Alberta Greens - The Last Years of The Party

The Last Years of The Party

The Alberta Greens elected a new leader, George Read, in November 2003. Read has a degree in political science from the University of Calgary. He also served as the President of the Federal Green Party in Alberta from 2001 to 2003, and as the National Campaign Manager for the Green Party of Canada from 2005 to 2006.

In the 2004 provincial election, the Greens' support increased by nearly 1000%. 49 ridings had Green candidates, where three candidates received more than 1,000 votes, and one candidate in the riding of Banff-Cochrane, received 15% of the vote, While Edwin Erickson was the only candidate to place second in the Drayton Valley-Calmar riding. Eleven others broke the 5% threshold that had previously been a barrier for Green support.

Polling done by various research companies during and leading up to the 2008 provincial election put the Alberta Greens anywhere between 5% and 9%. The Greens had also polled as high as 22% or second place in Northern Alberta during the campaign. The party ran almost a full slate in the 2008 provincial election for the first time in party history and also fielded 18 more candidates than the newly formed Wildrose Alliance Party which had a seat in the previous legislature.

In the 2008 election, the Greens captured 4.6% of the vote, gaining more than 1.8%. The Greens were also the only opposition party to rise in popular support on election night, The Greens ran on a budget of just under $110,000. The Greens had hoped for a breakthrough, but because of increased Conservative support were unable to achieve this. The best results came from Lacombe-Ponoka 22.9%, Drayton Valley-Calmar 19.3%, and Banff-Cochrane 14.1%. Another accomplishment in 2008 was having more than 2/3 of Green candidates placing fourth or better, compared to just half in 2004. Despite this rise in popular support, the party went from 5.5% in 2004 to 4.9% in 2008 in the city of Calgary.

Fair Vote Canada released a press release shortly after election night, stating that if proportional representation had been used, the Greens would have had four seats instead of zero.

On September 27, 2008, at the regular annual general meeting, the party was subject to what has been described as an attempted takeover. The party executive, with a quorum of members, decided to end the meeting and move it to a time that would allow broader participation by the membership, increased notice for proposed changes, and increased transparency in the issues being brought forward. Another meeting was held the same day, in the same location, and chaired by Sean Maw (who was not a member of the party executive at the time of the meeting). At that second meeting, voting was conducted on executive positions and constitutional amendments. Both sides of the contention claimed their meeting to be valid and the other not, leading to a dispute about the legitimate leadership of the party.

In December 2008, longtime party leader George Read chose to withdraw his claim to leadership, leaving Joe Anglin the interim leader.

In the spring of 2009, deputy leader Edwin Erickson quit the Greens to become involved with the renewal of the Alberta Party.

On April 1, 2009, the executive of the Party failed to file an Annual Financial Statement with Elections Alberta, as required by law. As a result the party was deregistered on July 16, 2009, and will be unable to run candidates in the next election.