Are you interested in a greener and fairer Canada? Then you might want to look into the Green Party of Canada. We are the Green Party Ottawa West – Nepean or in short the “OWN Green Party”. Covering an area west of Ottawa Centre, this is a largely suburban neighbourhood with both attractive greenspace and unattractive arterial roads and dated shopping malls.
The Ottawa West Nepean Green Party promotes both the provincial Green Party of Ontario and the federal Green Party of Canada. You can find most information on their respective websites, but on this page we add some local content to keep you informed.
Latest news
- Breaking Boundaries: the Science of Our Planet
On Earthday, April 29th, you are invited to join Ottawa Greens to watch a movie. Reade more… - David Stibbe takes step back
David Stibbe steps down from his role as CEO due to increased day time work loads at his school. - Green Party concerned about Ottawa River
Green Party continues to work on improvements for Ottawa West – Nepean - Draft Plan Transportation Plan released
The Transportation Masterplan Part 1 draft was recently released.
How representation works
If you just started dipping your toes in political parties and how that all works, you may want to learn about this first.
Canada has an election system called “first passed the post”. On a federal level, Canada has hundreds of ridings, a defined area with a number of voters. The residents in a riding can vote for someone who represents the riding in Parliament. This is the same at a provincial level.
Our riding is called “Ottawa – West Nepean”. Every party in every riding where it wants to run a candidate needs to have an organisation to organise the candidate for the party. At a federal level it’s called EDA (the Electoral District Association) and on a provincial level it’s called the CA (Constituency Association). Usually we talk about the EDA or the CA.
Theses organizations are governed respectively by laws from Elections Canada & Elections Ontario and policy by Green Party of Canada and Green Party of Ontario. There are many rules. If you want to run for a party, you need to have an EDA or a CA behind you and you have to be elected by the party members in the riding where you live. The first step is to be nominated to run for the party’s candidacy. Once you are the official candidate, you obviously have to win your riding.
The organizations are mandated by laws to maintain separate executive boards. Executives can serve on both boards, however the EDA CFO and CA Treasurer must be different individuals.
First Past the Post
First past the post means that, who ever wins the riding, goes to Parliament. Which means that for example if the Green Party in your riding has 32%, the Blue Party has 31%, the Red Party 30% and the Orange Party 7%, the Green Party candidate wins and goes to Parliament. The other votes are kind of lost.
Proportional Representation
In a system called ‘Proportional Representation’, all the votes in the country (or province at a provincial election) are added up for each party, and then divided proportionally over the number of available seats. So if the Green Party would win 7% of the all the votes casted, the Green Party would represent all the Green votes with 7% of 338 seats = 23 seats. Even 2% would give the Green Party 6-7 seats in Parliament. This shows that way more people believe in Green Values than the current system makes you believe.
Obviously, we would love to have a proportional representation, like virtually all modern democracies have. It would better represent your environmental concerns.