Q&A with the Green Party leadership candidate David Chernushenko.

[PoliticsWatch Updated 5:30 p.m. August 25, 2006]

David Chernushenko hopes to lead the Green Party to Parliament Hill..

David Chernushenko is one of three candidates in the race to lead the Green Party. He's up against well-known activist Elizabeth May and former Green Party candidate Jim Fannon. While May has received a good deal of media attention, Chernushenko was recently endorsed by the Montreal Gazette for his "hard-headed understanding of the electoral politics game." He ran for the Greens in Ottawa-Centre in 2004 and 2006 and received the most votes of any Green candidate in Canada in 2006. On Saturday, Green Party delegates will pick their new leader at their convention in Ottawa. PoliticsWatch spoke with Chernushenko -- or as his staff calls him David C. -- at the Green Party convention 24 hours before the big vote. 

David, you seem to be emphasizing that the Green Party has made some gains, has a machine in 308 ridings, you have 4.5 per cent of the vote, but you want to go further and you think it's important that the party elect someone. Is that correct?
Yes, that's very clear. The message I've made right from the beginning is that we are a political party and a political party exists to elect members in order that it can have influence and really advance its ideas in Parliament -- within the governmental apparatus. 

We have lots of great environmental NGOs and social NGOs in this country. The Green Party is not a Non Governmental Organization, an NGO or an activist group. It is a political party. So for us to accomplish what we want we have to learn how to elect members. 

I understand that you believe the Green Party could be -- no pun intended -- the "natural" governing party because you think it best represents the Canadian attitude. Can you explain that for me?
Yes, Canadians have -- over the last I would say maybe going back to the early '90s the first sort of big green revolution leading up to the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992  -- have gone through a big sort of education and attitude shift where most Canadians really do recognize that there a lot of things about the way our economy runs a lot of things we do that in fact are hurting our quality of life. They be may generating us more dollars but they are actually deteriorating air quality. Our food quality is worse, we are becoming less physically fit and more obese. There are all sorts of things. 

Canadians are very aware. They don't need a party to tell them all the bad things that are happening. They can see it. They need a party that can offer solutions. What we need to show all those people who are favourably inclined to our message is that we are a credible enough party that it is worth investing their vote with us. Not just saying, "I'm glad they're there raising the issues." But "I really want them there," meaning in Parliament. "And I'm going to vote for them."

What about this impression that a lot of people in the media have that the Green Party and the NDP are actually splitting votes? You think that you actually get votes across all parties, including the Conservatives.
I know it because there are members on my campaign team and people in my riding association, members that I have signed up from all across the spectrum. We're getting as many Progressive Conservatives who no longer have a Progressive Conservative party to be a part of. 

We're getting tons of Liberals. I think the Liberals hung in there a little while longer. Paul Martin was making all the right noises about environment and sustainability and then they saw how quickly they sacrificed those things as well as the sort of loss of face and ethical standing the Liberals have had. We are now going to see a large-scale shift of green Liberals to the Green Party. And, yes, there are lots of New Democrats who are either already members or who will soon cross over when they see we are capable of winning and it's worth making the shift.

What percentage of Canadians then do you think could vote for the Green Party? What's out there for your party?
I think that 80 or 90 per cent of Canadians could vote for the Green Party if we get to them the message of who we really are, not the perception that we are some one-issue party way out on the left. We will never get the votes of people who are really social conservatives on some key issues and we will never get the votes of people who are truly socialists and believe there is no role for business and private sector and anyone pursuing a profit. Anyone else in between could be a Green Party voter. 

Getting elected is a key for you based on the literature on your Web site and what you said at the June leadership debate. So what's you're strategy to get at least a handful of Green Party candidates elected next year or the year after whenever the government falls?
I have a two-pronged strategy. One is focusing on the actual building of the party -- the base of the pyramid that is going to take a certain number of people up to the top and get elected. Anyone who goes to my Web site can see it all in great detail . . . Beyond the building side there is actually the message and getting across the message. I talk about getting outside our traditional circles. 

