(Note: This article has been edited to correct a previously published version)

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May isn't shy about touting her party's conservative credentials.

For some, the party's name conjures images of left-wing tree huggers. But May emphasizes a picture of a socially progressive group with fiscally conservative ideas. Even members of the Conservative party's natural constituency, she believes, would feel at home with the Greens.

"I would not say for a moment that Mr. Harper has the right locked up. As a matter of fact, I'm going after his votes," she says of the Prime Minister and October's federal election.

"The word conservative, to me, isn't a dirty or bad word," May adds in an interview.

The long-time environmental activist and former policy adviser in Brian Mulroney's Conservative government has raised the Green Party's profile on the national stage. And with her inclusion by popular demand in the election debates, Canadians are getting a closer look at a party hoping for a breakthrough.

Since its founding in 1983, the Green Party has become a home for the environmentally concerned and the politically disgruntled. It has often made for a volatile mix, with party leaders struggling to unite members from across the political spectrum.

May is credited with healing some of the party's political rifts. Her challenge in this election is to solidify a shaky support base. Recent polls place its support at 8 per cent, but a large chunk of Green supporters in past elections turned out to be transient protest voters.

In Toronto yesterday to introduce a dozen of her party's local candidates, she went out of her way to portray the Greens as pragmatic and pro-business, insisting they would apply fewer taxes to small businesses than the Conservatives.

She spoke passionately about reducing greenhouse gases, described the challenge as a huge economic opportunity for alternative energy sources, and argued the party's proposal for a "carbon tax" would be offset by cuts to income and payroll taxes.



But her liveliest moments came when confronted with claims that she called Canadians "stupid" during an interview on the TVO network. She insisted that audio trouble silenced the first part of her phrase, where she claimed she accused other political parties of believing that Canadians are stupid when it comes to energy policy.

"If you watch the (TV) tape, watch my lips move," she said.

The party, says political scientist Mark Winfield, has long been "sensitive to the flake accusation." It encouraged former Green leader Jim Harris, once a Conservative member, to emphasize the party's fiscally conservative policies, including pledges of balanced budgets and debt reduction. The current program envisions eliminating Canada's $481 billion debt completely.

This emphasis attracted candidates like Adrian Visentin, a former Reform party member and Canadian Alliance candidate now running for the Greens in Vaughan.

"Initially I said, 'I can't join your party, I'm not a lefty.' And they said, 'We're actually not lefties.' And when I read the whole program I said, 'Shoot, you're not! I agree with all this,' " Visentin said in an interview.

"The party is positioning itself quite explicitly in the centre. Some of the pro-business language that was there has been moderated a lot," says Winfield, a York University political scientist who specializes in environmental issues.

Winfield credits May for the shift. It makes electoral sense, he says, because the Greens are mainly vying for "progressive voters."

But an analysis of Green voters in the 2006 federal election, conducted by political scientist Steven Brown, reveals a party in great flux.

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Brown analyzed data of 35,000 voters collected by the Ipsos Reid polling firm shortly after they cast their ballots. Of those, 1,850 had voted Green. Little distinguishes Green voters, he says, except that they tend to have a slightly higher level of education. Otherwise, they reflect national averages when broken down by income, gender, and urban or rural residence.

"It looks like a very mainstream crowd," says Brown, director of the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy.

Not surprisingly, many indicate a concern for the environment. Of all voters polled, only 7 per cent cited the environment as the main reason for choosing a political party. Of those, 47 per cent voted Green – making it clear the party's signature issue is a crucial drawing card.

But a view of the party as a home for the politically disgruntled seems equally important.

When asked if they disliked all the political parties, 12 per cent of all voters polled said they strongly agreed that was the case. Among Green voters, the number was 35 per cent. When added to the number who simply agreed with the statement, the number of Green voters who expressed their dislike of all parties rose to 75 per cent.

The Green vote is also unstable. In 2006, the party maintained about the same level of support as in the 2004 election – some 4.5 per cent, or 664,000 votes. Fully 60 per cent of its 2006 voters had supported a different party in the previous election. At the same time, 60 per cent who had voted Green in 2004 abandoned the party in 2006.

"There's a huge fluidity in the support base for this party. It suggests that people who are temporarily disenchanted (with major parties) are parking their votes with the Greens until they get over their snit," Brown says.

Brown believes the Liberals and the NDP have most to fear from the Greens. Liberal voters have shown a tendency to switch to Green, and with its carbon-tax proposal, the party is competing on the same playing field – the environment.

The Ipsos Reid survey also makes clear that the NDP is the overwhelming second choice of Green voters when asked which party would best deal with the issues.

May insists she's casting a wider net. "There's a realignment happening in Canadian politics and Greens will benefit from it, but not by going after left votes or right votes – we're going after everybody's votes," she says.





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