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Bill Hulet’s letter to the editor: GuelphMercury: – Tories show contempt for Parliament.

One of the key ideas that differentiates Green Parties from Social Democrats (i.e. the NDP) is our commitment towards creating a Steady-State economy.  The person who coined this term is the economist Herman Daly.  In a nutshell, the idea is that since the earth has a fixed size, the economy can only grow so large before it begins to create increasing problems for the environment and society-as-a-whole (what people call “diminishing returns”.)  Take a look at this recent essay on the subject—. 

Confessions of an Environmentalist
by Jim Harris, 1 May 2008.

Never has the support for the Green Party – and the solutions we have been advocating for 25 years – been greater and growing so quickly. And at the same time never has the environmental crisis we face been more overwhelming.

I spent the first weekend in April in Montreal with Al Gore and David Suzuki – along with 250 Canadians who will be spreading the message about climate change throughout Canada – giving An Inconvenient Truth presentations.
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Another value that the international Green movement has built itself around is “diversity”. The GPC statement of values uses the phrase “Respect for Diversity”, whereas the GPO and GPUSA use the simple term “Diversity”.

The most obvious way of looking at respect for diversity is to simply consider it a human rights issue. In this the respect it can be seen as being derived from the 1960s general loosening-up of restrictive roles that govern things like religion and sexual orientation.

While this view of the term is very important to Greens, a more profound way of understanding the value of diversity comes from the Green tendency to see the political world through the lense of ecology rather than economics or some other viewpoint such as religion or law. This is important because whereas the economics-based worldview has tended to speak of the value of “economies of scale” and the efficiencies of “standardization“, ecologists talk about the resilience of a biodiversity versus the fragility of a “monoculture“. (more…)

The fourth value held in common by the Green Parties of Canada, Ontario, USA and Europe is that of “non-violence”. This is a tricky value because a lot of people have tended to confuse the term “non-violence” with “pacifism”. The Greens specifically avoided adopting the second term because it has implications that most members would not support. (more…)

The third value that the Green Party of Ontario, Green Party USA, and the European Greens honour is “Grassroots Democracy”. The GPC lists “Participatory Democracy”. These concepts have been the focus of very heated debate within the Green Party of Canada, so I think it is really important that Greens make an effort to understand the issues involved.

Read the rest here—

The second of the GPC, GPO and GPUSA’s ten key values is “Social Justice”. The phrase is often used by activists, but if asked to define it most would have a very hard time doing so. The best way to understand it is to look at what the term is referring to, where it came from, what the people framing it were reacting against, and why it is of relevance to Green Parties.

Read more here—.

The first of the Green Party of Ontario (and Green Party USA)’s ten key values is “sustainability”. This might seem like a bit of a “no-brainer”. In actual fact, however, the Green Party is the only party that is committed to this concept. The important things to understand are the implications of this concept, the underlying assumptions that support the other political parties, and what they imply for the world.

read the rest here

More than anything else, the Green Party is built around a set of values that bring the membership together and inform our policy.  Indeed, the first Green Party in the world was actually called the “Values Party”.  Green Party constitutions usually include a set of founding values, which usually overlap each other from Green Party to Green Party.  The Green Party of Canada’s values are as follows: 

• Ecological Wisdom
• Social Justice
• Participatory Democracy
• Non-Violence
• Sustainability
• Respect for Diversity

The Green Party of Ontario has ten values (which it shares with the Green Party in the USA): 

• Sustainability
• Social Justice
• Grassroots Democracy
• Nonviolence
• Decentralization
• Community-Based Economics
• Gender Equality/Feminism
• Diversity
• Personal and Global Responsibility
• Ecological Wisdom 

The German Greens formulated their values around what are known as the “Four Pillars”, and these are very commonly used by Green Parties in Europe and has been adopted by the Global Green Network:

• Ecological wisdom
• Social justice
• Grassroots democracy
• Nonviolence

These values were not arrived at lightly, and have been the result of a lot of very intense discussion about what it is that the Green Party wants to achieve.  It is important, therefore, that the membership of the party really try to wrap their heads around these concepts in order to think through exactly what it is that we are trying to do.  This is especially important right now, because our membership is growing very fast and unless we reassert these statements of unity, we run a real risk of flying apart as an organization because of different groups of individuals have different visions for the party.