the NDP at 12%.  It seems like they have lost about 1/3 of their support.

So, what impact are the Greens having on these NDP results?  I've made the argument in the past that the GPC is drawing it's support from across the political spectrum.  I think that opinion is reinforced by comments like the following in this article by Decima pollster Bruce Anderson:

"The Greens are biting from everybody," said Anderson.

And here are some quotes from an article from back in August that shows that the NDP themselves know that the Greens aren't the root cause of their problems:

Brad Lavigne, communications director for the NDP, says it may be oversimplifying to cast the Greens, New Democrats and Liberals as one, large, left-wing mass. The NDP, more than other parties, has done some intense study of the Greens' vote and has found that people who cast their ballots that way could just as likely vote Conservative. And sometimes, the Green party vote is just citizens' way of saying "none of the above."

"If the Green party disappeared tomorrow, it might realistically mean an extra 1 per cent for the NDP, an extra 1 per cent for the Liberals and, yes, an extra 1 per cent for the Conservatives," Lavigne says.

Granted, this article shows that NDP voters are more likely to consider jumping to the Greens.  But the point is is that people should take any current and future NDP complaints about the Greens and vote-splitting - like the ones in this article - with a grain of salt.  The NDP is losing votes to everyone, not just the Greens.  They may want to consider taking more concrete action on the proportional representation initiatives they've been promising, while they have the influence to do so.

Some additional analysis on the problems the NDP is having is here and here.

The Toronto Star published an interesting article on Saturday that analyzes some of the long-term dynamics at play in terms of the response of Canadian voters and political parties to environmental issues.  Some good quotes:

If the Conservatives repeat past form, these measures [environment-related initiatives] will be mostly spin and little substance.

Other polls suggest 90 per cent of Canadians have some level of concern about climate change, and 71 per cent think Ottawa's approach is inadequate.

"What really drives people's concerns about the environment is not the incidents themselves but the sense that governments and industry aren't doing anything about them," McAllister says. "As they perceive (those in power) are not acting, they got pissed off."

I recommend giving the whole article a read ...

It's a rare news article that mentions the GPC that does not also mention the fact that we don't have an elected MP in Parliament. On occasion, the reporter will also note that the GPC has not done as well as Green parties that have participated in governing coalitions in other countries. Consider the following quote about the GPC from a University of Toronto professor in this CTV article:

"They've improved slowly. Compared to other countries they're very behind. I think of Germany where they did so well their leader was minister of foreign affairs," Clarkson says.

But are we very behind? Joschka Fischer, the German minister in question, was appointed when the Greens formed a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party, despite winning only 7% of the vote (and 47 of 669 seats in the Bundestag). In the recent election in Austria, the Greens finished third with 11% of the vote (and 21 of 183 seats in the National Council), and may yet form part of a governing coalition.

That 7% level of support is the likely percentage that the GPC could win if an election were to be held today. The Austrian results are similar to our high-end polling numbers, currently around 10%. Our election day results are more likely to approach that higher number in an electoral system other than the first past the post system used in Canada, since issues such as strategic voting and the feeling of "wasting" a vote will be of less concern to voters who support smaller parties. So, Clarkson's statement needs to be qualified: the GPC is not behind Green parties in other counties in terms of popular support. Rather, we are behind because of an electoral system that is to our disadvantage.

Canada has been flirting with proportional representation in recent years, with an initiative in British Columbia being narrowly defeated in 2005. (It will likely be voted on again in 2008.) Several other provinces are exploring the issue, and last year the Law Commission of Canada recommended that Canada adopt a mixed member proportional electoral system at the federal level.

So, what next? The first thing GPC supporters can do is support electoral reform in their province, and support initiatives promoted by groups like Fair Vote Canada. We also need to have patience, and recognize that electoral reform of any sort will take time. There are reasons why the Canadian electoral system is the way that it is, and, regardless of the system, the GPC has to be willing and able to work well with other parties if we want to make progress on issues that are important to us.  In the meantime, we will continue to grow and our influence will continue to increase.

The second thing to do is to focus on our growth in the long-term. I think it is possible for the GPC to win a majority regardless of the electoral system. I outlined here how this can be done by 2020. We can be successful so long as we focus on defining and meeting our own goals and objectives, rather than letting others define these goals and objectives on our behalf (e.g. elect an MP to Parliament if you want to be in the Leaders' debate). I think the Canadian electorate recognizes the inherent unfairness of such requirements, and focusing too much on them will only serve to distract us from other more important work that needs to be done.

