The past few years have seen incredible growth for the Green Party: our membership has soared, Canadians have voted for us like never before, and the media is slowly starting to take note of us. As our party grows, we have to ask ourselves how we want it to grow. What direction should we move in? How should we present ourselves? What policy do we want to champion?

John Dauvergne has an interesting post on his blog suggesting where he would like to see the party move. I agree with his central point: we can’t be a single issue party. We have to build strong policy outside of the environmental realm to attract voters with other interests.

In the past few months, the party has been reaching into non-environmental areas of interest, both with the Living Platform, and with the (small) policy conferences going on across the country. John is right: we have to reach out to the widest possible spectrum of Canadians while remaining true to our values. We aren’t doing that as vocally as John would like, but the Living Platform and policy conferences suggest that the will is there.