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The founding of the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada The Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada (AAEV) was founded in 2005 and was accepted as a federal registered political party on 10 December 2005.
AAEV was founded by people associated with Animal Alliance of Canada (AAC) and Environment Voters (EV): two organizations that have campaigned in elections since 1999 to promote progressive environmental and animal protection policies at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. AAC and EV campaigned to elect candidates and parties with good environmental and animal protection records and to oppose those with poor ones. Since 1999, the groups have participated in over 50 campaigns. See News section. Founding the party became necessary when the federal Liberal government passed laws that were intended to so restrict the election activities of groups like AAC and EV -- so-called 'third parties' (visit the Elections Canada website for detailed information) -- that their election activities would have no appreciable effect on election outcomes. See Globe and Mail 10 December 2005 editorial "The gag law's injury." However, what the Liberal government did not count on was that at the same time that they were taking away the democratic rights of groups to participate in elections, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down a ruling in another case that struck down the barriers the Liberals tried to put in the way of registering a political party. No longer would a party have to run 50 candidates to qualify for registration, but rather one. The 'third parties' AAC and EV became the registered political party the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada and with registration came the right to fully participate in elections and promote sound environmental and animal protection policies. Like all political parties, one of the purposes of AAEV is to campaign for the election of at least one candidate in federal elections. However, AAEV will do much more. It's a political reality that the public policy decisions made by Canada's governing political parties are determined not necessarily by what is right, but rather by what will win them votes. Environmental and animal protection policies are no exception.
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It's also a political reality that politicians, for the most part, decide what protection will be afforded the environment and animals. If the air we breath is killing us, or species are driven to extinction, it's because politicians decided that is what should happen. They made the decision because, in their political judgment, there were more votes to be had by allowing the air to be polluted or a fish species to be harvested to the brink of extinction. Since 1993, the Liberal Party of Canada has been dismantling Canada's environmental and animal protections. On the world stage, Canada lobbies tirelessly to reduce global environmental protections. The result is that today, Canada has one of the worst environmental records among the OECD countries and supports the largest, cruelest marine mammal slaughter in the world: the Canadian seal hunt. The Liberal Party has been able to pursue these policies because the Canadian environmental and animal protection movement -- with the exception of Animal Alliance of Canada and Environment Voters -- does not participate in federal elections. It neither works to reward politicians and parties with good environmental records nor opposes those with poor ones. Public policy is decided by negotiations between politically relevant actors, and until the environmental and animal protection movement is politically relevant it will have no meaningful influence over the government's environmental policies. For a futher discussion of the relationship between the environmental movement and public policy, see Saving the Planet to Death. Protecting the environment and animals is not a trivial matter. Environmental pollutants, for example, are responsible for most of the cancers that afflict us. Breast cancer will always be a threat as long as we live in a soup of airborne, waterborne, and foodborne carcinogens. As we destroy Canadian ecosystems, we also destroy the basis for all of our economic hopes and dreams. The only way to make Canadian politicians and political parties protect and enhance our environment and protect animals and wildlife is to make it in their own personal best interests to do so. The Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada was formed to use politics, particularly electoral politics, to make governments adopt policies that protect the environment and animals.  |
AAEV ran four candidates in the October 14, 2008 general election: Liz White, the leader of the party, in Toronto Centre; Marie Crawford, a board member, in Toronto-Danforth; Karen Levenson, Guelph resident and AAEV colleague, in Guelph; and Simon Luisi, an AAEV supporter and long-time activist, in Davenport.
For a more detailed discussion of this, download the Environment Voters interview (