Those environmentalists who we know and love and are already voting for us, we should be spending our time not on making them love us even more, but on getting all of the people who are not voting for us yet to understand that a party that's strong on the environment is also much more than that and that we do speak for them and can speak for them. I would like to get out to Chambers of Commerce and Rotary Clubs and recent immigrant groups and on and on down the list of faith groups and others to tell them who we really are.

What about targeting ridings or other strategies on the ground?
I'm willing to do a certain amount of targeting ridings, but I still believe we should be trying to run a candidate in all 308 ridings. Level A -- 308 ridings get a sufficient amount of support from the party . . . Then based on the size of membership and the candidate and track record, we pick about 20 of our best chances and we give them another level of support -- media training for their candidate, some additional money if it's available, training sessions and canvassing for volunteers. Then during an election as we get close to the end we focus. We say, "Alright, have we got money left that we can pump in? Have we got volunteers willing to move to our best three ridings? Maybe our best one (riding)?" Then we give it everything we've got.

What's the threshold of popular support in a riding -- percentage wise -- for a Green candidate to get elected? The way it stands now, there obviously would have to be some vote-splitting happening. What do you think is the minimum you have to get in one riding?
The minimum is about 35 per cent, maybe 30 with an almost four-way split. My riding was nearly a four-way split. I came in fourth, but was up over 10 per cent so every party is very aware that the Green Party is a factor. We really need to be aiming for the 30 per cent target. That's why I say to Greens very honestly for me to go out to a voter and say, "Trust me I can win. Your vote could be my winning vote." But they see us at four per cent. They say, "You're a nice guy, but come on. How do you get from four to 30?" 

Now I'm over 10 per cent. Can I in the next election, especially as leader of the party, can I now convince the 20 or 30 per cent who said to me after the election, "You know, David. I wanted to vote for you. I almost voted for you, but I thought I had to vote strategically." If I can capture all of the "but vote," as I call them. If we can get them, we can win seats. Because there are 40 or maybe 50 per cent of voters who like what they see, but would like to vote for us -- but!! We've got to get them.

You ran against some tough competition -- Paul Dewar who obviously had family political experience and Richard Mahoney who was a Paul Martin organizer and you managed to get the most votes for a Green candidate.
That's why I feel so hopeful. It's in the ridings that are already more progressive, like Ottawa-Centre that are very split. In ridings like that there is enormous potential because there are so many people who could vote for us.

You received an endorsement from the Montreal Gazette yesterday. They chose you because of what they called your "hard-headed understanding of the electoral-politics game." Do you consider that your advantage in this leadership race?
It is a big advantage. Although my main opponent is an extremely intelligent, knowledgeable, likeable person, it is the first time for her in federal politics. I have run in two campaigns. I know what a campaign is about. I know what mistakes we made and what we need to do to fix them. I know how to get volunteers and to empower them to go out and work for us. I know how to raise money . . . I think that a leader has to have that experience. You just can't jump in from out of the blue into a party and be able to do that. Am I a politician all my life? No. I've been in politics for three years out of my 43. But they've been an intensive three years with three elections. 

What's the most important issue facing Canada in 2006? 
I would describe it as a change of direction. We have to move away from the false assumption that bigger and more will actually be better -- that more roads, more cars, more energy use, more of everything, more money is going to lead to a better life. In many ways it leads to worse. It leads to gridlock, to smog, to pollution, to poorer food quality and all those things. We need to shift Canadians' thinking to a whole other mindset that quality of life is more important than quantity of things that we have. And that vast majority of Canadians recognize that. Yet all the messages we are bombarded with, whether the it's the advertising we get for products or the messages we get from politicians, is "I'm going to grow the economy. We're going to build. We're going to have more." It's a shift in direction. It's saying, do I get to a better society using the accelerator or do I get there by using a steering wheel? We're saying, "We've tried the accelerator for 200 years. The abyss is getting closer how about if we try using the steering wheel now."

