Welcome to the Green Party

The Greens are rooted in the Civil Rights, Feminist and Peace movements of the 1960s and 70s, and the Nuclear Disarmament, anti-Toxics and Deep Ecology movements of the 1980s. The first Green Party in North America was formed in British Columbia in 1983. Similar parties have existed in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, since the 1970s and have elected representatives to local,regional, and national legislatures. No Green candidate has yet been elected to a provincial legislature in Canada, or to the House of Commons, but the emerging Green constituency caused other parties to examine the links between their environmental policies and the economy more seriously. Greens have always emphasised a multifaceted approach to social justice and ecology.

Green work includes building sustainable community-based economies, lobbying legislators, staging demonstrations and running for office.

The Green vision includes a responsibility to create both a healthy environment and a healthy society, both of which are fundamentally interrelated. The following is the party's 10 key values, and should be reflected in all Green policies and activities.

10 Key Values of the Canadians Greens

1. Ecological Wisdom
   The Earth sustains all life forms. Whatever we do to the web of life, we do to ourselves.
2. Social Justice
   The worldwide growth of poverty and injustice is unacceptable. All must be able to fulfil their potential regardless of gender, race, citizenship or sexual preferences.
3. Grassroots Democracy
   The powerless suffer the most form resource exhaustion and toxic pollution. All citizens must be able to directly participate in the environmental, economic and political decisions which affect their lives.
4. Nonviolence
   Violence is a morally wrong and ultimately self-defeating way to resolve disputes. We must work to end war forever.
5. Decentralisation
   Power and responsibility must be returned to local communities within an overall context of ecologically sound and socially just values and lifestyles.
6. Community-Based Economics
   The economy must provide for people within the natural limits or the earth rather than people providing for the economy. Local self-reliance to the greatest practical extent is the best way to achieve this goal.
7. Feminism
   The ethics of cooperation and understanding must replace the values of domination and control.
8. Respect for Diversity
   We honour the biological diversity of the Earth and the cultural, sexual and spiritual diversity of the Earth's people.
9. Personal and Global Responsibility
   Global sustainability and international justice is based on political solidarity and personal lifestyles of living lightly on the Earth.
10. Future Focus/Sustainability
    Like the Iroquois Indians, we must seek a society which looks after the needs of the seventh generation as much as our own.