A topic that has come a long way in the last few years is that of feminism. The word feminism defined means: the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes (Websters 418) . The Greens would like to see a society where the moral code of cooperation and understanding would replace the immoral acts of domination and control. Everyone would be equal, meaning people would share and help one another instead of being told what to do and how to do it. There would exist no difference between that of male and female. Females and males would be equally represented in every aspect of society (political, business, ect...).
The Green Party of Canada would also like to see a society where it is concerned about the next generations and not just the present. The future focus and sustainability issue would address the issues that unless the earth's population doesn't do anything now the next generations will not have anything to look forward to. Everyone has to take a stand and decide that they have to preserve today for tomorrow. This is contrary to the other political parties which think more short term thinking and planning.
The preceding eight values are at the forefront of the Green Party. They work and plan their beliefs around them hoping the general population will listen to what they value. Their main goal is not necessarily to win a majority voice in the legislature but instead to have voice so that they can educate the population. They want to establish a system based on a more basic assumption, the need for survival. A social order based on the satisfaction of human needs rather than on wants, would be much different from the world we live in today. They see us as creatures, and can see no basic conflict between the needs of the planet and our real needs.
You may now be asking where do the Greens, although not a political power, stand on the Ideological Map. Their exact position on this map may be best illustrated by a Green Party slogan, «We are neither left or right - WE ARE THE FUTURE.»
The Green Parties values and goals are the best way to illustrate where and why they are on the ideological map. On the left of the Conventional Left - Right Spectrum is:
1. The full government ownership of the means of production
2. Extensive government regulation
3. Extensive redistribution of income
While on the right of the spectrum it contains:
1. No government ownership of the means of production
2. No government regulation
3. No redistribution of income (Gibbons, Youngman 12)
Also, over the years the terms «Left» and «Right» have picked up additional ideological baggage to expand considerably their application in political discourse and debate. The Left is now also associated with support for minority rights, womens' rights, gay and lesbian rights, environmental protection and foreign aid, whereas the Right is now also associated with military spending, neoconservatism and liberaltarism.
I feel that the Green Party of Canada is indeed towards the Left of the ideological Map. To prove where the Greens stand on the spectrum we must take into account if and to what extent the party believes the above determing factors. The Green Party, as indicated earlier, are very much in favour of extensive government regulation. They feel that the Government should put regulation on such things as nuclear power, the forestry and fishing quotas and waste and most other environmental concerns. Favouring such regulation tends to place the Green Party to the Left of the Spectrum.
Another feature that places them to the left is their belief in the redistribution of wealth. The Green Party tends to view it as six children having ten cookies. One child has five of the cookies, leaving one cookie for each of the five other children, that's assuming that the children can share fairly amongst themselves. This type of distribution is very typical, even within grossly wealthy counties where the minority of the people holds the majority of the wealth, leaving only little money for the large general population. The Green Party believes that it is in the capitalist society that forces the poorest people to place their own short - term interests above the long term interests of the Earths ecology. The Green Party feels that if the government doesn't start to put regulations on the wealthy now then we are headed for disaster.
I do not feel that the Greens are so radical to say that the government should control all means of production, although I do feel that the Greens think that the government should be in control of some production. This would include the production of such things as production facilities that are major polluters.
The last two things that support my theory that the Green Party is on the left of the ideological map are the Green Parties stances on environmental protection and foreign aid. Although most everyone is concerned about the environment, why are they only concerned about the environment during their life and not that of future generations. The Greens biggest emphasis is on the environment of not only today but also the future. They believe that we have to live in a «Conserver society rather than Consumer society.» Almost all the Greens beliefs are tied in with the environment some how or another.
Finally, the Green Party faithful also feel that large industrialized countries such as Canada, should not spend foolishly on weapons, but rather give money to the worst off countries in the world. The arms build up diverts money and resources from the solution of so many of humanity's problems and the increase of these sophisticated weapons system has made security an ever receding mirage. I feel that this is evident enough to prove my point that the Green Party of Canada is to the left of the ideological map.
There exists two reasons why the Green Party has yet to achieve major status in Canada. The first reason for not achieving major status is because the Green Party of Canada is still relatively new. The Green Party of Canada is still a teenager, being only about fifteen years old. It is hard to educated the people in a whole country in this short time. The more people that you educate, the more people that will support your party, which inturn helps you to fund the party to help educate even more people. It is somewhat of a step program that relies heavily on the previous step.
The second reason why the party has yet to achieve major status in Canada is because the Greens vision is too 'perfect' and the general population cannot bring themselves to vote for them. The population feels that although the 'Green Vision' may be great it would take to long to ever reach their goals. A lot of their goals cannot be solved with money rather they need to be solved the attitudes of the people. I feel that my two reasons why the Green Party are not able to reach major status in Canada are very realistic, although it must be emphasised that the Green Party will probably never become a ruling government. To be the majority government is not the Green Parties main goal, above all they only want to educate the people of their view. That is what we should be doing for not only us, but also the environment.
The future of the Green Party cannot go down, only up. As the twenty - first century nears, I feel that the environment is becoming a bigger issue each and everyday. The Green Party will benefit greatly by remaining sensitive to the social conditions in which it is operating (Gibbons, Youngman 169). No other party attacks the issues of the environment like the Green Party does. Although, the Party maybe in some jeopardy if the other political parties decide to take a radical change of direction and narrow their scope so they focus much more on the environment. This is to say that the Liberal Party may take all their support and start to focus on the problems of the environment. This would attract many people away from the Green Party since the Liberal Party has much more power and influence over people. With a greater influence over people it would inturn mean that they could change peoples attitudes and progress on the environmental issues a lot more rapidly. I feel this radical change in a majority party wouldn't happen, fearing that they would lose support for not attacking such problems as economics.
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Political corruption in Canada
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