There is currently a lot of discussion about the balance of power being held by three Green Party MLAs. I thought that over the next few weeks I would have a look at the role of Green parties generally and then more specifically about what it means for the B.C. Green Party to hold the balance of power.

Textbooks on Canadian politics often insert Green parties into the discussion about environmental politics and social movements. The textbook that I often cite here is the Dickerson, Flanagan and O'Neill volume entitled, An Introduction to Government and Politics.

article continues below

They do a very good job of explaining that Green parties around the world evolved out of a family of ideologies that are "linked by their focus on the environment but divided by profound internal differences."

What this means is that within the environmental movement there are differing views about the relationship between human beings and the environment.

Environmentalism can span the range from "conservationism to deep ecology."

I will explore these ideas more in the future but the point I want to make is that the beliefs that constitute environmentalism are varied and can span the left and right of the political spectrum.

In other words, environmentalists are not all of one mind about how to protect or interact with, the environment.

Two good examples of the crossover on the political spectrum are the introduction of the carbon tax by Gordon Campbell and the fight for strong climate change policy based on the argument that it would be good for the economy by the former Republican Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Historically, as Dickerson and colleagues point out, "Green parties find it very difficult to elect representatives in countries such as Canada, the United States and Great Britain, which use the first-past-the-post method of voting."

They can, however, "affect the outcome [of an election] by pulling votes from others." The textbook edition that I am looking at was written before the 2017 B.C. election but the authors note that the "Greens' biggest success in Canadian politics" has been in British Columbia.

Even though they have not won many seats in the past they have succeeded in pulling votes away from other parties.

But, as the authors note quite rightly, "playing this 'spoiler' role is a form of political power, to be sure, but the Greens would undoubtedly much prefer to elect representatives."

If seats were designated based on popular vote (I rounded the numbers in my calculations) the Greens would have received: nine seats in 2001; seven seats in 2005, 2009 and 2013; and 14 seats in 2017.

After the election in May, the B.C. Greens found themselves in the position not as spoiler but as the holders of the balance of power because the other two parties essentially split the other seats in the house: the Liberals with 43 seats and the NDP with 41 seats. The NDP will need the three Green MLAs to vote with them to pass legislation and maintain confidence in the house.

Sometime ago, I wrote a column about party platforms and I tried to demonstrate the connection between ideology and the policy ideas from each party.

I showed that on the issue of housing, the Greens presented policies that were aligned with social democracy, which is the belief that the state does have some responsibility to ensure that the state (government) can help to level out the inequalities inherent in capitalism.

In order to get a better sense of what the B.C. Greens will see as their role in the shaping of public policy in a number of areas it is again time to return to their platform.

There are three strong statements about the role of government that appear at the outset of the platform and outline the party's core philosophy:

1. The purpose of government is to facilitate the highest and best outcomes for the health and wellbeing of current and future generations of British Columbians.

2. The purpose of government is to sustainably manage our province in the interests of intergenerational equity.

3. The purpose of government is to be the steward of public resources, and manage the delivery of public goods and services on behalf of the people, as important assets owned by everyone.

Over the next few columns, I will explore these core ideas to demonstrate how the B.C. Greens might reconcile their ideology with the realpolitik of holding the balance of power.