On October 3rd, 2020,
Annamie Paul was selected as the new leader of the Green Party of Canada.
She was chosen over her seven rivals
for the position after eight rounds of voting.
Paul succeeds Elizabeth May who led the party for fourteen years and was,
for most of that time, its only MP in the House of Commons.
Annamie Paul assumes the helm of a party
that won six point six percent of the popular vote,
and three seats in the last federal election.
The Green Party has never won more than the six point eight percent
of the national popular vote it received in 2008.
Only three Green Party candidates
have ever been elected to the House of Commons.
As I record this podcast, Paul is not an elected Member of Parliament.
She plans, however, to run in a by-election in Toronto-Centre.
It would appear that the new leader of the Green Party
has a daunting task ahead of her.
While Green parties have done well in a number of democracies,
even achieving partnership status in coalition governments,
and being elected to govern
in some major European cities and regional governments,
the electoral track record of the Green Party of Canada is unimpressive.
The explanation for this difference between the election results
achieved by the Green Party of Canada,
and those of its cousins in Europe and in New Zealand,
lies in Canada's single member,
simple plurality electoral system,
or what is perhaps more often called a First-Past-the-Post system.
Under this electoral model, the winning candidate in each riding
is the person who receives the greatest number of votes.
This system punishes minor parties
whose support is widely distributed across the country.
On the other hand, a proportional representation system,
such as exists in almost all of the countries
where Green parties are more successful than in Canada,
is based on the principle that a party should be rewarded
with a share of seats in the legislature proportionate
to its share of the popular vote.
All of this is well known,
and it comes as no surprise that the Green Party
has always advocated for the adoption
of proportional representation in Canada.
But would a larger contingent of Green Party MPs
in Parliament make a difference?
It obviously would make a difference for the Green Party,
which has never elected nearly enough MPs
to earn official party standing in the House of Commons.
The adoption of proportional representation
might well result in more Canadians being willing to
cast their votes for Green party candidates
than is true under the current electoral system,
where a vote for the Green Party doubtless seems
to many Canadians a wasted vote.
But would a greater Green party presence in Parliament
translate into better environmental policies, whatever "better" might mean?
Well, the answer to this question is obvious, right?
More Green Party MPs, and a louder Green voice in Parliament,
including the prospect of the Greens
having leverage over a minority government,
or even participating in a coalition government
as has happened in some European countries,
in and New Zealand — this would surely result
in more attention to environmental matters,
and to policy reforms contributing to better environmental outcomes.
In fact, this is not obvious.
Yale University publishes an annual ranking and report
called the Environmental Policy Index, or EPI.
It is based on a number of measures related
to the state of environmental sustainability around the world.
In 2020 Canada places 20th
of the one hundred and eighty countries included in the EPI ranking.
Others countries without proportional representation
that rank in the top twenty include the United Kingdom,
4th, France, 5th, and Australia, 13th.
Japan, which ranks 12th in the 2002 EPI,
uses a combination of the single member,
simple plurality system, and proportional representation,
whereby two hundred and ninety-five members of the national legislature
are elected to represent individual constituencies,
and the remaining one hundred and eighty seats are distributed
on the basis of proportional representation.
Most of the countries in the EPI top twenty
have some variant of a proportional representation electoral system.
But several do not.
So, it appears that having an electoral system
such as that in Canada, or the UK,
or France's run-off voting system, is not a necessary condition.
Oh, excuse me.
Let me back up on that.
So, it appears that having an electoral system such as that in Canada,
or the UK, or France's run-off voting system,
is not a bar to achieving a comparatively good environmental record.
Moreover, there are certainly other, and perhaps more important factors
that explain a country's environmental performance.
And indeed, the literature on this question demonstrates conclusively
that foremost among these factors is national wealth.
Wealthier countries are better able than less wealthy ones
to be able to finance the infrastructure,
administrative capacity and other costs that contribute
to better environmental outcomes.
But there are other factors too.
The most important of these, according to Yale's EPI,
is the quality of governance.
The EPI measures this using the World Bank's World Governance Indicators,
none of which have to do with a country's electoral system per se,
but that involve various mechanisms providing voice and accountability
for citizens, the rule of law, control of corruption,
perceptions in the quality of public services, and so on.
The 2020 EPI report states,
"The literature provides robust evidence
that most of the World Governance Indicators
are significantly correlated with a country's environmental sustainability score."
A second factor that correlates strongly with how well a country performs
on the EPI is the sectoral composition of the economy.
A higher share of services in a country's economy
correlates with higher scores on the EPI.
The explanation for this, states the EPI report, is that quote,
"pressures on the environment lessen as countries de-industrialize
and shift to a services-based economy." Unquote.
Neither of these two factors identified by Yale's EPI report
has anything to do with whether a country has proportional representation,
or a single member, simple plurality electoral system.
We might go further and ask whether strong environmental NGOs,
public opinion that is sensitive to environmental issues,
and political parties that are broader-based in their support
than Green parties typically are,
but that respond to these environmental concerns,
can ensure that the national conversation on environmental matters,
and governments' responses to pressures from civil society
are enough to result in a country's environmental sustainability performance
being at least as good
as those of many countries that have proportional representation,
and more Green Party representation in their legislatures.
The answer to this, the Green Party of Canada, and its supporters will say is,
"obviously not!"
But the literature on the correlates of a country's environmental performance
suggests that Green parties may be wrong about this.
In addition to the Yale EPI data that has been mentioned,
a study that compared the environmental performance
of consensus democracies that,
"facilitate formal representation of green issues in government"
to majoritarian democracies,
"characterised by pluralistic interest group politics",
arrives at this conclusion, quote:
"Are consensus democracies more environmental?
...Although there is some support for this claim the evidence is mixed,
and is dependent on how one, measures environmental effectiveness."
So, here's a question,
would electoral reform,
resulting in perhaps twenty or thirty additional Green Party MPs
in the House of Commons,
make a difference for Canada's environmental performance?