The Green Party of B.C.鈥檚 30-year tragi-comic history of futility faded into memory Wednesday as a Green MLA finally rose to speak in the legislature.
Oak Bay-Gordon Head鈥檚 Andrew Weaver manoeuvered his way through a three-person race to win the seat. It was a 28-day campaign, but it took the Greens three decades to get to the point where he was first across the line.
For years it was charitable to call the Greens a 鈥減arty.鈥� They were a collection of loonies hard-pressed to get anyone other than their candidates鈥� families to vote for them.
They once abolished the position of leader, in favour of having three rotating spokespersons. A few years later, they had a big argument over the idea of fielding only women candidates.
Former leader Stuart Parker 鈥� who once spent a weekend in prison playing Scrabble with the jailhouse champ after being arrested at the Clayoquot protests 鈥� shared fond memories a few years ago with me of the party鈥檚 weirder moments.
They didn鈥檛 have constituency groups in the early days because that would have been a sellout. They were organized on 鈥渂io-regions.鈥�
He once went to a meeting where a 鈥渧ibes sensor鈥� was one of the table officers.
The chair of another meeting opened by reading her astrological forecast for the party. Then they sang John Lennon鈥檚 Imagine, but they had to change the 鈥渂rotherhood of man鈥� bit to make it gender-neutral.
A few years later, another high-ranking member held a weekend session that wound up with him wandering around naked.
Much later, it prompted one of best press releases ever: 鈥淥n a number of occasions throughout the weekend I removed my clothes in the presence of minors. Beyond that, nothing inappropriate occurred.鈥�
There were extraordinarily vicious internal battles over the years, too, before the party grew up in its 20s and followed MP Elizabeth May鈥檚 route to respectability.
About two dozen of the 85 MLAs were on hand for Weaver鈥檚 formal entry into the legislature fray. NDP Leader Adrian Dix made a point of sitting in the chamber to listen.
He and his caucus were likely wondering where the speech was going, in the historical sense.
Will it go down as the moment that started something big? Or will Weaver be a one-term wonder who fades out next time?
The NDP has a lot riding on the outcome, as Weaver has the potential to take a lot of the environmental high ground they used to hold.
The noted scientist stuck to the themes he is known for: Climate change is the issue of our times; there鈥檚 a way to address it without wrecking the economy; and doubling down on liquefied natural gas isn鈥檛 the way to do that.
To a striking degree, he credited former premier Gordon Campbell and former Liberal finance minister Carole Taylor for their awareness of the issue he claims as his own.
Weaver quoted extensively from Taylor鈥檚 2008 budget speech, which introduced a suite of climate-change-fighting measures.
He sat in the chamber as a guest of Campbell on that day. Weaver said that budget redefined the legacy people leave for their children and stood as a turning point for B.C.
But the 2013 budget is a different story, he said.
It has some elements that people will like, 鈥渂ut the budget rests on a foundation that will undercut the vision the Liberals have proposed.鈥�
Weaver recalled scientific cautions against 鈥渁llowing assumptions to exceed the evidence,鈥� and said the government should apply that maxim to LNG development.
鈥淭o base the economy on LNG is to risk subjecting the economy to the boom-and-bust rollercoaster of global fossil-fuel pricing, with all its twists and drops.鈥�
Weaver, the deputy leader of his party, said the last half-dozen severe weather events 鈥減ale in comparison鈥� to what鈥檚 in store with unchecked global warming.
The U.S. is embarking on huge policy shifts to adapt to that, and Weaver said B.C. needs to get in the clean-energy race, or be left behind.
The Liberals are all-in on LNG, Weaver is almost as deeply invested against it and the NDP are somewhere in the middle.
He鈥檚 a wild card at this point, who bears watching.
