Greetings:
The Canadian federal Green Party (GP) had its convention at the end 
of August in Ottawa, at which time a new leader was elected, 
Elizabeth May. (David Chernushenko was the runner up.) The existing 
shadow cabinet members were asked to submit their resignations so 
that the new leader would have a free hand in putting together a new 
cabinet. There has been some discussion around this in party circles. 
The posting below is my contribution to this shadow cabinet 
discussion. The federal GP claims to also speak for the "Canadian 
Greens." It therefore seems in order for me to post this contribution 
for interested Greens to read outside of electoral ranks. Please feel 
free to further post it elsewhere should anyone so desire.

Best, David


Hello fellow Greens:

There seems to be some discussion on Green Party (GP) lists about the 
federal Shadow Cabinet (SC) and how it should be selected. The 
discussion needs to go beyond considerations of gender, regional 
representation, cultural diversity, etc., important as these issues 
may be. It is also unwise, I believe, to give a determining role to 
self-selection or self-promotion, or to reward individuals who see a 
cabinet position as an ascendancy vehicle, as to who enters the 
shadow cabinet. So far I have seen no discussion about the light 
green versus deep green (see definitions below) dynamic as important 
in determining the basic nature of a shadow cabinet. But 
understanding this is crucial in my opinion. Of course, this is not 
to discount the knowledge and basic green wisdom needed by all who 
are chosen, through whatever process, to be SC members.

I thought I would share some thoughts, based on my own experience of 
being the deep ecology spokesperson in the SC for about a year. I 
joined the GP in May 2005, and went into the SC in August of the same 
year because of the initiative of Sharon Labchuk and Jim Harris, who 
were then co-chairs of the cabinet. This was a newly created 
position. I have always felt it showed the open-mindedness of Jim 
Harris as leader that he agreed to this. (I have considered myself a 
movement green since 1983, although perhaps now characterized as a 
"party" johnny-come-lately.) I consider that I work full time (unpaid 
of course) like so many others, for the green and environmental 
movements. It is my life and passion and has been this way since the 
end of the 70s, thanks to an understanding wife and partner, and 
family. But most of these interests are outside Green Party demands 
on my time. My priorities are self imposed by what I see as 
necessities. These priorities focus on theoretical and philosophical 
issues, as well as practical issues, coming out of the green and 
environmental movements. (See our web page: 
http://home.ca.inter.net/~greenweb/index.htm )

I saw my responsibility in the SC, to not only give my own views but 
also to give the views or range of views within the deep ecology 
philosophy, as I understand this. These views were pertinent to 
shadow cabinet and green party discussions, but also to deep ecology 
green movement work with which I was engaged. As most of you may be 
aware, in the 2004 election the GP platform said that it supported 
deep ecology, while the 2006 platform omitted this. So at best one 
might say that deep ecology has only a toe-hold in the federal party. 
(Perhaps the organization of a "Deep Green Caucus" by about 12 Greens 
just prior to the Ottawa Convention, and the subsequent "signing on" 
by a number of others at the convention is an omen that there is such 
a constituency within the party.) Although it is quite a daunting 
task, I think it is important to have someone to interpret a deep 
ecology perspective in the SC (it certainly does not have to be me), 
both for the membership of the party and, when necessary, for the 
public at large. In the old SC there were also other members informed 
by deep ecology or who showed themselves to be open to its influence 
as discussions unfolded.

Deep ecology, which came on the world theoretical stage in the early 
70s out of Norway, with the philosopher Arne Naess - when he made his 
now famous "shallow" ecology and "deep" ecology distinctions, has 
become extremely influential in the green and environmental 
movements. Deep Ecology provides the philosophical basis to oppose 
"resourcism", the dominant human-centered world view of industrial 
society that the non-human world exists primarily as raw material for 
the human purpose. There is a well-known and widely accepted 
eight-point Deep Ecology Platform. Three key ideas for many deep 
ecology supporters are: non-human centeredness, the necessity for a 
new spiritual relationship to Nature, and opposition to the idea of 
"private property" in Nature. Putting into practice support for Deep 
Ecology is the right thing to do for ecocentric electoral Greens. 
This would clearly differentiate the GP in its policies from every 
other political party in Canada.