An aside: Often, when considering political issues that seem unfair, I remember a Yogi Berra-style malapropism I heard at a debate I attended while working on the campaign of the Green Party Congressional candidate in Omaha, Nebraska. To make his point, an inexperienced candidate (not the Green Party candidate) stated that "85% of lawyers give the rest of them a bad name." It's easy to substitute "politicians" for "lawyers" when I hear politicians talk about an issue like electoral reform, yet see nothing concrete ever being done.

However, in fairness, I think that the candidate meant to say 15%. And, in fairness, I think that's the appropriate number to use for politicians as well. It's why I believe the GPC should continue to try to work with the other parties, since most of the people in those other parties are in it for the right reasons as well (even if and when we disagree). And that in turn gives me more confidence that the right political actions - like electoral reform - will get done one way or another if the issue is handled in a collaborative way.

This is one of a series of articles examining how to fix key problems facing the GPC.

I regularly hear frustration from party members about the problems we have in engaging our members. They know other members that have the skills to create good materials or work on our website, or are willing to make phone calls or go door-to-door. They ask why we aren't activating these members to do more volunteer work for the party.

The problem here is not that the party doesn't want or need the help of volunteers. Rather, the problem is that activating volunteers is a lot of work! The volunteer needs to be trained, the work we want them to do needs to be clearly defined and integrated into a larger plan, the materials to do their job need to collected and distributed, the progress of the work needs to be tracked, and so on. A breakdown at any step along the way means that the initiative to activate the volunteer work will be less than successful.

In my experience, the prepatory work and training required just to get each new volunteer up to speed can take a time investment of several hours from an experienced staff member or volunteer. Then there is the ongoing work to monitor progress. Consider that there is a close parallel to the business world, where few managers are expected to coordinate the work of more than (say) 10 employees. So if we want to activate 100 new volunteers working 10 hours per month, we need to have at least 10 other more experienced volunteers working at least 10 hours per month to direct their work. Trying to activate 1000 volunteers adds another tier to the volunteer-based organization. Activating new volunteers in these numbers is too much work for our over-worked staff to do on their own, which is why it currently isn't being done.

I think there is a belief in the party, based on anecdotal experience and small-scale volunteer projects, that our "grassroots" members can and will self-organize if the central party just gets out of the way. However, consider two of our successful medium-scale volunteer efforts: the 2004 Living Platform project and the recent second-place finish by Elizabeth May in the London North Centre by-election. In both cases, we had at least a couple of hundred volunteers involved. But there were also key staff members and volunteers who were working full-time to direct the work of other volunteers. These two efforts show that volunteer initiatives can work, but that they need to be carefully managed. If they are not, they can and will lead to the burnout of key volunteers and staff in the long-term.

A rough estimate that I use when considering how many volunteers we can bring to bear on a task is that about 1 in 10 members will volunteer at some level, and 1 in 100 members will have the skills, initiative, and time to be long-term leaders.  Both types of volunteers are to be valued and are essential to the growth of the organization.  I think those numbers accurately reflect our current membership base: of our 10,000 members, about 100 are long-term leaders and 1000 have done volunteer work on a semi-regular basis. In my experience, these numbers are consistent at all levels of the party and are achievable without any sort of coordinated volunteer program.

So the first, and best, thing we can do to get more volunteers involved is to recruit more members. The number of volunteers we can activate will always be constrained primarily by the size of our membership base. On the positive side, we can always expect that a certain percentage of those members will self-select themselves into volunteer roles.

The second thing to do is define a volunteer program that is focused on delivering skills and training to volunteers who want to take the step of moving from an "on-the-ground" volunteer to a volunteer who is willing to step back and start directing the work of others. It is probably possible to slowly increase the above percentages of members who volunteer (despite the natural inclination of most people to not want to do anything :-) We can also be more effective at coordinating the work of those who do volunteer. The long-term success of this program will be dependent on developing a skilled middle management volunteer infrastructure in the party.

This is one of a series of articles examining how to fix key problems facing the GPC.

The GPC's rapid growth has been a dramatic and positive experience for the party. However, rapid growth always brings its own set of problems. Probably none is more evident than the stress that has been put on the party's ability to do strategic planning. It has been very difficult to effectively consult with stakeholders in order to identify and prioritize the work that needs to be done, set realistic goals and a budget to complete that work, and oversee and make the necessary corrections when things don't proceed as planned.

