In the latest EKOS poll which came out earlier today the Green Party of Canada is sitting at 13.0% nationally. In BC 18.1% of those polled choose the GPC.

13 is a great number for us. 18 is an even better one. But the number that should stick out the most is who voters under 25 will be supporting. In that category the GPC is out in front with 28.5%.

Of course the margin of error is higher in BC and among those <25 than it is nationally but margins of error go both ways and regardless it tells us just how important young voters are to the Green Party.

Craig Cantin is currently the interim executive director of the Green Party of Canada. I have worked for Craig in the past and consider him a friend and mentor. He is great at what he does and had he decided to stay on as ED I think we would have done wonderfully. Unfortunately Craig does not wish to continue on as ED and (I assume) will return to his role as the manager of technical services for the GPC.

His successor has giant shoes to fill and the person in the position must have the political experience and leadership skills to get the job done. I have been mulling over who I though would make a great ED. I even thought of applying myself (I’m not at all qualified but I can work long hours for cheap).

In thinking of what I would like to see in our next ED I developed an informal list:

New EKOS polls is out (you can find the full report here) and has us sitting at 13% up a bit at one of our highest levels since EKOS introduced the other option. Taking margin of error into account its where we have been sitting for months. In fact (going by the weekly tracking graph in this report) we have been hovering above 10% since November of last year and we're working our way towards 20% in BC.

One in ten Canadians have consistently throughout 2010 selected the Green Party of Canada as their first choice even when given an true none of the above option with Other. This poll also pegged the GPC's second choice support at 11%.

Yesterday I wrote that the GPO distinguishes itself from the other opposition parties by providing thoughtful opposition.  I cited the various opposition positions on HST as an example.  Today on his blog Steve highlights another great example of this.

Tension between Toronto and the rest of Ontario?  Easy just have Toronto succeed, or at least that's what one Conservative MPP suggests.  That tension is a real problem in Ontario but Murdoch's solution (which I do believe is titled Cutting Off Our Nose to Spite Our Face) is far from thoughtful.  The PC's simply do not provide a realistic alternative to the Liberals.

On Sunday John posted a blog putting forward that the GPO might leaning too far to the "blue-green" side and suggested we move a bit back towards "tree-hugging".   I think his point is important, we need do distinguish ourselves from our competition.  In an effort to ensure that we are taken seriously and not simply written off as the granola-munching fringe we have perhaps made ourselves look very much like PCs.

However I think we can distinguish ourselves from the them without becoming more "deep-green".

This is a cross post from http://granolabloggers.blogspot.com/:

So you're a student.  You graduate in April.  You're drowning in student debt and unemployment in your age group is at a 30 year high.  You're healthy if you don't count that you breath smog all day and everything you consume from laundry detergent to lunch is full of chemicals.  You live on ramen noodles and no-name Kraft dinner to stay within your budget while our government racks up a record deficit.

You may become frustrated.  You may ask yourself, why do we talk more about pensions than education?  Why are they saying the recession is over when people my age can't find work?  Why does our health-care debate revolve around drug benefits and end of life care and not prevention and healthy living?  And why is my government so eager to mortgage my future for the comforts of today?

The answer to these questions is that you don't vote.  Or if you do, your friends don't or at least not enough of them.  When our politicians pander to demographics they pander to the demographics who will help them win.  That's not us.

In the last election only about 37% of eligible voters under 25 bothered to show up at the polls. Compare that to your grandparents at 68%, or your parents at 60%.

They vote, so they impact election results.  Politicians pay attention to them.  For the most part we get ignored and it's our fault.  We need to either start voting or start getting used to short end of the stick.

There was a flurry of activity leading up to the NHL Olympic break.  Massive deals saw Phaneuf coming to Toronto from Calgary and Toskala heading to Anaheim in exchange for Giguere. After failing to renegotiate his contract the Atlanta Thrashers dealt franchise player Ilya Kovalchuk to New Jersey.

However the team that made out the best was perhaps the Green Party of Canada who acquired veteran enforcer Georges Laraque from the Montreal Canadiens.  While the GPC has maintained record levels of youth and enthusiasm it has been clear that they have been suffering this season from a lack of size.

With Laraque now in the lineup the GPC is setting their sites on a long playoff run but team captain Elizabeth May was quick to point out that it will take Laraque a few games to become accustom to the systems employed by the Greens.

Mark recently pointed out that polls (at least individual polls) can be pretty meaningless.  This also extends to seat projections that change based on microscopic variat

So there's a new HD poll out.  My first impression is that I like the new green look but now on to more substantial observations.

So this survey was conducted over 2 weeks with a sample size of 1,000 per week.  Nationally HD has us at 9% (not bad) with the Libs and Cons tied at 32% (hopefully keeping us from a spring election).

Regionally we are sitting at:

Whenever I bring up a poll result that is particularly positive those who champion the idea that the GPC is in an awful state bring up the fact that it's just one poll and we shouldn't read too much in to it.  You know what?  They're right, one poll doesn't really mean much.  Of course they are guilty of it too.  They post polls with more negative results with the same glee I post polls with mo