For Green Party, a weekend of deep divisions between activist, pragmatic factions

[Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, who’s pictured in a photo from September 2015, couldn’t hide her disappointment with the party’s official support of the BDS movement this weekend at a party convention. REUTERS/Adrian Wyld]

At one point near the end of the Green Party of Canada’s turbulent national convention this past weekend, Adam Olsen walked out of the main room, a determined look on his face.

“As an Indigenous person here, and as part of the Green movement, we opened this conference saying we are on unceded territory,” Olsen told Yahoo Canada News.

“In essence, every time we open a conference, every time we open an event, whether it be in Ontario or in British Columbia, we state that we’re on unceded territory—and essentially it’s an occupation.”

Olsen, who is the Green candidate in the spring 2017 British Columbia election for Saanich North and the Islands, was making a point about the amount of time spent at the conference debating two extremely polarizing policies having to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But there was also an unavoidable irony on display at this convention, highlighted by Olsen’s use of the term “occupation.” The same party that made sure to keep reminding everyone that its conference was taking place on unceded territory, had just condemned another country for occupying land.

Despite a bitter procedural battle on the convention floor, the Green Party decided this weekend to officially support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, or BDS. The movement targets the Israeli economy with the aim of ending what it considers the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. BDS has been called anti-Semitic, although proponents argue it is a legitimate, non-violent tool.

It was an emotional climax to a stressful few weeks of debate, culminating in a raucous weekend of shot nerves, bitter exhortations, razor-thin vote margins, watery eyes and bear hugs.

The other resolution, which called on the Canada Revenue Agency to revoke the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund Canada, was amended to remove reference to the fund.

That resolution still passed, but as a generalized position against Canadian charities funding policies that violate human rights. Still, it too faced a fierce battle all weekend that looked at one point as if it was going the other way.

Leader Elizabeth May, who fought hard to stop or change the resolutions, put on a brave face in comments to the press after the votes.

She said she was happy with the second outcome, saying she “had no problems” with the “very principled resolution that no Canadian charity should have Canadian tax dollars going to policies that violate human rights.”

But she couldn’t hide her disappointment with the party’s official adoption of BDS. May and other party officials had stressed that members come up with resolutions independently, and the leadership can’t reject resolutions that meet all the requirements.

“I will continue to personally oppose those [BDS] tactics, but it is the policy of the party and I’m their chief spokesperson,” she said.

“I don’t think it’s a big ballot box issue,” she continued. “We have more members than ever before. We’ll see how that goes in terms of whether this is the kind of issue that either pulls in more members or loses more members — I have no idea which way that goes.”

Bumpy ride from the get-go

It was obvious throughout the whole weekend that attendees were severely divided on how to respond to the two resolutions.

Many were unswerving in their determination to stand up for what they saw as a primary injustice in the Middle East. They said the Green Party had always stood up for social justice issues and they argued supporting BDS was not anti-Semitic.

Filmmaker Lia Tarachansky, who told the crowd at a workshop Saturday morning that she grew up “in the settlements deep in the West Bank” and has previously identified to media as a Jewish immigrant, dramatically condemned what she called Israeli “colonialism.”

But others were alarmed at the idea of being forced to drag what they saw as deeply flawed policies, like a millstone around their necks, all the way to the ballot box. They said the ideas were activism campaigns masquerading as policy and as such shouldn’t be embedded into party doctrine.

Richard Zurawski, who ran for the Greens in Halifax West, said on the plenary floor that “I too have Jewish heritage … and I know that there are good intentions involved in this, but I would counsel that this is a simplistic, gross generalization.”

One attendee, who did not wish to speak on the record out of respect for the convention process, complained that public policy was not supposed to pick winners and losers.

It was shortsighted for any Canadian political party to target specific organizations over human rights concerns, the attendee continued, when Canada has so many skeletons in its own closet.

Yet other attendees said they were proud of the party for allowing debate on such controversial issues. The Greens are the party of openness, they declared.

Against TPP, for positivity

The entire weekend wasn’t devoted to debating Israel-Palestine. The convention also heard from pollster Frank Graves, who strongly urged Greens to seek out partnerships with the labour movement in their path to achieve greater electoral success.

As well, with the Liberal Party in power after campaigning on a promise to change Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system, Green Party members were excited about the possibility of electoral reform that might result in more Greens being elected to Parliament. They heard from James Shaw, the co-leader of New Zealand’s Green Party, which holds 14 seats under the country’s mixed-member proportional voting system.

May also delivered a rousing, fired-up speech Saturday night that touched on unifying themes, from her party’s stance against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement to climate change action, electoral reform and positivity in politics.

Urging listeners not to devolve into political cynicism, she lauded the Liberals for staying out of the mud during the last election.

“It needs to be said: for the first time in a long time, the party that won this election did not use attack ads. Not a single one!” she said to cheers.

But despite these other topics it was undeniable that the two resolutions sucked up much of the political energy all weekend.

Tense feelings were already on display Saturday morning when attendees had the opportunity to finesse the two resolutions before sending them to plenary.

Instead of taking that opportunity, the workshop ended up approving both resolutions unchanged.

Inside the workshop’s small, windowless hotel conference room, the floor was packed, a dozen people standing at the back. Supporters were busy handing out pro-Palestinian flyers to anyone who walked by outside.

Activist organization Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, which supports the BDS movement, had its name on the flyers.

May, who attended the workshop, sensed the frayed nerves and told the room at the outset that “there is no room in this party for anti-Semitism. There is no room in this party for racism.”

Despite her pleas, the discussion broke down into heated exchanges and shocked draws of breath. At one point, an attendee shouted at another, “Oh my God, how can you even say that!”