The Movement |

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Although writers such as H.D. Thoreau and Aldo Leopold had long written on the importance of nature, the modern green movement started in Canada and around the world with the hippies in the 1960s. The counterculture movement was the first major rejection of consumer culture, and its rallying cries for peace, love and flower power eventually evolved into the Green Party values of non-violence, social justice and ecological thinking. 

 

THE EVOLUTION OF GREEN

The hippy phenomena ended quickly, however,  because it had no structure or economic base. In the 1970s, the green movement re-emerged in isolated, small-scale enterprises and organizations such as health food stores, women's and environmental groups, renewable energy stores, organic farms. Though disparate, these groups gave the green movement structure and an economic life, and became integral to communities rather than transient. In the 1980s, dissatisfied with the impotence of isolated activities, actions and opinions, Canadians decided to further organize the green movement into coalitions, including the Ontario Environment Network, the Canadian Organic Growers, Canadian Peace Alliance, the Voice of Women, Solar Energy Society of Canada and many others. The scale and organizational level of these coalitions brought the green movement to the next threshold: building national and provincial political parties.

 

Today, there are more than 100 Green Parties worldwide, in all levels of government, and Green members have been elected in dozens of countries. In Canada, in addition to the federal Green Party of Canada there are Green Parties in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, P.E.I. and Nova Scotia.