INTRODUCTION: YOUR GREEN VOTE COUNTS
The Provincial Liberals, the NDP and the Conservatives have now each in turn governed Ontario. In power, none of them seized the opportunity to make our electoral system more democratic and accountable. On the contrary, their period in office has seen corporate influence grow, as citizen power, political participation, local community, and environment eroded.
In fact, the legacy of all three government Parties is disturbing. Air and water quality continues to suffer. Homelessness and chronic child poverty remain high. Quality-of-life indicators continue to fall. Post-secondary tuition is escalating much faster than inflation, while universities and colleges remain under-funded and over-capacity. Casino gambling, first introduced by the NDP is now embraced by the Conservatives. Financial deficits and debts which both increased under the NDP have now been transformed by the Conservatives into Social and Environmental deficits and debts with sometimes fatal consequences. Not to be out-done, the Ontario Liberals even accomplished the feat of increasing ALL three deficits at the SAME TIME in their “balanced” way.
Clearly, despite surface differences, the three old political parties operate with essentially the same industrial age world-view. Stuck in out-dated ideas of economy and society, they muddle along from crisis to crisis and effectively block the shift to sustainability. They use the same distorting measure of progress, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), to evaluate their governing performance. (See "Accurate Economic Indicators".) No wonder they seem so out-of-touch!
The Green Party has a very different approach. We view issues with a longer-term and whole-systems (ecological) perspective. We believe this new approach is critically important in an era of high consumption, technological power and democratic deficits. We believe our policies, firmly grounded in ecology, true-cost economic accounting and deep social justice, will begin the progressive renewal of ecosystems and reverse the continuing erosion of our quality-of-life and of democratic participation. We have hope for a future that is truly sustainable, humane, and democratic.
The first step will be strong Green Party voice in the Legislature. The momentum of the Green Party is growing so quickly that it is highly probable that we will elect a Member of a Provincial Legislature sooner rather than later. In fact, the British Columbia electorate may well accomplish this Green Party breakthrough in three years!
If you support the ideas outlined in this document then please consider our MULTI-ELECTION Green vote growth strategy. Vote Green and keep voting Green . It will surprise you how much political leverage a growing Green vote has. It is definitely NOT a wasted vote. With growing voter support good ideas break into the political mainstream and new Parties can emerge despite the best efforts of the old guard to keep them down. Resist their seductive call to vote for the "least worst" to stop the worst. It is cynical , it breeds apathy and eventually does lead to the worst. Take back your power: your Green vote counts.