Review staff:
The Alberta Green Party met for their annual general meeting on Saturday at the Morningside Hall east of Ponoka but it didn’t start under the most amicable of circumstances as before the meeting had even begun, a large portion of the party’s executive walked out in protest.
As part of the meeting’s agenda, the Greens were about to launch into some constitutional amendments which were intended to result in a leadership review, however before the opening gavel had hit the table, Party President Susan Stratton, Leader George Read, Secretary Madeleine Oldershaw, Deputy Leader Kim Warnke and other executive members all walked out and did not return.
Democracy however carried on and with two executive members left, and120 party faithful in attendance, the constitution was amended with an overwhelming majority and by the time the dust had finally settled much later in the day, Rimbey’s Joe Anglin was elected the new leader, be it on an interim basis.
“There was some contentious issues, some constitutional motions coming forward that were no surprise to anybody, and our executive – which didn’t like the way things looked, just turned around and left,” Anglin said. “Luckily some of the executive did stay, we convened the meeting and things moved forward. It was a cowardly move. You can’t say it any other way. This is a democratic process, we have rules and procedures all governed by our constitution and we go by that constitution.”
As a result, the party has now laid the groundwork to move forward to a convention in the new year that will see both a constitutional review and an election for a permanent leader but before then, the party has some other work to do.
“The first step is to reach out to the membership – we’re going to have some people upset because of all the misinformation going around, but the real big step in to go out to the public and tell them who we are, what we are – we are a grassroots organization and we’re going to invite people to come in and participate, and that’s it in a nutshell,” Anglin said.
“This is overdue. We’ve had inaction in this party; we’ve got two constituencies here, particularly Drayton Valley-Calmar and Lacombe-Ponoka that have risen far above the rest of the party and I can no longer wait for them to catch up. We have to make a change and we need some opposition in this province,” added Edwin Erickson of Buck Lake who along with Anglin garnered the highest amount of votes in the provincial election of last March. “It doesn’t show much courage when the executive of any organization walks away from its own annual general meeting,” “these two constituencies were considerably above the other 81 and this is part of my beef. Let’s get the other 81 constituencies up to speed; let’s move this thing ahead. Let’s not wait for something to happen, let’s make it happen.”
As a result of the leadership review and the original executive walking out of the meeting, new elections were held that saw Connie Jensen of Buck Lake elected the new president; Edwin Erickson, also of Buck Lake and Will Munsey of New Sarepta were elected deputy leaders; David Crowe of Calgary was re-elected as CFO; Kathy Burman of Calgary was elected as membership coordinator, and Danielle Roberts of Calgary was elected as communications coordinator.
Following a vote of non-confidence, Peter Johnson, Mark MacGillivray, and Anglin were all nominated for the position of interim-leader, with Anglin ultimately being elected.
“The final motion at the meeting was passed authorizing the creation of a constitutional committee delegated with the authority to organize a constitutional convention,” Anglin said. “This committee will set rules and procedures to receive submissions, and will establish a schedule for the process of creating by-laws, rules and the adoption of a new constitution. A leadership race and possible election will take place and conclude at the convention.”