Don Drummond giving us his thoughts on Vision Green, photo by Michael Paskewitz thanks to Nyssa McLeod for tracking down the photo.

We are the top of the class. Don Drummond (former chief economist for TD bank and former deputy minister of finance) gave Vision Green a solid B+. We’re not on his honor role yet however he gave the other parties an F for lacking the courage to lay out their plan for Canada, to Canadians, in such detail.

He pointed out where we have done well and more importantly where we could tighten up our policies and improve. In true Green spirit we ate it up. Elizabeth May joked (kidding on the square) the next day that the cabinet was already working on getting an A.

Leaders, candidates, cabinet critics and councilors. Photo by: Camille Labchuk

There were many great policy discussions, unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to the policy workshops due to other events at the same times but I heard from many who attended that they were lively but respectful and that even the policies that did not pass were given some nice debate.

On the constitutional side I think we took a few strides forward. I’ll set leadership stuff aside for now and focus on organizing and governance. The EDA accountability motions will result in stronger EDAs because the rights of the members and the responsibilities of the executives have been put to paper. In terms of governance I think the big news is the replacement of our councillors at large with an executive council. This shrinks the size of the council somewhat but will help us be more responsive and agile moving forward. Also a party president (given a strong mandate from the members) will hopefully bring an end to the roadblocks and division on council while providing consistent direction.