Last thing I heard was that A Carr is firmly opposed to STV.
Funny that? Aparently, she doesnt want green elected MLaA´s!
Probably would steal some of her thunder!
Personally, I think she is working for gord.
So, you want a green voice in the ledge? Vote for the greener of the ndp or bc libs on offer in your riding. Dont waste your vote by voting green.
And vote yes in the referendum to put a real green in next time.

I think there's a bit more to Adrienne Carr's "disappointment" with the NDP that what is presented in this article. There was, after all, more to her involvement that what is reported here.

In the 1986 provincial general election, the Bill Vander Zalm election, Adrienne Carr was an NDP candidate in the old two-member riding of Vancouver Little Mountain. Grace McCarthy placed first with 18,049 votes followed by her SC running mate Doug Mowat with 15,962. Close behind were NDP candidates Colin Kelly with 15,717, and Adrienne Carr, then known as Adrienne Peacock, with 15,407.

So in 1986, which to most people would qualify as mid 1980s, Adrienne Carr was an NDP candidate. Yet the article states that her move to the Greens "started partly as a response to the behaviour of the NDP in the early 80s, and one incident in particular." If that incident was really in the early 1980s, why was she still an NDP candidate years later in 1986?

The NDP added more parks to British Columbia than any other party. Can't see how the Greens don't like that one. Greens will not get one representative in the next government.

So Carr thinks the NDP regard the Greens as 'a thorn in their side because we force them to take environmental issues seriously'. I think the NDP don't need her to remind them of that; their record while in government: creating parks,the moratorium on hunting grizzly bears, and the moratorium on expanding the fish farm industry, speaks for itself.
Don't waste your vote!

I think Adrian Carr looks like the "Egg Lady"!

What's with the cheap shots at Carr's appearance? How juvenile. Grow up and maybe one day you'll deserve to vote.

A "political party" is a group of political candidates, as political candidates change over time(retire, switch parties, death etc.) so does the political party.

Understanding planetary eco-systems/ nature/science is the single most important ability that all political-candidates need to understand, because if humans continue altering the planetary chemistry by adding more greenhouse gases(carbon dioxide is already at 378 ppm) we may not be able to survive and may go extinct. More and more human children are being born with birth defects every year, not to mention the other species which are silently going into extinction.

If political candidates were required to atleast pass a biology test before they claim to either care about the environment, or use the ever popular phrase, "sustainable development" I might believe them. Many professions in our society have some sort of testing except for elected-representatives, how strange is that?

To extend the point I made earlier, Adrienne Carr and Coleen McCrory are BOTH disgruntled former NDPers. In McCrory's case she was clearly pissed at both the Harcourt and Clark administrations for not appointing her to some board or commission.

It wasn't the NDP's environmental record these two ambitious political women found disappointing, it was the NDP's patronage record. There was nothing in it for them.

Kurt - I suppose you never laughed at Bush's hayseed diction, simian appearance, and similar "cosmetic" flaws. I know I have. It's not a fair criticism, if you were attempting to adjudicate him on merit. But his looks have a great deal to do with how he is perceived, or how he can be attacked.

Visual appeal is a huge liability (or advantage) for a candidate. Nixon's sweatiness, Mondale in the too-big helmet -- these things cost elections. In Canada, you had Stansfield dropping the ball vs. Trudeau's athletic dive into the pool.

Looks are only a fraction of overall charisma (cf. Dan Quayle, or Jean Chretien) but they are influential nonetheless. I think it's reasonable to mention them in that context.

Bud:

While it is true that both Carr and McCrory were at times NDP supporters, it would be very wrong to suggest that Colleen is just a disgruntled NDP'er. If Colleen was particularily upset with anyone, it was Corky Evans. And they ARE diametrically opposed when it comes to the environment. The Slocan Valley from the late 70's to the last election was backdrop to a very passionate and often viscious debate/fight/conflict between two relative political heavyweights in the valley and beyond. While one of the knocks on the WCWC/Valhalla version of the Greens has been how personal they often take politics, there was never any doubt in the case of Colleen that her problems with the NDP have been over honest and passionate environmental policy differences, and Corky Evans, in no particular order.

NOTE: Interestingly, Colleen will not be running against Corky this time

I hope a lot of NDP supporters vote for The Green Party.Go Adrian.

So Ms Carr doesnt wish to be called a spoiler. Well if you look like a duck and walk like a duck you may well be a duck

If Carr was a better speaker, she would undoubtedly get more people's attention. I wonder how close the BC Greens are to the federal Greens. A close relationship would worry any left-wing voter.

The reason Carr was against STV was because although she is not a great speaker, she is smart enough to realize that STV does not have a whole lot of chance of voting in any Green candidates. She had her heart set on proportional representation which STV is not.

Cosmo, I have good reason to disagree with your assessment of McCrory's thinking. It's based on first hand accounts from people who used to live in the Kootenays.

McCrory was once an assistant to an NDP MP in Ottawa. Later, when she moved to the Kootenays, she was a board member on a panel that reviewed research grants to scientists. She used to come home from these Ottawa meetings complaining that her compensation was good enough, ... though as far as I know she has no scientific training whatsoever. She was a Liberal patronage appointment of the NDP variety, and it looks like it worked in that many years later she did her bit to help keep one more seat out of the NDP column.

Chris H, STV is a proportional representation system. It's just not the mixed system that Carr had been proposing. Further, the Greens last week had guest speaker Senator Bob Brown, a Green Party member of the Australia parliament talking about STV in that country. Given this and that an increasing number of Green constituency's are voting to campaign for STV, I'd say the Green Party favours it over the present system.

