I spent enough time in the political science department to accidentally graduate with an undergraduate degree. That was because I developed a lasting relationship with one particular professor who, notwithstanding his long tenure and distinguished scholarship, insisted on teaching the Intro to Poli Sci course to new freshmen every autumn. Other than that, his course load consisted exclusively of senior-level and graduate student seminars.
Every autumn, he’d walk into the lecture hall, peer out over the sea of fresh-faced students and launch into his lecture. “Politics,”—pregnant pause—“is all about the art of compromise and takes place in the realm of the possible, not the perfect. It’s not pretty, it can be dirty and quite often, it is amoral. If you believe politics is about ideology, right and wrong, good deeds and social justice, I’d suggest you leave now and change your major to philosophy. You have until the next class to decide.”
And then he’d leave. End of lecture. Stunned looks.
It was his version of shock and awe. It was also a reasonably good way to winnow down the freshman class. He wasn’t above arguing about the ideological underpinnings of political parties and historical movements, he just didn’t want anybody to have any illusions about the real work of politics.
His message is as relevant today as it was those many decades ago. Especially in British Columbia. Especially as it applies to the upcoming election, Oct. 19. Especially for the message it carries to people who live in competitive ridings and who are thinking of or intending to vote for their Green Party candidate.
October’s election will be a two-horse race between John Rustad’s Conservative party and David Eby’s NDP. One of the two of them will form the next government. The disappearance of BC United—notwithstanding the Black Knight announcement last Friday by the party’s executive director to run “some” candidates in an effort to not disappear entirely—has effectively consolidated the right-of-centre vote.
The left-of-centre vote will, again, be split between the NDP and the Green Party.
Only one of those has a chance of forming government. Hint: It ain’t the Greens.
But one of them has a very good chance to be the Conservative party’s new best friend. Hint: It ain’t the NDP.
For those of you who never venture into central and northern B.C., it is like a different country from the urban and semi-urban confines of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island. It is a conservative—lower or upper case—stronghold. Very few orange signs, even fewer green ones.
If you are an ardent Green Party supporter and live north of, say, Clinton, by all means vote your ideology. Vote Green. It won’t matter one tiny bit and you may enjoy the smug satisfaction of outpolling the NDP.
But if you live south of there, you’d do well to remember the gift Green Party voters gave Christy Clark in the 2013 election.
The BC Liberal party had more than worn out its welcome in the previous dozen years they were the government. They cut sweet deals that transferred wealth to their business partners, put a price on everything and generally left a bad smell.
But there were legitimate questions about the ability of the NDP to run the province. The party lacked depth, was financially naïve and was stuck with a leader who displayed few leadership skills and all the charisma of a bowl of cold oatmeal.
If ever there was an election where spoiling one’s ballot or voting for “none of the above” seemed reasonable, 2013 may have been the one.
The problem, though, was too many people didn’t spoil their ballot—they wasted it. They wasted it because they never learned the lesson my prof taught all his first-year students in that abbreviated first lecture. They wasted it because they voted their ideology. They wasted it because they voted their heart. They wasted it because they don’t know or care how the game of politics is played.
Politics isn’t like the Olympics. There isn’t a gold, silver and bronze medal winner. There is a winner. If you’re not the winner you are the loser. With the exception of a single riding—over which much fanfare was wasted—everyone who voted Green wore the big “L”; they lost.
“I voted for what I believed in.” “I voted to send a message.” Thus were rationalizations heard too often by Green voters after the election. They believed in losing. They inadvertently voted to have someone in power who shared none of their beliefs rather than compromise and vote for someone who shared most of them, albeit with less purity.
There were 12 ridings where the combined NDP and Green vote exceeded the Liberal vote. In some, the Liberal and NDP candidate were close; others, not so close. So if there hadn’t been a Green candidate, some Green voters might not have voted. Few or none would have voted Liberal. Most would have voted NDP. Christy Clark would have been going on vacation.
Rustad’s Conservative party is most certainly not Ms. Clark’s Liberal party of the past. The Liberal party breathed life into the Woodfibre LNG plant in Squamish, a sore point among Green supporters. A Conservative government would make the former Liberals look like radical tree huggers. The Conservative party doesn’t believe in climate change. They want to expand LNG and build more pipelines. They want to end B.C.’s trailblazing carbon tax. They plan to make SOGI 123 disappear. Support private health-care alternatives. All things generally absent from the Green Party platform.
The quickest way to install a Conservative government in B.C. in October is for people to vote for Green candidates. Especially in competitive ridings.
Like the one we live in.
There are lots of things the NDP have done that makes me want to roll up a Pique—one of the big, fat, long-weekend ones with lots of real-estate ads—and smack them upside the head. But I fear my reaction to a Conservative government would more likely invoke my inner Bruce Cockburn wish for a rocket launcher.
And that possibility is looming larger every day. The more I hear our Green candidate talk about all the things he’d do if elected, the more I wonder what planet he lives on. A solitary voice representing a party that may well come out of this election without official party status would be unheard in the legislature in Victoria. A paperweight. Might as well shout at clouds.
So if you really believe in the things the Green Party purportedly stands for, this is the election to be pragmatic. Strategic. Smart. Unless you harbour a dark fantasy about really wanting a Conservative government, shelve your ideology and vote for the better alternative.
