Growing up on Vancouver’s eastside, as a child living in poverty, with a tough-as-nails mother who was the family’s main breadwinner — even if she was earning only 35¢ an hour — resident in a neighbourhood in the post-World War II period, when immigrants — who we called DP’s, which unkindly stood for Deported Persons, what the uneducated, lower and working class folks in the neighbourhood used as a pejorative to describe “outsiders” — for me attending school at Lord Nelson, and later Templeton Secondary, my classmates were mainly rough-and-tumble members of the Chinese community — because, let’s face it, Grandview Woodland is not too much east of Vancouver’s Chinatown — Indo-Canadian, Filipino, black, Asian and other persons of colour, as well as recent Italian emigrés, meant that this polygot assortment of multiple cultures and ethnicities were my friends, my best friends, with whom I played rugby and brutal football games in the rain during our three-times a week “Games” block, means that for most of my life, as we discovered during the recent mid-election debate of political party leaders that, as is the case with Premier John Horgan, VanRamblings “didn’t see colour” — we just took it for granted that this is the world we lived in, and didn’t see or acknowledge any differences.
BC NDP leader John Horgan apologizes for answer to question about white privilege
Now, this is 2020, and saying that you don’t see colour is verboten, is tantamount to saying that you have had no reason to reflect on the lived experience of minority members of the community you have been elected to serve, that as non-racist as you may be, you are not anti-racist.
In the 21st century we are witnessing necessary generational change in B.C. political leadership, that during the course of Decision 2020 was best personified by B.C. Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau, who spoke with clarity and with heart. Here is how, in an uncompromising manner, Ms. Furstenau answered the question, “How have you personally reckoned with your own privilege and unconscious bias as a white political leader?”
Of the three British Columbia political leaders on the debate stage that chilly, overcast Tuesday, October 13th evening, only Sonia Furstenau answered the question authentically and well, with compassion and grit.
There’s a rationale for VanRamblings opening today’s column as we did, as our way of saying that VanRamblings understands Premier Horgan on a visceral, lived experience level, and recognizes that — as is the case with us — underneath that veneer of sophistication lies the heart of a street fighter, one of whose goals in the recently-completed election was to vanquish his foes, and destroy his enemies, who represent a threat to all that he has achieved, and the quiet, deserving enjoyment of his life.
Make no mistake, for Premier John Horgan in the year 2020, B.C. Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau represented an evil force incarnate, who would seek to take from him everything he has gained in the first 61 years of his life. With down and dirty street fighter Geoff Meggs in place as John Horgan’s chief of staff, the British Columbia New Democratic Party was prepared to do whatever it took to wipe those damnable Greens off the British Columbia political stage, to consign them to the dustbin of history.
For Premier Horgan, that his campaign to eliminate Sonia Furstenau from the B.C. political stage failed, and failed miserably, caused him on election night to be something he had not been since calling an election on Monday, September 21st: generous, to Ms. Furstenau and to the Greens, in a way that he’d not shown at any time since he called his snap election, nor during the unusually becalming 32-day election period that followed.
One can understand why Sonia Furstenau, on election night, was full of anger and disapprobation for the re-elected Premier: John Horgan, who she had liked and trusted, and had worked with collaboratively and well during the three year Confidence and Supply period of coalition government, dating back to 2017 — had set about to destroy her, had visited her Cowichan riding many times — with the province’s beloved Adrian Dix, as well as federal NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, in tow — and made promises to the voters in Cowichan that were designed to wipe her off the political map.
As Ms. Furstenau states at the end of her address to the press and to the people of British Columbia, late on that chill October 24, 2020 election night, “We know you’re looking for us to put this election behind us and getting to work on the issues that matter. And we will not let you down.”
So, where to now for the gentle Ms. Furstenau, and her B.C. Green Party?
A provincial election called only one week after she’d won the contest for the B.C. Green Party leadership, caught Ms. Furstenau off guard and scrambling to put an effective election campaign in place, identify and nominate candidates across the province for her B.C. Green Party, set out a campaign itinerary, and develop an all important party platform — all of which she accomplished with steely determination, and uncommon élan.
Before we continue, a necessary bit of history on the evolution of the Green Party movement across the globe. In Europe, the Green movement arose out of the work of the far left Baader-Meinhof gang of the 1970s, who gave up violent direct action — industrial sabotage, blowing up buildings and infrastructure, and other forms of political violence — in favour of creating a Green movement that would enter government & fight against restrictions on immigration, advocating for women’s reproductive rights, supporting the legalization of marijuana, fighting for LGBTQ rights, having the state draft “anti-authoritarian” concepts of education and child-rearing, fighting against the dual threats of air pollution in the cities and the acid rain then destroying forests across Europe, fighting for civil rights, fighting against military incursions into developing states, and against state-sanctioned imperialism — well, you get the idea. The European Green movement is a progressive, far left-of-centre, multi-faceted civil rights and eco-socialist environmental movement — was in the 1980s, and remains so to this day.
