Four internationally elected Greens in Sidney August 17-19th

The Canadian Green Party is holding their convention in Sidney August 17th to 19th.   As part of the convention there will be four international Greens in attendance:

• Metiria Turei - co-leader of the New Zealand Green Party.  She has been an MP for 10 years now.  The Greens are the third largest party and hold 14 of 121 seats in the parliament
• Jean Lambert - she has been English Member of the European Parliament since 1999.   
• Oras Tynkkynen - he has been an MP in Finland since 2004.  The Greens are part of six party coalition government.
• André Gattolin - a Green senator from France, one of ten Greens elected into the senate in 2011.

I think it is very interesting to see this selection of MPs coming to the Green convention.  I hope some of them will make it into the local media.

There will also be two federal MPs other than Elizabeth May at the convention - Liberal Stephane Dion and independent(former NDP) MP Bruce Hyer.   Stephane Dion being there as a keynote speaker is very unusual given he is an MP for a different party.  I have to wonder what the interim federal Liberal leader Bob Rae thinks about this.

The Greens have come a long way given that they can attract some people of political standing to come.   I actually think it speaks to Elizabeth May's personal ability to make strong connections than the party itself.   The Greens are only organized enough to have party council provincial representatives from six of ten provinces  - there is no one from Quebec, Manitoba, New Brunswick or Newfoundland.  August 16th, see comment below, I made an error in how I read the convention website, the Greens do have representation from all the provinces.