This is the last in a series of four posts about each of the four major parties in the Edmonton-Strathcona riding, which are posted in the order of the 2006 vote totals. This post deals with the Greens.

2006 results

Party Candidate Votes % ±%
  Conservatives Rahim Jaffer 22,009 41.7% +2.3%
  New Democrats Linda Duncan 17,153 32.5% +8.7%
  Liberals Andy Hladyshevsky 9,391 17.8% -11.2%
  GREENS Cameron Wakefield 3,139 5.9% -0.6%

The Greens did quite well across Alberta in the 2006 election, increasing their vote totals almost across the board, often drastically. Edmonton-Strathcona, on the other hand, was the only riding in the province where the Green vote went down last election, both in terms of percentage and in terms of actual votes. This seems to be traceable back to the presence of local environmental lawyer and international environmental law consultant Linda Duncan as the NDP candidate, who came a strong second.

The winter of 2007 was nomination season in Edmonton-Strathcona, and the Greens were no exception. In mid-February Don Hill, former broadcaster for the popular Wild Rose Forum on Edmonton CBC radio, was nominated as the candidate. This was confirmed a few weeks later in the See Magazine article “The Return of Don Hill: Broadcaster carries Green flag in Strathcona” (which can now only be read in cache), and in a letter from Elizabeth May about issues concerning the nomination procedures in the riding, reposted in a blog.

I won’t be delving into the details of rumours I don’t have print sources for, but just generally we can talk about the period that followed as the rumour period. First, there were rumours that, for various reasons, Hill wasn’t actually going to run. Then there were rumours that David Parker, who actually ended up running in Edmonton Centre, was going to replace him. Then there were rumours that the local Greens were thinking about not running a candidate in Edmonton-Strathcona at all, so as not to dig into the potential vote for NDP candidate Linda Duncan. Finally, current candidate Jane Thrall was nominated earlier this month.

Thrall was raised in Edmonton and schooled in her field of optometry at both the University of Alberta and at the University of Waterloo. She is not only a professional optometrist, but also a writer and an artist who has worked professionally as a food writer. She has traveled to Central and South America to provide volunteer vision care services to local communities, and regards maintaining public health care as one of her key priorities.

So far, it seems to have been a low-key campaign. I’ve seen no Green signs, received no Green leaflets, and Thrall has no independent website. And this is pure speculation on my part, but I suspect this might be deliberate. In an article published VUE Magazine in late 2006, NDP candidate Duncan was reported as saying: “Frankly, the message from the Green candidate in this riding last time was, at the end of every forum, ‘I hope my votes don’t keep you from getting elected.’” It therefore seems quite possible that the local party ultimately chose to nominate a candidate so as to preserve their supporters’ right to vote for the Greens, but to keep their efforts in the riding low-key in an attempt not to contradict their federal leader’s call that Greens vote for the candidate who can best defeat the Conservatives. If it’s true, then they’ve successfully navigated two very conflicting priorities.

Further reading:
Jane Thrall’s page on the Edmonton Greens site
Edmonton-Strathcona: a snapshot
Edmonton-Strathcona: the Conservatives
Edmonton-Strathcona: the New Democrats
Edmonton-Strathcona: the Liberalssite stats