Young green history
Quick Facts
- We are the youth wing of the Green Party of Canada (GPC)
- Our membership extends to all GPC members between the ages of 14-29
- We currently have over 1300 voting members
- We work in local ridings, campus clubs, Green youth clubs and our communities
The Young Greens' Historic Beginning
The 2006 Convention has proven to be a strong coming out party for GPC Youth. With two youth resolutions passed, three youth meetings over the course of the weekend, a gala dinner announcement, and a Youth Caucus Development Committee (YCDC) struck, an alert has sounded across GPC grounds: youth are coming out to get their party started.
The weekend started innocently enough. Both youth resolutions passed quickly and quietly, the first a constitutional resolution moving that a Youth Chair seat be created on Federal Council passed, and the second, a directive resolution moving that a standing committee on youth involvement in the party be struck passed. The passing of these two resolutions clearly indicated the support of the membership, and the door of opportunity swung open and wide. Green youth leapt through and immediately started building.
The evening of that first day, youth held their first meeting. 30 young people pressed into the limited space of a local pub, straining to hear each other over the din of a celebratory Green crowd. And, before they knew what they had agreed to, young people were signing up to create content for a website and blog, and committing to another meeting on the Saturday evening.
Youth sought each other out – "Are you going to the meeting tonight?" "Do you know where it is?" Word was traveling like wild fire, the energy of possibility mounting. A pre-meeting meeting was announced and held, organized to brainstorm the content of an announcement at the gala dinner, one that highlighted the resolve and intention of GPC youth.
A half hour before the scheduled gala dinner, the official meeting began. Ben West, elected B.C. representative on council, presided over the meeting, taking suggestions and guiding the meeting towards action. Rather than appoint a temporary Youth Caucus, attendees pushed for the need to enable the many talented youth across Canada who had been unable to attend the convention, the opportunity to run for positions on the Youth Caucus. It was decided that a Youth Caucus Development Committee (YCDC) would best meet the need of developing an appropriate Constitution, job descriptions for Council positions, and means of electing the members of a Young Greens Council.
With their plans formalized, youth were ready to introduce themselves to the membership. Crowded onto the stage, and staring over a sea of smiling faces in formal wear, four spokespersons in turn took to the microphone. With the overwhelming support of the crowd, they pointed to the GPC's exciting success in high school classroom elections, the alignment of youth values with those of the GPC, their desire to be a strong voice to and for other youth working for positive political change at this important juncture, and their intent to work with and for GPC EDAs.
GPC youth are both our future and our present. With passion and resolve, they will strengthen the ranks of young people within the party and support EDAs in getting Green MPs elected. They will show youth across Canada that only the GPC's good-for-seven-generations policies support youth and that the other party's rancid best-before-the-next-election policies only lead to stomach upset. It's time. GPC youth are taking this party to the House!
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction. -E. F. Schumacher.
