Jim Harris (politician)
Jim Harris (born ca. 1961) is the leader of the Green Party of Canada. He was initially elected in 2003 with over 81 per cent of the votes cast in a three-way race. After the Canadian federal election, 2004, Harris was re-elected leader in a much closer race against Tom Manley and John Grogan, despite the Party's dramatic rise to 4.3% of the popular vote (see Party directions below for more on this). Harris has run in municipal, provincial and federal elections as a Green.
Early Green Career
In the early 1980's Harris was a student at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada - which no longer exists. Harris claims to have been converted to green politics after reading Green Politics by Fritjof Capra and Charlene Spretnak, which highlighted the emergence of the German Greens. In 1987, he worked as the National Press Officer of the British Green Party; he is now a lifetime member of that party.
After traveling around the world for four years following university, Harris returned to Canada and immediately entered green politics. In 1990, he organized the Green Party of Ontario's provincial campaign - which fielded 40 candidates and received 33,000 votes - a drastic increase from 7 candidates and 3,000 votes in the previous election. Jim Harris was elected as the first president of the Green Party of Ontario in 2001, serving in that role until 2003 when he moved to the federal arena.
Author and Speaking Career
Jim Harris has written six books - one of which was a best-seller in Canada. He also speaks on change and leadership. Association Magazine ranked him as one of Canada's top speakers. Harris speaks at about 50 international conferences a year and conducts strategic planning sessions with executive teams on leadership, change, CRM, eLearning, innovation and creating learning organizations. Several members of the Green Party of Canada have contributed portions to his books, but none have been credited.
Some of Harris' critics have spoken disparagingly about his actual knowledge of these subjects or capacity to apply the "Green values" in either business or politics. See politics sections below. Many of Harris' top aides worked both in the leaders' office of the Party and Harris's personal businesses, often simultaneously.
His most recent book Blindsided!, was published in over 80 countries. His second book, The Learning Paradox, was nominated for the National Business Book Award in Canada and appeared on numerous bestseller lists. Books for Business ranked it as one of the top-10 business books in North America. Harris also co-authored The 100 Best Companies to Work for in Canada - part of a regular best-selling series of books that multiple authors have contributed to over the years.
Policy directions
Harris replaced interim leader Chris Bradshaw who led the party from 2001-2003. Joan Russow, who left the GPC after the Canadian federal election, 2000, re-emerged in 2004 to launch a series of statements favoring the New Democratic Party of Canada - claiming among other things that ISO 14000 standards were incompatible with stronger environmental management regulations by government because they allow industries to choose whether to comply or not.
There was extremely bad blood between Harris and Russow, in part because Harris is from the realist or "reli" faction of the GPC while Russow hailed from the fundamental or "fundi" faction of the GPC. These are sometimes seen vaguely as right and left tendencies, but Greens in general deny that and consider it mostly a tactical difference.
The 2004 GPC emphasized eco-capitalist doctrines of full cost accounting, triple bottom line and the green tax shift - sometimes noting that almost all of its proposals were already implemented in Europe, mostly by right-wing parties, but not opposed or reversed by European Greens. The platform ignored key elements of longstanding Green doctrine like bioregional democracy and failed to follow up the Greens' strategies of 2003 in which they were successful in establishing ecological and social indicators as part of the Finance Ministry.
Until February 2005, the 2005 GPC policy was authored online by members according to the Green's participatory democracy principle using a wiki process called the Green Party of Canada Living Platform. Centralization of power has increased significantly during Harris's two terms as leader, as he has pushed out a number of voices who spoke for or sought transparency in party operations. Notably, several women - Harris has a reputation for being a misogynist - are or were targetted by Harris for removal from party work. This includes Chair of Shadow Cabinet Sharon Labchuk, who was leading the Living Platform effort. On February 7, 2005, Harris was recorded in the minutes of a meeting as strongly supporting the Living Platform and process - despite having already hired his own policy "expert" Ken Dickerson, and directing his own press release author Dermod Travis, to do what they could to squelch the LP.
On February 9, 2005, they shut down Living Platform on flimsy excuses that many members immeidately protested. The Shadow Cabinet in particular was livid. This was seen by longtime members as resembling the way former leader Joan Russow "took control" of the platform in 2000, and locked out the volunteer work. See Party direction below for details.
2004 election
Harris had already exercised tight control over the Green Party's electoral campaign and press releases during the 2004 election. Very few releases during the election quoted any Party figure other than Jim Harris, and some complained that they had no access to the party's media pipeline whatsoever, and that it was being used effectively as a self-promotional tool for Harris' values only.
David Chernushenko, for instance, despite being endorsed by the prominent Ottawa Citizen newspaper over former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, was not quoted in any official Party national press releases. This fueled the criticism that Harris uses the Green Party as his own publicity vehicle, and in particular, scrutiny on Travis.
