Holloway brushed the red hair out of her eyes and smiled at me as we sat down for a chat in Robarts. As we discussed everything from the upcoming Ontario provincial elections to the proposed electoral reform, I could barely keep from drowning in charm over the Irish lilt in her voice. The Liberal incumbent, ready to talk business, explained how her change in political labels didn’t reflect a change of heart. Holloway was once upon a time a prominent Green Party national leader. She co-founded the Green Party’s Woman Caucus and ran in the 2004 federal elections as a parachute candidate against Liberal incumbent MP Derek Lee in Scarborough–Rouge River. So what prompted the switch to the Liberals?
Criticism of GPC management may have cost her much of her influence in the environmentalist party. In January 2005, Ms. Holloway was summarily suspended from the GPC Council after then-party-leader Jim Harris called an off-the-record in camera motion to remove her from the Federal Council. No reason was provided, said Holloway, who was denied a copy of the meeting’s minutes.
Nonetheless, her riding rallied around her, and in 2005 she was named the Green candidate for Toronto Centre, only to find her nomination cancelled by party organizers. She resigned her position at the GPC, along with several other prominent members, all of them citing mismanagement of the party. At our meeting, Holloway refused to discuss what her last few controversy- ridden years with the Greens had to do with her decision to turn Liberal. She did say that with Stephane Dion as party leader, differences between the grits and the Greens have narrowed.
“There are no ideological differences between the Green Party and the Liberal Party, no differences in values,” claimed Holloway. “They are both centrist, and care about social justice and quality of life. And now, both the electorate and mainstream politics have woken up to climate and environmental issues.”
“Green issues are local issues,” she said, “but the Green Party is predominantly a federal party, and the issues that are important are transit, energy, hydro, garbage, and these need to be addressed at the provincial and municipal level.
For now, transit is still in a crisis and coal-fired plants are operating in Ontario, including Canada’s largest CO2 dumper, the Nanticoke Generating Station. Perhaps Ms. Holloway’s convictions on the Liberal party’s green policies are more than just hot air.
