Terra Nova Green Party

The Terra Nova Green Party is the name of the Green Party of Canada's chapter in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Newfoundland's first Green Party was founded at St. John's in 1988. It was called The Newfoundland & Labrador Green Party Association. Newfoundland's first Green Party candidate was Nicholas Murray in the 1989 provincial election. Murray ran in the electoral district of Carbonear as an "Independent Green" and received 62 votes in a three way contest against a Liberal and a Progressive Conservative.

By 1990, The Newfoundland and Labrador Green Party Association was defunct and remained inactive until the 1996 provincial election when Jason Crummey ran as an independent Green candidate in Quidi Vidi and garnered 124 votes. That year, the Newfoundland Greens were recognized as a provincial association of the Green Party of Canada, under its newly ratified constitution, under the name "Terra Nova Green Party." Later that year, Crummey sought the leadership of the Green Party of Canada, placing last in a field of four candidates. However, he impressed members at the party's 1996 federal convention, resulting in his acclamation as the party's national fundraising chair.

The 1997 federal election saw the first federal Green Party candidate run for office in Newfoundland and Labrador with Jon Whalen's candidacy, in St. John's East. Whalen focused on environmental and fisheries issues such as banning draggers and creating a sustainable harp and hood sealing industry.

Under the leaderships of Ontario's Chris Lea and Wendy Priesnitz and then Alberta's Harry Garfinkle, relations between the Green Party of Canada registered leader and the Terra Nova Greens were amicable; The Terra Nova Greens with their strong Newfoundland and Labrador nationalism proposed national policies that included: banning draggers, a capelin moratorium, an Atlantic salmon moratorium and unilaterally extending Canada's 200-Mile (370 km) Limit to include the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap. The Terra Nova Greens also highlighted historic border disputes with the Province of Quebec, in the event of Quebec's secession from Confederation.

When British Columbia's Joan Russow became registered leader of the Green Party of Canada, relations with the Terra Nova Greens were rocky. Conflicts mainly centred around the Terra Nova Green Party's support for a sustainable Atlantic Canadian seal fishery. At that time, the Green Party of Canada had no National Policy on the topic: On the Atlantic seaboard, the Terra Nova Greens had one policy while on the Pacific seaboard, the British Columbia Greens supported an opposing policy; there was a federal Policy Vacuum with two provincial organizations separated by thousands of kilometers and eight other provinces endorsed opposing policies. Initially, the conflict was mediated by BC Green Party leader Stuart Parker and BC party strategists Dr. Julian West and Steve Kisby, who were close associates of Russow but supporters of the TNG policy. However, relations continued to deteriorate after Parker began working with the in their efforts to prevent a seal cull on Vancouver Island's Puntledge River in 1999.

The conflict culminated in the Terra Nova Greens organizing a public protest rally in downtown St. John's against what they claimed was the Green Party of British Columbia's domination of the federal Green Party. Starting in 1998, the Terra Nova Greens began running their own slate for the federal Greens' national executive which, lacking support from other provinces. No members of the Terra Nova state were elected in 1998 or 2000 and suffered a series of defeats. As part of these efforts in 1998, Cac MacDonald was the first female Newfoundlander to run for the leadership of any federal party. When she challenged Russow for the leadership, she garnered over 15% of the votes cast, indicating that some of the opposition to Russow's leadership outside the province was coalescing around the Newfoundland slate.

Although Crummey was able to make considerable inroads into the federal party by traveling to its 1996 Castlegar convention, serving as a member of the national board from 1996 to 1998, and working as a volunteer on the party 1997 federal campaign in BC, as relations worsened, Terra Nova Greens ceased attending national conventions, despite running slates for the party's board and submitting policy proposals to the 1998 and 2000 conventions.

The Terra Nova Greens had submitted a slate of candidates and a list of policy proposals to the 1998 national convention in Winnipeg. In fact, the policies and candidates were the only ones submitted before the party's internal filing deadline. Relations with the TNG deteriorated further when the party's national executive chose to re-open nominations for a month rather than acclaim the TNG slate. In the mail-in balloting that followed all five members of the slate were defeated. At the Winnipeg convention, members adopted a number of the policies the group proposed. However, the sealing policy did not reach the convention floor.

