BC’s greens break ranks

We don’t often cheer green activists, but a recent development in British Columbia has prompted us to send our best wishes to Paul George, David Suzuki, Colleen McCrory, Adrienne Carr and a few other prominent names in the province’s environmental movement. We say, seize the moment.

That’s exactly what some of them did last week when they took control of the Green Party and pushed through a vote of non-confidence in the leadership of veteran Stuart Parker. In the coming months, the dissidents plan to select a more dynamic leader, reshape their party into “a party of principle,” and give the ruling New Democratic Party (NDP) government a run for its money (?) in the next election.

Their timing was impeccable, and their political instincts, razor-sharp. The NDP are on a fast ferry to oblivion, even with a new (?) captain at the helm. The party has been racked by internal dissent for years now, and it isn’t hard to figure out why the greens want to jump ship. After all, what respectable tree-hugger can feel at home in a political party that bails out pulp mills and has unionized forestry workers as members?

With the greens in their own party, the NDP could then focus on its other base: unionized workers. And B.C. voters could then decide if they want to continue supporting a party that has delivered nine consecutive years of deficits and taken union pandering to the extreme of allowing teachers to purge schools of “scab” parents who had been serving breakfast to underprivileged kids and checking up on absentee students.

More importantly, a viable Green Party would take environmental issues away from the hands of “policy entrepreneurs” and special-interest groups, and place them where they belong: in the hands of the people and their elected representatives. It would allow the people of B.C. a direct vote on important matters such as land-use and park creation — something that isn’t happening now. It would also make environmentalists accountable to the people.

For the past decade, the NDP government has allowed special-interest groups to control the environmental agenda, with disastrous consequences for the economy. Now people from Port Alberni to Fort St. James are demanding to know why green activists wield such enormous power and influence when the Green Party barely registers a pulse at less than 2% in opinion polls.

The answers are simple. These groups had long ago learned the secret of gaining access to taxpayer funds beyond taxpayers’ control, as well as huge donations from private trusts. They have learned that it is easier to win a lot of little blitzkriegs than a major war. They have learned that when government institutions are weak and ineffective, as they are in B.C., that they can shape policy. They have learned that by controlling dissent, and, by extension, the media, they can control the process.

The B.C. activists are merely following their global counterparts, who have done an even more effective job penetrating the weak and rudderless United Nations. These eco-entrepreneurs have introduced policies on everything from biodiversity to global warming and successfully lobbied governments to sign their vague protocols without any public debate to complicate the process. Why knock on the front door and wake up the neighbours when sneaking in the back door is so easy?

The issue here is not the environment, which, of course, should be protected. The real issue is the failure of government to ensure that environmental policies have a public airing so that everyone understands their economic consequences before they are implemented. The real complaint is that the environmental agenda has been hijacked by extremists who are not accountable to anyone and who often operate in anti-democratic ways.

Take the case of Greenpeace and other activists who have been meeting secretly with forestry executives to discuss a logging shutdown on British Columbia’s central coast. The companies say they are trying to find solutions to international boycotts of lumber products, but forestry workers and their unions were shocked to hear of the secret talks, as were the mayors and residents of communities economically dependent on logging.

They’re upset for good reason. Years earlier, community representatives sat down with environmental groups during a province-wide land-planning process that was supposed to end valley-by-valley disputes. But peace never came, not even after more than 12% of the province’s land mass was protected from resource development, and not even after the Stein, Carmanah, Clayquot Sound and dozens of other watersheds were set aside as protected areas. Instead, one battle cry followed another, the latest being the Great Bear Rainforest, yet another “last remaining old-growth rainforest.”

Almost half the province is off-limits now, and forestry practices have greatly improved, yet Greenpeace still won’t allow rural folk any peace, or any respect. That’s why news of the secret talks has set off a firestorm, with union leaders predicting outrage in local communities.

They are furious because they know that even if a deal is signed, the activists will find a new cause, another last-remaining forest, if not in B.C., than in Alberta or the Maritimes. They are right. That is why the environmental community should be challenged to take its agenda to the public and win acceptance for it at the polling booth. At present, their power is undemocratic, disproportionate and undeserved.