Cocean: STV is not a proportional representation system. Proponents of STV claim that STV tends to give results that are similar to the proportion of votes each party gets, but there is no actual guarantee that will happen. I suggest you research STV more rigorously so you understand what you are voting for.

Some political scientists accept STV as pro-rep, especially in effect. The rest is quibbling. Carr isn't perfect, but she's much better than the other 2 parties, especially her heroic decision to campaign for pro-rep. While she prefers MMP to STV, she should realize we might not get a referendum on MMP if STV is defeated. With pro-rep or semi pro-rep, we won't have the idiotic "spoiler syndrome" with which some of the commenters above seem to be afflicted: Brian White (April 7), crh (April 7), Chita (April 7), Ron Erwin (April 8), and Tom Lal (April 9). --Korky Day

korky.ca

Let's get the facts stright here and I'm quite frankly not suprised at the underhanded mudslinging going on by the old school NDPers--
Adriane (notice the spelling) Carr helped co-found and create the Green Party of BC as the first Green Party in North America in 1983 and never ran for the NDP as quoted by Budd Campbell (unfortunate name) as a candidate. That is pure fiction. She became the Green Party candidate in 1998 for Powell river and then leader of the Party in 2000. Enough about the STV, MMP thing. It's old news and the Green Party have decided that although MMP is a better system, STV is what's on the table now and we hope that it passes to get us more represention than the current archaic system that is driving voters away.
I am proud to say that when I moved here from Quebec in 1999 as an Honours Poli Sci student specialising in Public Policy and Canadian Politics, I would not have voted had it not been for the Green Party.
We can either take on the common enemy (which as mentioned Adriane tried to do) or you can keep on slinging mud while BC's resources are raped. You decide. I choose GREEN. And not all Green come from the NDP camp as you oldtimers seem to postulate. Get informed, get progressive, get global---Go Green on May 17.

Quoting:"If passed, the referendum— which would produce largely proportional results in provincial elections—would almost guarantee the Greens legislative seats in Victoria the next time around."

This is wrong. At 12 - 15% support, under BC-STV, with disciplined voting, the Greens could only hope to elect 1 member in each of the few 7 member rural ridings, never in a 2 member riding. The two or three members they might possibly elect that way would not come anywhere near their overall popular support.
Indeed, that's why Carr properly supported a proportional system or mixed member parliament, and not BC-STV.

BC-STV is better than our current first-past-the-post because it transfers votes and doesn't waste them, but it isn't much of a proportional system.

All right, then call it semi-proportional, if you must. (No system is absolutely proportional unless the legislature comprises every citizen.) Greens would still probably elect several members, which they never have before. Doug M admits STV is better than the current system. Vote YES.

I see the NDP is beginning to run scared of the Greens. Or is it merely coincidental that in two consecutive elections the NDP choose to announce their election platform, or a news conference, right at the same time the Greens schedule their platform release?

And what nonsense about the greeness of the NDP. Sure they're greener than the Libs but that's nothing to crow about. What I notice is how fish farming grew under the NDP (not number of farms but size), and how the big park announcements were a last minute desperation move by Ujjal which the Lib government did not follow through on. Their forest plans were a joke etc, etc.

But the biggest NDP problem is that they're beholden to the big unions. I can understand the necessity of balancing corporate power with strong worker's rights, but big unions have a vested interest in big companies which makes them co-conspirators in the unsustainable exploitation of BC's natural heritage.

Given all that, and more, the Greens are the only alternative. Period.

I believe that VancouverPointGrey is correct and Budd Campbell is wrong on the matter of Adriane Carr ever running for N.D.P. in '86. I first met Ms. Carr in '85 when I, being younger and more naive than I am now, became a Green party member.

Then, in 1988, the Green Party annual convention was held in my community. I attended. Adriane was Green then, too. Are you trying to say, Budd, that she changed both her last name and her party affiliation in 1986, then changed them back in 1988? That would be incredibly hypocritical even for a politician!

As a former N.D.P. supporter for whom the present party is not left wing enough, I have long ago abandoned the Greens. Yes, their stance on the environment is admirable, but their cozying up to yuppie types with small "green" businesses at the expense of the working class and unemployed (they don't come right out and say this, you have to read between the lines in their namby-pamby campaign literature) has completely turned me off them in the past 4 years. Why do they think so many traditional N.D.P. voters are disenchanted with the N.D.P.? It's not always because the N.D.P. is "too left wing" or "too pro-union". I talked with a woman just the other day who believes that the N.D.P. is letting organized labour down.

I hold a NDP membership, and am supporting Gregor Robertson in my riding, Fairview. I also think Carole James deserves a chance to show that the NDP can do a good job in government. There is little question it ought to be able to do a lot better than the BC Liberals have been doing on almost all fronts, and I have grounds for hope a James government will do quite a bit better than the Glen Clark government, of which I was not a great fan. But I am most definitely supporting STV in the referendum and I strongly disapprove of those NDP'ers who pour scorn on the Green Party whether for its environmental idealism, for its green fiscal conservatives (a heck of lot better than Brown Tories or Brown NDP'ers in my book) or for purely tactical reasons.

Tactical considerations, aside Green Party voters can reasonably claim that they are voting for principles, not for their own personal short-run economic interests. No doubt there are people supporting the NDP who would personally prosper more under the BC Linerals, and even the odd BC Liberal who votes for them out of principle even though he/she might do better under the NDP, but I suspect when it comes to principled voting, Green Party supporters have the highest rate of economically self-dis-interested behaviour.

Michael Barkusky