The Terra Nova Greens ran two candidates in the 1999 provincial election, Jason Crummey in St. John's South and Jon Whalen in Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi. The party's election motto was Ban Draggers and its campaign focused on the issue of overfishing on the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap. On February 9, 1999, Whalen received 42 votes while Crummey received 101 votes.

During the final years of Russow's leadership, relations with the Terra Nova Greens reached their nadir when she refused to sign the nomination papers of the three successive candidates Newfoundland party members had nominated for the St. John's West 2000 by-election. When 2000 general election was held several months later, the Terra Nova Greens did not submit names for the federal general election, Nor did Joan Rossow call for candidates to be ran in the province. Throughout the conflict, no member of the party's national executive or Russow's leadership circle ever visited Newfoundland and Labrador.

When Chris Bradshaw became registered leader of the Green Party of Canada, relations with the Terra Nova Green's improved dramatically. He even ran in the Trinity-Conception by-election and vowed to move to the district if elected.

In 2002, the Terra Nova Greens submitted policy proposals to the National Convention held at Montreal but no slate of candidates were submitted for the National Executive. At this convention, the Green Party of Canada finally endorsed the Terra Nova Green's policy proposal for a sustainable seal fishery in Atlantic Canada.

In 2003, Canada's Federal Fishery Committee called for a Capelin Fishery Moratorium. A capelin moratorium has been Terra Nova Green Party policy since 1996 and had been Green Party of Canada Federal Policy since 2000.

The Terra Nova Green Party remained active at the provincial level, fielding a single candidate, Steve Durant in the 2003 provincial general election. Durant broadened the party's focus from the single issue anti-dragger campaigns of the past, receiving positive coverage from local media. One article described him as, "Passionate about issues such as innovative health care, universal education and a healthy environment".

With the election of Jim Harris, the Green Party of Canada set aside simmering conflicts with the Terra Nova Greens in its successful effort to field a full slate in the 2004 federal election. The most prominent candidate was Ed "Sailor King Moondog" White who was the 1981 W.W.F. Tag-Team Champion. The Green Party of Canada's commitment continued with the party's support of Crummey's candidacy in the Labrador 2005 federal by-election.

Unfortunately, the dispute over sealing broke into the national media during the 2006 federal election: Dr. Jane McGillivray, a Happy Valley-Goose Bay medical doctor and environmentalist resigned as the federal candidate for Labrador. She quit the campaign in protest, saying Jim Harris' stance against the seal fishery was unfair and biased against the people of Canada's East Coast. CBC Radio reported Doctor McGillivray exclaimed, "The party needs to mature in such as way that it reflects the fact that there are regional differences...I don't see the Green party standing up and banning feed lots in southern Ontario, which are clearly contributing to all sorts of greenhouse gases and in fact are very inhumane in terms of the way pigs are treated and cows are treated."

Lori-Ann Martino, an organizer for the Greens in Newfoundland and Labrador, also resigned from the party in the middle of the election campaign. Martino was a former federal candidate in Labrador during the 2004 general election. Lori-Ann Martino resigned from the Green Party of Canada because she disagreed with Jim Harris' opposition to a sustainable seal fishery in Atlantic Canada; she said she could not abide by the Green Party's opposition to a commercial seal hunt: at an earlier national party meeting held in Ottawa, 93% of the delegates on attendance voted in favour of phasing out the annual hunt.

When Lori-Ann Martino resigned, Sharon labchuck (a resident of Prince Edward Island) was hired by the party to organize Newfoundland and Labrador: Of the seven federal candidates in the 2006 election, four of them were parachute-candidates, the majority being residents in Nova Scotia. Three Newfoundland residents who were endorsed as candidates were: Stephen Eli Harris (St. John's East) Shannon Hillier (Avalon) and Martin Hanzalek (Humber--St. Barbe--Baie Verte).

On August 29, 2006, VOCM Radio reported that the registered leader of the Green Party of Canada, Elizabeth May, stated: "Green Party Leader to Review Seal Hunt Policy". The radio article explained Elizabeth May exclaimed..."there's a need for more discussion about the seal hunt...says the Green Party will review its policy on the hunt." Elizabeth may claimed "... one thing for sure, the Green Party will never again treat people in this province (Newfoundland and Labrador) without respect."

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