This work is difficult almost to the point of being overwhelming. Every stakeholder (councillors, EDAs, staff, provinces, working groups, members) has their ideas about what we should be doing, and how we should spend our money. When things don't get done in the way they'd like them to get done they start having concerns, and the party can enter a cycle where the issues being addressed are the ones being raised by our most vocal stakeholders. And, unfortunately, these issues may not be the ones that should be the highest priority.

The first thing that can be done to fix this problem is to establish a well-understood process where stakeholders are consulted and understand when they can provide input into that process. I've set out some ideas about how to do this in the strategic planning section of my GPC roadmap essay.

The second thing that can be done is for council to publish a list of measurable objectives that the party hopes to achieve for a given time period. That way, we can (a) measure whether or not we are actually getting things done, and (b) we can clearly explain to stakeholders who want resources and attention directed to their projects about what work we are currently focused on. In the past, our staff has created such a list for their work, but there are issues facing the party that are broader than those facing staff alone. I've published such a broader list here but these are primarily my own ideas and priorities. Council needs to work on their own list as a group and present it in a more digestible way.

This is one of a series of articles examining how to fix key problems facing the GPC.

GPC council problems are primarily due to the structure of council rather than problems with any given individual in the current or previous councils. The size of council (around 25 individuals) is larger than the typical size of most governance bodies. This, combined with the historically small size of our membership base, results in councillors sometimes being elected who are inexperienced or who don't have the right skills for the job. The end result is a weak council that becomes the underlying cause for many other problems in the party.

Although a governance body of 25 councillors is fairly large I don't believe that this size, in and of itself, will result in problems that are intractable in the long term. Half of these councillors are provincial and territorial representatives, and trying to reduce this representation will likely result in a new set of equally troublesome problems. Most Canadians are rightfully proud of their home province or territory and expect it to have a measure of representation in national forums that is equal to any other province or territory. So the party needs to find ways to make a council of this size work.

The first thing to do is implement a comprehensive training program for new councillors. In my experience, many councillors have never been exposed to typical issues faced by a governance body: financial management, meeting procedures, an awareness of major historical events and decisions within the party, an understanding of the relationship between a governing body and staff, understanding how to work well with others, and so on. There is every reason to believe that most councillors can learn these skills. In the long-term, this training will also help to create a larger pool of members with leadership skills that can be applied elsewhere in the party.

The second thing to do is recruit good candidates for each and every council position. This is particularly true for our smaller regions where there may be little competition for the position. In my experience, a single unqualified individual elected to council can cause a lot of harm to council as a whole. All party members need to share in the responsibility for recruiting qualified council candidates, and there should be few or no positions in a council election where a candidate is only running against none-of-the-above.

This is one of a series of articles examining how to fix key problems facing the GPC.

I've been working on a new essay that examines the problems currently faced by the GPC, and how these problems can be fixed. I've identified about 30 key problems that are divided into three main categories: political, organizational, and cultural. After writing up an analysis of the first three organizational problems I can see that finishing all 30 will take some time, so I thought I'd present the problems and solutions in a "serialized" format as they are finished. I don't have a specific time-frame in mind for the next set, but keep watching the blog for updates.

The articles that have been published to date are below.  The ranking represents my opinion about the relative importance of the problem compared to other problems facing the party.

Fixing political problem #1:  The Canadian electoral system
Fixing political problem #2:  Building a national party 

Fixing organizational problem #1:  An inexperienced council
Fixing organizational problem #2:  Strategic planning
Fixing organizational problem #3:  Activating volunteers

Fixing cultural problem #1:  Suspicion

Jim Harris has pointed out that the GPC has been ahead of the Bloc in some recent Decima polls.  There is a very interesting history of polls done by Decima over the past year in their news release [link].  Scroll down to the third page of the release and zoom in the PDF to about 300% to make sense of it.

It seems like reporter Dennis Bueckert is continuing to wish the Green Party the worst.  In a CP article published yesterday he interviews pollster Bruce Anderson about the impact of the election of new Liberal leader Stephane Dion.  Here's the money quote:

"This is probably the worst outcome for the Green Party."

To Bueckert's credit, he follows up with comments from David Chernushenko, who describes Dion's victory as fantastic. 