The Green parties of Europe have held the balance of power, and more often than not sat in government for near 40 years, realizing substantive change as an activist movement well able to articulate the conditions necessary to create a fair and just state to serve the interests of all.
Not so in Canada. The Green movement at the federal level was founded by Jim Harris, formerly a far right member of the Conservative party, who was found to be so extremist that he was kicked out of the party, only to emerge as leader of the Green Party of Canada. In and across Canada, the Green Party has drawn candidates and support from two groups: the well-intentioned but politically naïve (with a surfeit of young, apolitical members), and those who are disenchanted with the old line parties (or parties that have an infrastructure, a broad and all encompassing raison d’être, and are committed to Canada as a diverse, inclusive nation).
For much of their life in Canada, the Green Party has lived up to and reinforced its billing as is often said about them, “Conservatives who ride bicycles.” And such was the case with former B.C. Green Party leader, Andrew Weaver, who was more than happy to join with then Premier Christy Clark in 2017 to have his Green Party form a coalition with the B.C. Liberals. Fortunate for all of us, Sonia Furstenau was having none of it, stating to Mr. Weaver that if he attempted to do so, she would cross the floor and join the NDP caucus. Adam Olsen, the then newly-elected MLA for Saanich North and the Islands told Mr. Weaver that he would sit as an Independent, should Mr. Weaver follow through on his intentions.
Thus we have the root of now former B.C. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver’s “dissatisfaction” with his re-elected Green Party colleagues,
But that was yesterday, and today is a whole new day, an opportunity for Sonia Furstenau to establish the British Columbia Green Party as a social democratic climate justice political party committed to the Green New Deal.
“To provide all people of British Columbia with high-quality health care; affordable, safe, and adequate housing; economic security; and access to clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and nature.”
Which is to say, challenge the B.C. New Democratic Party on its left flank, while inspiring a new generation of voters, along with all other British Columbians who are committed to climate justice, and a fairer, more welcoming, inclusive and socially just British Columbia that meets the core needs of all of our citizens, from the bustling cities to B.C.’s suburban and vast rural communities, in every part of our province where opportunity and a safe, just, and sustainable future are what people are clamouring for.
Sonia Furstenau and Adam Olsen, and perhaps their West Vancouver-Sea to Sky Green colleague Jeremy Valeriote, have four years to re-invent the Green movement in Canada, to position the party as a viable and electable political force right across the province, to next time out, in 2024, steal a few seats from both the NDP and the B.C. Liberals, and grow the party.
After the writ was dropped and during the campaign, Premier John Horgan stated that he would not recognize the B.C. Green Party as deserving of party status, with all the financial and research supports that are available to a recognized political party, in the British Columbia Legislature. Should Premier Horgan fulfill his election commitment that four seats would be required to afford the B.C. Green Party status in the people’s house, Ms. Furstenau’s work to establish the B.C. Green Party as a truly viable political force across the province will be made that much more challenging.
Still, regardless of the decision Premier Horgan takes, Sonia Furstenau knows what she must do to gain seats in the house when the next provincial election is called four years from now: establish active constituency associations in all 87 ridings across the province, bring credible and electable candidates like Canadian marine biologist Alexandra Morton and energy and climate policy activist and academician Dr. Devyani Singh into the fold, to ensure that in 2024, the B.C. Green Party will field a slate of undeniable candidates who will win their ridings, and join Ms. Furstenau and Mr. Olsen with seats in the British Columbia Legislature.
Rarely has there been a more exciting time in B.C. politics — the closest we can recall is Dave Barrett’s activist government of the early 70s — when change and hope for a better, and a more sustainable future are not just the political agenda, but on the agenda of all progressive citizens.
As B.C.’s young climate justice activists, so inspired by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, go to the polls in ever increasing numbers in the years to come — as young people across the U.S. are doing now, in greater numbers and with greater force than at any time since the 1960s — hope for better is on the agenda, a hope that is best realized through broad support for the only political party in our province committed to a sustainable future that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs …
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to maintain and improve human capital in society through increased investments in our health and education systems, with access to services, nutrition, knowledge and skills;
- to preserve social capital by investing and creating services that constitute the framework of our society, focusing on maintaining and improving social equality with concepts such as cohesion, reciprocity and honesty, and the importance of collaborative relationships amongst people, encouraged and supported by laws, information and shared ideas of equality and rights, and recognizing that the economy and society and the ecological system are mutually dependent;
- to maintain high and stable levels of economic growth as a key objective of sustainable development, and recognizing that abandoning economic growth is not an option, but that sustainable development is more than just economic growth, that the quality of growth matters as well as the quantity; and to improve human welfare through the protection of natural capital (e.g. land, air, water, minerals etc.), with initiatives and programmes that are defined as environmentally sustainable when they ensure that the needs of British Columbia’s citizens are met without the risk of compromising the needs of future generations.
By identifying and implementing the principles of the four pillars of sustainability through, as elucidated above, strategically sustainable initiatives, British Columbians might come to realize both a vibrant economic and an environmentally sustainable future for all of our citizens, in every town, city and village across every region of our natural province.
