D-Brief for Sep 26

Posted on September 26, 2020

Dr. Radhika Desai endorses Dimitri

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D-Brief for September 26

Dr. Radhika Desai endorses Dimitri
How to vote for Dimitri Lascaris and your other preferred candidates
Final platform plank: The People's Health Service
New video: Countdown to the Vote! #TheTimeIsNow to elect Dimitri Lascaris A different kind of leader

Dr. Radhika Desai

Dr. Radhika Desai, Professor at the Department of Political Studies, and Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. Dr. Desai is the author of Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire (2013), and has written, edited, or co-edited seven other books, with four currently underway.

Dr. Radhika Desai endorses Dimitri

“Dimitri’s carefully thought-through and principled positions impressed me long before this leadership contest. His programme outline convinced me it was the truly green programme we need: we cannot end the ecological emergency without challenging corporate power. Dimitri’s inspiring vision gives us the chance of generations to radically shift Canadian politics towards peace, progress and social justice, to shake it out of its dreary short-sighted fiscal conservatism.

“As we face a toxic trio of challenges –- the greatest public health emergency, the deepest ecological emergency and the most serious economic crisis ever, Green Party members have the chance to make history. They have the chance to give their party and their country the sort of leader and vision we are going to need.

“Let's not miss it!”

-- Dr. Radhika Desai

Ranked Ballot voting for Dimitri and your preferred candidates

If we all voted for our single, favorite candidate and did not rank all of our other preferred candidates, the result would be the same as in any "First Past The Post" election -- a distortion of the proportion of support each candidate has earned from all voters.

The result of ranked ballots is a "consensus” candidate -- the candidate preferred by most electors.

If we rank Dimitri as our number 1 -- followed by all other candidates in our order of preference -- we'll ensure a proportionate recognition of our choices. That's how the Green Party of Canada chooses a leader who fully represents a consensus among all voters.

Please vote for Dimitri as your number 1 choice, and carefully rank everyone who has worked so hard to represent you.

Dimitri releases final platform plank: The People’s Health Service

Today, we released the final plank in our platform, the People’s Health Service (full PDF). This is the last in a set of 9 documents that outline my view of the direction in which the Green Party should go. Ultimately, in our members-driven party, it is the members who will decide whether to embrace this view.

Experience has demonstrated consistently in the last ten years that our Party's efforts to occupy the crowded centre of Canadian politics have not enabled our Party to achieve its full potential. Centrism is, at best, a call for incremental reform, but Canadians now know that the time for incrementalism has passed. The pandemic has made this clearer than ever.

My proposals take us boldly in the direction of our essential green values and in a strongly progressive direction. That is the real path to dramatic growth. That is how we will achieve our full potential and become a powerful force for transformative change.

You can read all of our platform statements on our web site. They cover all aspects of our society from health to workers’ rights to the economy, foreign policy, Indigenous rights, justice, equity, our party’s internal governance and, of course, the environment. These documents build on the underlying platform of the Green Party as developed over the last 15 years.

I want to thank the extraordinary team of over 30 people who have worked on this platform over the last 4 months. They have been ably led by Professor Radhika Desai, the Chairperson of our Platform Committee. She has worked tirelessly to get the documents written and prepared for publication. All of our amazing contributors deserve some time off now, to get back to their professional and personal lives, but we will need them more than ever to help build policy motions for presentation to the members in the GPC's policy development process.

I am honoured to receive Radhika's endorsement and to have her support.

Learn more about The People's Health Service (PHS).