I'm in agreement with David.  It doesn't really matter how environmental matters get addressed, just so long as they do.  It is likely that Dion will need our help to make progress, and we should be glad to give it to him.  I think that most Green Party members feel the same way.  This is true not only on environmental issues, but on any issue in our entire platform.  Memo to other parties:  steal our policies, please.

I think Canadians are starting to learn that this altruism is at the heart of the party and that is why we are attracting new members and supporters.  The national political mindset is shifting and our vote totals will continue to increase as a result.  Yes, we will work with other parties.  But Canadians will also recognize that, since we were leading the way to begin with, why work through intermediaries like Dion?  They'll start electing our candidates directly.

Anderson and others who base their analyses only on traditional political calculations need to re-evaluate.

UPDATE:  As explained above I disagree with the premise that the election of Dion will negatively affect our chances in the long term, and Elizabeth May shows how to make things work in the short term.

As the new council works on planning priorities and budget for 2007, I'd like to encourage them to consider what they can do to foster policy development.  As outlined in my roadmap essay I consider establishing a successful policy development process to be one of the five key building blocks necessary for our long-term success.

Over the past couple of years many GPC members likely became familiar with a "3M" organizational structure promoted by David Scrymgeour:  that is, we should focus our efforts on the areas of membership, message, and money.  I believe that the training and tools put together by David to support 3M are very useful and have helped many EDAs increase their effectiveness.

One of the things that prompted me to write the roadmap essay were some thoughts about how the 3M strategy could be modified to better reflect and support the GPC organization at the national level.  In particular, there is no clear place for policy development in 3M.  This is unfortunate since our policy defines who and what we are.  Here is the first part of Article 4 of the GPC constitution: 

Article 4 - Purpose:  It is the purpose of The Party to advance The Party’s platform, policy, values and basis of unity, and to contribute to the welfare of Canada, Canadians and the community of life in Canada ...

I think it is difficult to figure out where policy fits into the 3M because, as the above paragraph makes clear, the purpose of the party as a whole is significantly different than the purpose of non-political organizations (or even local EDAs).  In any case, here is the link to the section in the essay where I discuss how policy development can be integrated into 3M.

In order to ensure our long-term success, the central party and council need a plan to ensure that policy development is fostered in the same way that a plan is needed for the 3M activities. Note that I am not suggesting that council work on policy itself.  That is the job of Shadow Cabinet and interested members. But council should ensure that planning, processes, procedures, resources, etc are in place in the same way that they are put in place to support 3M activities.

Elizabeth May understands the importance of policy development and that is why one of the first things she did was initiate her cross-Canada policy series, an idea which I strongly support.  In 2007, we need to expand on this idea by ensuring that enough resources are in place whereby the nitty-gritty details of policy can be developed on an ongoing basis.  In 2004, a Wiki was used, but it eventually started to suffer abuses.  With some effort, these problems can likely be corrected and complemented by other vehicles that allow all interested party members to engage in the policy development process.

Those who follow the polls may have noticed that sometimes we are around 9-10%, sometimes we are around 6-7%, and other times we are only around 5-6%.  What gives?  There are numbers enough for anyone who wants to trumpet that we are doing well, or that we are doing poorly.

I think the key thing to look for is the company doing the polling:  Decima Research has the highest numbers, Leger Marketing is in the middle and SES Research typically has us on the low end.  Each company will use a polling methodology that is fairly consistent from internal poll to internal poll, but is not necessarily consistent with polls from other companies.

What I suspect is happening is this:  in the 2006 election our high-end polling numbers solidified around 6-7% in the weeks prior to the election.  But on election day we only got 4.5% - about 2/3 of the high-end numbers.  This is the traditional percentage of votes that smaller parties like the Greens are able to convert to votes on election day.  A key reason for this is that we only have about 10,000 members, or an average of 30 or so members per riding.  So it is hard to implement effective get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns in most ridings. 

Some of the polling companies are probably taking this into account, and some are not.  SES pollster Nik Nanos (who gives us the low-end numbers) spoke at the GPC convention in Ottawa in August and emphasised that GOTV is something that could give us big gains.  As our membership numbers and general level of acceptance by the Canadian electorate continue to increase, and we become increasingly able to develop and implement get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns (as seen in the London North Centre by-election) the percentage of vote we are able to convert will increase.  It may well be that the low-end numbers from SES are already too low. 

