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The Green Party sprouts

Broadcast Date: July 30, 1988

They may be sleeping in tents in the woods, but one day the Green Party will form the government of Canada. That's what a skeptical CBC Newscentre reporter hears in 1988 as 100 enthusiastic Greens gather for a pre-election strategy session. The environment-focused party ran 60 candidates last time, but this year hopes to put up a Green in every riding and start their ascent to Parliament Hill. "From a campground?" asks a doubtful Mark Schneider. "That's right," says a feisty Green. "This is where we're starting."

The Green Party sprouts

• Growing out of the environmental movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and inspired by the election of die Gruenen to the West German parliament in 1983, the Green Party of Canada was founded at a conference in Ottawa that same year. Trevor Hancock took the helm as the party's first leader and the Greens ran in their first election in 1984, with 60 candidates. The hope expressed in this report for the Green Party to field candidates in every riding would have to wait until 2004. That year, the Greens became just the fourth party in Canadian history to run a full slate of candidates, putting up a candidate in all 308 ridings.

• Although not connected to other Green parties around the world, they describe themselves as "philosophically aligned" with other environmentalist political parties. In addition to the German Greens place in government, several other European Green parties have elected representatives to their national legislatures, as well as to the European parliament.

• In 2008, party leader Elizabeth May was included in the nationally televised leaders' debates, which are normally reserved for parties with members in the House of Commons. After some public wrangling that included the other party leaders, the consortium of broadcasters that runs the debates decided to include May. She argued that because independent MP Blair Wilson declared himself a Green just weeks before the election, the party satisfied the requirement to have an elected member in the House.

The Green Party sprouts

Medium: Television

Program: Newscentre

Broadcast Date: July 30, 1988

Reporter: Mark Schneider

Duration: 1:34

Last updated:
Sept. 2, 2009