Green stuff

I must admit it up front, I don't like the Green Party. I've always had the impression that Elizabeth May despite her energy and enthusiasm was, above everything else, concerned with herself. I have observed before that the Green Party was basically stealing votes from the NDP and, therefore, weakening the centre-left.

In Quebec, the Greens have collapsed. Most of their leadership was absorbed by the PQ, starting with their leader Scott McKay. The membership and the voters have in the majority moved to Québec solidaire, which is emerging as the true voice of "ecologism." The Greens' "last stand" is with some of the Anglophone Québécois from the West Island of Montreal who are disgusted (for good reasons) with the Liberal Party, but unable psychologically and politically join Quebec's progressive formations.

So it's with these biases that I punished myself by reading the Green Platform, "Green Vision," looking for this basic, moralistic "holier-than-thou" attitude and BS about "we-are-not-left-not-right". This is indeed what I found, which reassured me of my political instincts!

But then I was struck.

I read the platform through to the end where there is a small chapter on Quebec. The first paragraph says it all: "Greens recognize and respect the fundamental principle of self-determination of all peoples. The people of Quebec have a right to determine their future and destiny."

Simple, no?

But then of course, the Greens sing the Canadian anthem by affirming that they will defend a "better" Canada that would be "nice" to Quebec, including its "right to opt out of social programs and be fully compensated by the federal government if the province provides a reasonably similar program." Bravo for asymmetrical and gentle federalism...

OK no one is perfect, but...

Affirming the right of self-determination is really the key to the first door, but only the first door. Without this, nothing can happen, i.e. no progressive formation (you know who I mean by this) can have any credibility in Quebec.

The next door, which is inaccessible to the Greens, is to look at the historical formation of the state called Canada, based on class and national discrimination. The foundations of this state are not changeable: they were built on the "control" and "marginalization" of the Québécois nation and the First Nations.

If this state continues to exist, there are only two paths ahead: increase the elite-based oppression (which is precisely Harper's project), or reinvent itself: which would mean going back to serious negotiations between the different peoples (with a "s") and eventually rebuild some sort of an alliance where sovereign states (not provinces) would join together to fight for social justice.

In the meantime, making "federalism" better is not a political strategy. And indeed, you find in this formula the political nonsense of the Greens, moralistic at the best, greening-capitalism and at worst, greening-the-state.

I sincerely believe that the wishy-washy compromises of the past are exactly that, past. The Canadian elites have made their choices. Quebec is to be "disciplined" and transformed into a sort of big Maritime province. The calculation is that the Québécois have lost the will to resist, partially because of the failures and contradictions of the Nationalists here.

They might have a surprise...

In the meantime as a Canadian, I would pinch my nose and vote for anyone who can beat Stephen Harper hoping that in my particular riding, I could vote for an honest NDPer (there are plenty)...