For planning purposes, I suggest that the party take the number at the middle of the bell curve of numbers from all companies.  Or, since we like to focus on the bigger numbers, we should only use 2/3 of the high-end numbers from companies like Decima.  Then when we get to 15% from Decima or 10% from SES we can be more assured that we will hit double-digits on election day (and won't feel disappointed if we don't achieve the high-end numbers we are hoping for).

An aside:  When polling numbers are close news articles typically say the race are too close too call.  But I enjoyed this article from way back when from Kevin Drum that explains that a better way to think of poll numbers is in percentages, based on the margin of error (MOE) in the poll.  The chart from the article is below.  The percentages in the body of the chart represent the likelihood that candidate/party A is ahead of candidate/party B, given the percentage lead and the MOE:

There has been much debate and discussion about the meaning of Elizabeth May's strong showing in London North-Centre.  My feeling is that the results and exposure will add about 1 to 2 points to our future "first-choice" national polling numbers.  However, as this poll taken after the Liberal leadership convention shows, we are still subject to the vagaries of external events and statistical variance, like all other parties.

The more significant (and more difficult to measure) impact of LNC will likely be in voters who move us from "fringe party" status in their minds to the category of "strong second-choice".  Our Campaign Manager George Read has pointed out that there are four steps that an organization must go through in its development:

1. Be Noticed
2. Be Understood
3. Be Trusted
4. Be Preferred

The movement through these stages will be a necessary process for most voters, and by moving us to "second-choice" status it means that we are understood and trusted.  We are likely to sit at that level in their minds for a while as they learn more about us and determine whether we should become their preferred choice.

If and when Elizabeth gets into the Leaders' debate during the next federal election I think we can expect at least an additional 2 to 3 point jump in our first-choice vote.  In the 2001 election in BC Adriane Carr's performance led to a jump in Green Party support to 12%, so certainly anything is possible.  By all accounts, Elizabeth handily won the debates in LNC, and this may have set the stage where a strong performance in the Leaders' debate combined with a solid overall campaign could be enough to pull the GPC into the double digits.

Some readers might think that the above numbers are rather modest after a 25% showing in the by-election.  However, we need to recognize that the party was able to concentrate our resources in a riding in a way that won't be possible in the next general election.  What I do believe is that the GPC can and will elect an MP sometime soon.  But just as important for our long term success is continuing to make slow and steady progress in building the national infrastructure of the party. And a national increase of a couple of points per riding means a lot in that respect.

Until we do elect an MP we shouldn't let others define our growth in terms that suit them rather than in terms that reflect the new reality that the Green Party has brought to the Canadian political landscape.  We are the fastest growing party in the country and, in my opinion, we are exactly on track for a Green Party majority in 2020.  But a lot of preliminary work has to be done beforehand.  We should measure our success against our own goals and objectives, and remind those who question our progress based on the single, somewhat artificial benchmark of whether or not we have an MP, that Rome wasn't built in a day.

I've been getting caught up on my news reading and came across this news article published prior to the by-election in London North Centre.  "No Tory `chivalry' as Greens' new leader seeks seat," the headline proclaims.  The article goes on to state:

... the Tories already have their preferred candidate — former London mayor Dianne Haskett — and the practice of allowing new party leaders to run unopposed in by-elections will not be extended to May, elected as Green Party leader in late August.

The Toronto Star touches on the theme again in the sidebar to this article.  So I thought there was a modest amount of irony involved when the by-election results came in and Elizabeth finished second, beating third-place Haskett by over 500 votes.

There are many lesson to be learned from the LNC race, and these articles illustrate two of them.  The first lesson is that we can't expect any favours (we didn't get any when we were excluded from the 2004 and 2006 leaders' debates, either).  But the second lesson is more interesting, and that lesson is that we don't need favours to win. 

I think our "natural" support level in much of the country would hover around the 25% that Elizabeth won, if and when we can put enough boots on the ground (I've built this assumption into my Green Party roadmap essay).  We saw the same thing here in Calgary when one of our candidates in the 2004 provincial election won 25% in the polls she personally canvassed.  We are still some time away from being able to run the type of campaign Elizabeth did in all 308 ridings, but any riding that does will be campaigning with a solid basis of support.  All of our ridings need to focus on recruiting members and volunteers so we can turn that support into votes on election day.

The Calgary Centre Green Party electoral district association (EDA) is up and running.  We were officially registered with Elections Canada last month.  I'm the EDA CEO and until we get a full-fledged website up and running I'm hosting EDA documents here on my blog.  Here's the link for anyone who is interested.