Is that really something that can be accomplished through politics? I understand what you're saying, but that's a major change in people's behaviour. That's the way everyone has been acting since after World War II essentially in North America.
It is. And that's what makes us when we say we are unlike any other party because we are the only party that dares to say something that is fundamentally true. We only have one planet. Until someone shows me a couple more that are a short hop away that we can get to, why would I do anything that would continue to harm the only planet we've got when in fact I could be advocating a way of living that is not only saving but actually improving the planet we are on. 

Most people deep down understand that. But it does run counter to all the messages that we're bombarded with. However, I can't sell that until I bring it down to a series of practical things. How about if we promote the health of Canadians, not just spend money on health care? How do we do that? Here's five ways we can promote health. How about if we shift industry towards being highly energy efficient so that increasing oil prices and instability of our fuel supplies we can laugh at. We can say, "Ha. Who cares? In Canada we're so efficient that that doesn't bother us." Those are concrete things that the party can and does advocate that are part of that change in direction.

Stepping away from the environment, what's the biggest issue for Canada or the world? 
The first thing we have to acknowledge is everything we do as humans is related to the environment . . . Let's take that as a given and then we'll talk about the other issues. . . What's going on right now between Israel and Lebanon and in the Middle East, a large factor in that conflict is water and water scarcity. And that's not mentioned. When we talk foreign policy and conflict in other parts of the world what's at the source of many of these conflicts? Do people have enough food? Are there huge refugee camps that have had to shift from one part of the world or another because of climate changes or scarcity of water or other things? I guess what I'm saying is it is hard to get away from ever saying let's just ignore the environment completely. Do we have views on foreign policy? My background is in international relations. 

I'm not asking if you have views. I'm sure you have them. I just want to know what your views are. Let's take the war on terror then. 
I will always avoid the question of what is the most important issue because there is never such a thing as a most important issue. The war on terror? What frustrates me and even angers me about what I've been hearing from the Bush government and the Harper government and at least up until very recently the Blair government and others is an oversimplification of everything. In any issue what I would say is where I'm going to define myself is I'm going to say this issue is complex. Let's acknowledge that and let's get at the complexity. What's going on right now in the Middle East neither the Lebanese nor Hezbollah nor the people who have chosen to support Hezbollah nor the Israelis, none of them are inherently evil people. We can't say, "Somebody here is bad, and somebody is good. So let's pick the good people and support them." We have to say, "Everybody in this situation has either a grievance or a concern or an interest they're trying to advance." If we don't acknowledge that and understand it and try and find common ground then we won't get anywhere. Then it will be the eternal conflict. 

So do you think the Liberals made a mistake this week when they stripped one of their MPs of his duties because he wanted to talk to certain people?
The trouble wasn't that he wanted to talk to people. I think they were very much doing the right thing and the Harper government was making a big mistake by not sending a representative from the Conservative government  to talk to people. The mistake they made was flipping the other way, coming out with a public pronouncement after a day or two in the Middle East, saying "Hezbollah should be taken off the list of terrorist organizations." It is a terrorist organization or at least it is an organization that overtly advocates terror and the destruction of the Israeli state. What they could have said was let's not oversimplify this thing. Let's not suddenly say, "Everything Israel is doing is fine and everything everyone else is doing is not." But what they did was make the big political mistake of coming out with quick political judgement that was a firebomb and was wrong.

The vote is Saturday afternoon. What do you think you will be doing Saturday night? 
Regardless I'll be breathing a big sigh of relief. Either way I will be thanking an incredible group of volunteers that have been on my team. Whether we'll be partying and smiling or toasting each other for a job well done, it's too close to call. It really is. When Elizabeth May, well known in environmental circles, big reputation, big personality, jumped in some people said, "Why would you want to run against her? How can anybody beat her?" I knew we could. I knew that the type of campaign that I wanted to run was straightforward, well crafted, a sophisticated message showing me to be someone capable of governing was what I wanted to do and I hope that it would be enough to win votes. We'll know in 24 hours. 

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