Among other policy omissions, Harris was also criticized for making no mention of recent (2003) successes in the Party's longstanding strategy of measuring well-being as an obligation of the Ministry of Finance and Auditor-General of Canada. For this Harris was criticized by Mike Nickerson, who had authored the Canada Well-Being Measurement Act, part of which had in fact been passed into law in 2003. Other members suggested that because Harris could personally claim no credit for this, he ignored it, and passed up a crucial opportunity to exploit the Auditor-Generals' role being an issue for likely the first and last time in the 2004 election, due to the Liberal Party of Canada's Quebec sponsorship scandal linked to Canada's then Finance Minister and current Prime Minister Paul Martin, Jr..
If Harris' objective was publicity, it was partially frustrated by his being excluded from the Canada-wide TV leaders' debate. Harris was also wrongly reported as being gay by one reporter in a mix-up with former leader Chris Lea. It was a difficult election in many ways, compounded by a leadership race that followed almost immediately after.
Since the election, the Party has been almost completely ignored by the media, leading some to question Harris' determination to bring the Party's message to the public. The loss of momentum has been blamed on several factors but one is certainly that Harris is busy authoring a new book and interfering in Party internals rather than doing his job as Leader - which is to present the party's program to the public. It has been widely speculated that Harris seeks control of the platform to reinforce what is said in his book - using the platform as a book promotion.
Party directions
Despite GPC Constitution provisions that Leaders not direct Party internal affairs, Harris seems eager to manipulate the Party's internal processes to personal political advantage - several times he has been personally implicated in factional infighting that has seen removals, suspensions and resignations from the Green Party's internal Council. His favourite tactic seems to be to call "emergency" in camera meetings, making various claims about member, volunteer or staff morale, and demanding what he wants from the Council - sometimes threatening to resign.
He has denied funds to Shadow Cabinet, redirected funds from Living Platform directly to censoring it and to pay for less credible lawyers than those who analyzed its terms of use initially, to write more restrictive ones that would put him in more control of its content. He has effectively put a press release author in control of all policy debate, and tried to target EDA fundraising and capacity-building as a threat to his central power. These are not isolated examples but part of his personality:
Harris' insistence on micro-management causes him to burn through close allies quickly. For instance, his closest assistant during the 2004 election supported rival Tom Manley for the leadership just two months later.
Mr. Harris is also somewhat infamous for organising purges of his Councillors who don't follow his lead, the latest among many being the Fundraising Chair who asked some serious questions about the party's plans to incorporate with only one director, the Chief Financial Officer, John Anderson, who has never submitted a financial statement to the membership. With an annual budget of over $1,000,000, many other Council members are also concerned. Many are waiting for the axe to fall. Harris is also being investigated by Elections Canada for financial irregularities. In February 2005 some members had been advocating contacting Anderson's wife to remind her of the fact that her family bore all of the liability for this - as an ethical obligation if nothing else.
Harris has also refused to sign the nomination papers of locally selected candidates, and has frequently ignored the Party's constitution. Long lists of his violations of the Party's constitution circulated all through 2004 and early 2005.
One reason why Harris' re-election as leader was not as overwhelming as his earlier run is that many Greens do not believe these tactics are ethical, nor do they necessarily ascribe to his command and control leadership style. That said, his 55% on the first ballot is comparable to margins of victory of other federal rivals such as Jack Layton and Stephen Harper.
Unlike these leaders, however, Harris is generally unable to control the factions that oppose him in the Party, especially the New Green Canada movement, many of whose members are working towards registering a new party that will honour the values of the Global Green Charter.
On raucous internal GPC mailing lists it is common to see Harris ascerbically described as "misogynistic" and (likely the most amusing) as the GPC's "pointy-haired boss".
Threatened to resign
This has likely taken its toll. In mid-January 2005, Harris was rumoured to be close to quitting, having threatened on more than one occasion to "take his Rolodex with him," (according to Party insiders), and perhaps follow Russow in defaming the Party, its members and directions, discouraging donors and voters. It remains to be seen if he and his core group of followers are able to remain in "election readiness" in anticipation of a Canadian federal election, 2005 that might never come, or if Harris will resign the leadership to focus on his career as an author and speaker.
He has said that he would resign when the party elects the first Green Member to the Canadian House of Commons. Presumably that MP would be expected to become the Leader upon their election. Evidently Harris does not expect to be that MP. In the 2004 election, he ran in a hopeless race against New Democratic Party of Canada leader Jack Layton and long standing MP Dennis Mills, getting only 5.38%, behind the Conservative candidate at 6.21%.
A storm of protest over what detractors see as Harris' attempt to hijack policy and exclude talented female activists has led some to conclude that Harris cannot do more than remain a "lame duck" leader until the 2006 AGM. Several members of the Green Party's Council and Shadow Cabinet who were supported by Harris when elected have spoken strongly against him and what they describe as his dictatorial tactics within the party.
Meanwhile, more experienced politicians such as Sheila Copps, David Orchard and Green city councillor Elio Di Iorio have been rumoured as possible candidates to replace Harris.