Most in the old SC were in the light green camp and seemed quite 
happy with this orientation. (This comment is meant as an analytical 
distinction, not as a put-down.) As Canadian academic Judith McKenzie 
points out in her 2002 book _Environmental Politics In Canada_, the 
liberal democratic or light green tradition encompasses 
"anthropocentrism or domination over nature, individual self interest 
and competitive lifestyle, capitalism and the primacy of science and 
technology, representative democracy, the nation state and 
centralization." We know this as eco-capitalism in the GP. McKenzie 
counterposes to this Ecologism/Deep Ecology/Ecocentrism, or the deep 
or dark green tradition: "ecocentrism (harmony with nature), 
communalism/co-operative lifestyle, sustainability, 
grass-roots/direct democracy, bioregions and decentralization." 
(p.17) Elizabeth May and David Chernushenko, while quite different 
ecologically and politically, have shown in their pasts to be fans of 
so-called sustainable development (as is The Earth Charter and The 
Global Greens Charter). Yet, as McKenzie notes, "whereas light greens 
support sustainable development, dark greens see the term as simply a 
buzz phrase that has been appropriated by liberals and others 
espousing an anthropocentric view of nature and the environment. The 
sustainable society, as dark greens view it, calls for a retreat from 
capitalism, economic growth, non-green technology, and the consumer 
society." (p.29)

A conflict which came up for me in the SC was in opposing what I, and 
a few others, saw as a light green consensus regarding "cabinet 
solidarity" on GP Platform policies, when one disagreed with such 
policies. For example, while I had an overall positive view of the 
2006 election platform, it was human-centered. The platform supported 
carbon emissions trading, and had nothing about
-	population reduction,
-	Canadian troops withdrawing from Afghanistan and Haiti,
-	capitalism being unsustainable because it is based on never-ending 
economic growth, etc.

It was a totally wrong message, for the Green Party to talk about 
"boosting the economy." The economic cake must shrink, not grow. As 
Saral Sarkar has noted, with the rise of the ecology movement, for 
the first time in history "a social movement 'promises' a lower 
standard of living." This is the idea we should promote. Not to talk 
about the need for a contracting economy, given our existing 
ecological footprint and its imprint not only on the long-term 
prospects for ourselves but also for other species, is highly 
duplicitous or a display of ecological illiteracy.

I took the position within the SC that, as a cabinet spokesperson, it 
was my responsibility to give the official GP position on an issue 
but it was also my personal  responsibility to state my own position, 
where I found myself in fundamental disagreement with the party line. 
(I refused to sign and publicly opposed what I called a "loyalty 
oath" during the federal 2006 election, which all candidates were 
expected to sign on to: "We the undersigned candidates wish to 
express our confidence in the work of our professional staff, our 
elected leader, the Federal Council and Federal Campaign Committee 
for the way they are all directing the Party during this election campaign.")

I found that participating in the SC from a deep green perspective 
was quite stressful, time-consuming and sometimes overwhelming, if 
one tried to give deeper views on the issues that were raised. How 
one looked philosophically at the world was reflected all the time in 
the various SC postings. It was also very unclear to me what was the 
relationship between the discussions within the SC and pronouncements 
which emanated from the Center/Media Team of the party. An obvious 
example for me, but one of many, is having a deep ecology 
spokesperson in the SC but no mention of this philosophy in the 2006 
election platform. Because the dominant culture of the SC was light 
green, I saw that deeper greens often seemed to become worn down by 
the continual opposition to their ideas. There was significant 
over-posting by some diehard light greens, which contributed to this 
wearing down. Quite often deeper greens ceased eventually to 
participate or, in a couple of examples, left the SC. I understood 
this sentiment well.

My pre-convention resignation letter to the SC of August 25th, 2006 noted:
"Personally, I continue to believe that support for a basic deep 
ecology orientation and its application to the everyday world around 
us needs to be a founding pillar for any Green Party. However, based 
on my own experience within the shadow cabinet, I believe that there 
has to some shared basic fundamental values between members, in order 
to have fruitful policy discussions with all their necessary 
compromises within the shadow cabinet. I do not believe that these 
shared values existed for me with most members of the cabinet. 
Temperamentally I am not a person who wants to spend my time on 
discussions of what I consider to be matters of relatively trivial 
interest, which often seemed the concern of shadow cabinet in my 
judgment. Time is short in life, and I believe there is a need to 
concentrate one's energies on matters which seem to me of importance 
for the earth, social justice, and for moving forward theoretically. 
Too often I have felt personal embarrassment for positions which have 
gone through shadow cabinet in the name of the Green Party, with 
perhaps the outstanding example of this being the position taken on 
Afghanistan."

One of the things which bothers me about many in the GP, is when they 
do not state the real dimensions of all aspects of the crisis which 
we face, and then give the illusion that we can sort out the various 
questions relatively painlessly, if only green MPs are elected. This 
includes not mentioning, for example:
-	the necessity to change human-centeredness in all our thinking and 
what this would mean practically;
-	that there will be a lower material standard of living as regards 
consumer goods;
-	that capitalism as an expansionary economic system is finished;
-	that human populations have to be brought down to a far lower level 
if we and other species are to have a sustainable future, etc.

Yes, we care about human survival, but we must also care about the 
survival of the other animal and plant species with which we share 
this planet - and for their own sake, not because it could be 
beneficial for us.

We are on an ecological death course and this is not a time for 
tinkering. Industrial capitalist society is going down with or 
without the help of the Green Party. It is no good running with a 
full slate of candidates if one is going to run in a light green 
policy direction.

For the Earth,
David Orton



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