It has been almost 10 years since the Green Party of British Columbia saw its first-ever MLA elected in this province, and after all this time the party is still struggling to take the next step and become more competitive with the two more established parties.
The Greens won just two seats in the 2020 election, both incumbent ridings. The party fell just 60 votes short of capturing a third riding, West Vancouver-Sea to Sky.
While it garnered 15 per cent of the popular vote, almost half of that total was concentrated on Vancouver Island. With a few exceptions, its candidates received about 11 to 14 per cent of the vote in the ridings in which it fielded a candidate (it failed to reach double digits in 17 ridings).
As the tiny “third party” in the B.C. legislature, it is a struggle at times for it to be heard. The Greens are allotted one question and a follow-up in each Question Period, so getting media exposure can be a challenge.
In recent days, the party has been unveiling new candidates that will run in the next election, even though that vote is not scheduled for well more than a year from now.
The Greens received a bit of media coverage for those announcements, but the party got more attention over something else: their continuing attack on B.C. public health decisions related to COVID-19.
Last week, after provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced the public health order mandating the wearing of masks in health-care settings was ending (with a few exceptions), the Greens were quick to issue a news release highly critical of that decision, and it was included in some news stories.
The statement from deputy party leader Dr. Sanjiv Gandhi read: “The B.C. Green Party leadership are deeply disappointed with today’s announcement. Public health should not be about false, optimistic narratives.”
Hmm. “False narratives” being pushed by public health? Quite an accusation.
In fact, so serious a one that it resulted in it being blasted on social media by none other than the man who put the B.C. Green Party on the map by becoming its first elected MLA in 2013: Andrew Weaver.
Weaver posted the Greens’ news release on Twitter and added this comment:
“Sincere apologies to all in B.C. for giving the B.C. Greens a platform to put out destructive rhetoric undermining the initiatives of our public health officers.”
Just in case anyone missed his not-so-subtle point, a few days later the former Green Party leader tweeted again:
“The BC Greens’ irresponsible pronouncements on COVID remind me of rogue #ClimateDenier “scientists” in mid-late 1990s/early 2020 convinced they knew better than the rest of global scientific community about global warming. Sincere apologies #bcpoli for giving them a political voice.”
The BC Greens have been highly critical of Dr. Henry and her team for quite some time, saying she was being misleading about transmission rates in schools and was not advocating strongly enough for better ventilation and tighter rules.
At a time when much of society wants to move on in their lives as the end of the pandemic appears to be in sight, the Greens want the rules to be tighter (last November they called for the return of mandatory masks in public indoor spaces for example).
The third party is always looking for attention, and they certainly got some from their former leader.
Nearly 10 years after he led the BC Greens to their electoral breakthrough, Weaver clearly thinks the party has changed from what it was when he led it for five years. And not for the better.
Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global BC.
