The Grass Is Greener.ca

Until recently, three provinces had lone Green MLAs, the respective leaders of the BC, New Brunswick, and PEI Green Parties (Andrew Weaver, David Coon, and Peter Bevan-Baker, respectively). We also have a lone MP federally in Elizabeth May who’s been able to punch above her weight when it comes to what a single federal MP is able to accomplish.

In each case, we’ve seen exciting evidence of what even a single MLA can do, with these lone representatives participating in getting private members bills passed, or convincing governments to implement change. We saw that with bills inspired by Andrew Weaver on campus sexual assault and against women being forced to wear high heels at work, and we saw that federally with Elizabeth May’s Lyme Disease Strategy bill.

We may now be seeing another example of that in PEI with Continue reading “The advantage of a lone MLA”

We don’t know what the PR option(s) will be on the ballot, or the wording of the question, but we do know that a referendum on PR is coming if the BC Green MLAs continue to back the BC NDP minority government long enough. So what might we be voting for on the ballot?

The two choices that British Columbians are likely familiar with are Continue reading “The Proportional Representation (PR) options we might see in BC’s October 2018 referendum”

Voice of B.C. is a TV series hosted by Vaughn Palmer about BC politics on Shaw TV. On the episode recorded for Thursday and airing through the weekend and again Monday, Shaw TV’s “Voice of B.C.” this week interviews Andrew Weaver. Some very interesting Continue reading “Andrew Weaver on Voice of B.C.”

Much has been made about how the three BC Green MLAs elected in the May 2017 Provincial Election re Canada’s first Green caucus. But that’s not actually true. It is true that they’re Canada’s first Green caucus elected under first-past-the-post… in fact, they’re the first Green caucus elected anywhere in the world under first-past-the-post, a monumental achievement given how terribly difficult it is for third-parties to succeed under that terribly unfair and unrepresentative electoral system.

But if we expand the definition to include anyone elected anywhere in Canada under any electoral system, we Continue reading “Canada’s first Green caucus isn’t where and when you think”

The pollsters pretty much got it right for the May 2017 BC provincial election. Look at the final polls from the bigger polling firms:

Forum Research BCL 39 NDP 41 Green 17
Insights West BCL 41 NDP 41 Green 17
Mainstreet BCL 39 NDP 40 Green 20
Ipsos Reid BCL 39 NDP 40 Green 17
Angus Reid BCL 40 NDP 41 Green 15
Actual Results BCL 41 NDP 41 Green 17

With the exception of Mainstreet pegging Green support 3% higher than the actual results, all the other numbers were within 0-2% of the final results and well within the margins of error. A huge success for pollsters, especially since they (in the opinion of many voters and media pundits) “got it wrong” in predicting the 2013 BC election.

But did they get it wrong? It turns out that they may not have.

Polls of voting intention aren’t Continue reading “Did the pollsters “get it wrong” in 2013?”

Dueling polls were released in the aftermath of the BC Liberals’s throne speech. They were both conducted around the same time, but came to some different conclusions. In the week or so since they came out, I’ve been going through them and trying to figure out why their conclusions differed, and I think I may now know why.

Firstly, the polls largely agree on Continue reading “Post-election polls: Are the BC Liberals down, or are they up? Are the NDP down, or are the Greens up? The answer to all of the above is “Yes””

Do you follow Nik Nanos’ weekly tracking poll of federal party support? It’s got a lot of interesting stuff in it such as preferred Prime Minister and Nanos’ weekly “Power Index”. However, the number I’m mostly interested in is federal party support, which he does both nationally and broken down by region. There are interesting results both nationally and regionally for the Greens in this poll.

Nationally, the federal Green Party has hit Continue reading “Federal Greens hitting new highs in polls”

Do you follow Nik Nanos’ weekly tracking poll of federal party support? It’s got a lot of interesting stuff in it such as preferred Prime Minister and Nanos’ weekly “Power Index”. However, the number I’m mostly interested in is federal party support, which he does both nationally and broken down by region. There are interesting results both nationally and regionally for the Greens in this poll.

Nationally, the federal Green Party has hit Continue reading “Federal Greens hitting new highs in polls”

British Columbia has a long history of changing it’s electoral system… and every time thus far, it’s been without a referendum. I decided to research how many times BC has done so, and I was shocked at how frequent it has been. BC’s exclusive use of first-past-the-post (FPTP) for provincial elections is surprisingly recent.

For BC’s first election in 1871, the majority of ridings were elected under Continue reading “BC’s exclusive use of First-Past-the-Post not as long-standing as most people think”

I’ve been thinking a lot about the discussion regarding Canada 150 and indigenous peoples. I’ve been pleased to see the Green Party being perhaps the most vocal on pointing out that Canada’s history dates back a lot more than 150 years and that the contribution of those that are neither English nor French is chronically under-represented.

As a child, I was taught that Continue reading “Thoughts on Canada Day and Canada’s indigenous peoples”