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Note: The morning after a very difficult telephone conference call with the
leadership group, I sent an earlier version of this letter via email to
those who had been on the call, and shared this edited version [to remove names] with others. This
was a decision that I had been considering for a few months and the details of
what happened are not important.
Those of you who characterized what has been happening over the past month or
so, culminating in our phone call last night, as a power
struggle between two of us on National Council might feel that I “won.” Maybe you even feel that
we arrived at a “win/win” solution. Then why did I wake up this morning feeling
so profoundly sad? Because nobody really won last night, except the forces of
macho domination, which triumphed over Green politics once again. If, as I’m now
hearing, a few men on the conference call felt intimidated or angry by the
process, is it any wonder that women are put off participating in the Greens?
When I accepted the nomination for and subsequent win of the
leadership of this party, it was with a large degree of trepidation but lofty
(and I realize now, probably unrealistic) ideals. In the run-up to the 1996
leadership convention, I'd been warned that I’d be unhappy with the segment of
the party that was an “old
boy’s club,” as one person put it, and that innovative thought was often a victim of political
gamesmanship.
I was naive enough (or perhaps too overconfident in myself) to think I
could, by the very fact of being a woman leader with some business organizing
experience, help change the paradigm. I
thought I could help reinvent the political organization, could help create a
decentralized, unbureaucratic, problem-solving, empowering alternative to the
conventional structure of Canadian political parties. I thought that I could
attract other credible, experienced, active green women (and men) to the party –
some who’d left and some who’d never before been involved. I thought I could
attract experienced activists and writers and thinkers from a variety of fields
to help turn the Canadian Greens into a force to be reckoned with. I thought I
could at the very least help attain gender balance on Council and in committees.
However, I was wrong on all counts. I failed to understand how
entrenched traditional partisan ways are within the party. I didn’t realize just
how much some people enjoy the game of antagonistic
sparring. I failed to account for the deep-seated tensions between regions and
between individuals. I didn’t realize that so many people involved with the
party see it as an activist organization rather than an eventual player in
government – and that some actually don’t want it to be a political party at
all. I underestimated the number of people who don’t even want a leader who
leads, as opposed to a figurehead. I also forgot that when threatened by change,
especially change instigated by a newcomer, people often react badly. So, I
misgauged the problem; I also failed to consider the emotional and physical toll
that trying to solve it would take on me, my writing and business career, and my family.
For the most part, I have found NGO doors to have remained closed. Oh,
they opened for awhile to congratulate me on the job I had taken on, then the
people and organizations got on with their business, uninterested in a so-called
progressive party that is perennially unable to demonstrate that it can even
govern itself in a progressive way, let alone a country.
There are a few people in this party who have been working hard in their
own bioregions to create a working model of locally-based, participatory
democracy that focuses on the whole spectrum of interconnected topics, not just
the environment...and to do it between elections. There are a few other people in this party who have been working hard
and risking much trying to create an infrastructure that could allow for the
development of a credible Green Party of Canada. Their vision has encouraged me
over the past year.
However, we are a long way from having any kind of critical mass. There
are too many people whose personal agendas interfere with the optimum use of
their talents to work for change. I also think there are too many different
agendas to even begin the discussion about reaching a unity of purpose.
I have realized during the past few weeks that I will not be able to
effect the massive level of change required if this party is ever to move from
the margins. I have also begun to doubt the wisdom of the very existence of a
federal Green Party at this point in time. I know that real change begins at the
grassroots level. And I have to wonder why we are trying to force a bottom-up
result with a top-down process. Perhaps the idea that one can demonstrate
decentralization, sustainable economics, and participatory democracy through a
federal political party is more than
just an oxymoron.
So, after both objective deliberation and subjective soul searching,
I have decided to step aside. I’m confident you can appoint a suitable substitute
as Interim Leader of the Green Party of Canada to take you through the next
election. After that, I urge you to re-consider the nature of leadership within
the party. Perhaps a gender-balanced team of spokespeople is more conducive to
fostering an understanding of what co-operative effort really means. At any
rate, I assure you that the work being done at the grassroots level will continue in
spite of what goes on at the top; let it inspire and sustain you as it once did
me.
I hereby tender my resignation as the Leader of the Green Party of
Canada, effective immediately.
Wendy Priesnitz
Note: Here is my acceptance speech when I was elected leader of the Green Party of Canada in 1996.
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