History of The Green Party of Canada - 1990s

1990s

In the spring of 1996, although the hopes of electing a representative to the BC legislature proved premature, Andy Shadrack in the interior of the province received over 11% of the vote. Overall, the party's proportion of the popular vote surged to a new high. Shadrack was also the most popular Green candidate in the 1997 federal election, scoring over 6% of the popular vote in West Kootenay-Okanagan.

At the party's sixth annual gathering in Castlegar, British Columbia, hosted by Shadrack's riding association, in August 1996, a complete overhaul of the party's constitution was made, spearheaded by Stuart Parker, leader of the provincial Greens in BC. The party's new constitutional framework both democratized and centralized the party which had been previously hobbled by an unworkably decentralized structure. These changes also ended de jure (it had ended de facto some three years earlier) the constitutional prohibition against the party's registered leader acting as its spokesperson or representative. Policy was also agreed to in a wide variety of areas. An important step forward was the structuring of a Shadow Cabinet, whose mandate was to create a platform for the next election in 1997.

The Castlegar gathering marked the beginning of a new era in Canadian Green history, and a somewhat uneasy one at that. In spite of a concern about the nature of leadership in a decentralized party, the Greens' first leadership campaign had been underway for the previous six months. Four candidates contested the leadership. A mail-in ballot was held: Wendy Priesnitz (from Ontario) beat Don Francis (Quebec), Jason Crummey (Newfoundland and Labrador), and Harry Garfinkle (Alberta) to become the Registered Leader of the Green Party of Canada.

In January 1997, although initially recruited by Ontario Green Party leader Frank de Jong, Wendy Priesnitz resigned over what she characterized as domination of the party by an "old boys' network" comprising the BC and Ontario provincial leaders and their male-dominated circles of organizers and advisors. Harry Garfinkle stepped in to be the interim Registered Leader of the Green Party of Canada, and a leadership convention by mail-in ballot was held.