The latent power of climate caucuses in political parties
I'm Albertan, and I'm watching the news on the separation referendum. From how I understand it, Alberta separatists were a big part of Danielle Smith's rise to office. Now that the referendum was struck down, separatists are threatening her position by signing up more of their members for the UCP. I'm sure that she has separatist sentiments herself, but she's also heavily motivated to keep her role by catering to this group just in the party.
This got me thinking. Only 4% of Canadians are members of political parties. Individual Canadians have way more sway over policy by joining parties to vote for their leadership than voting in elections. In the Alberta example, separatists are a small portion of the population but they're partly controlling the premier's decisions.
With the federal Liberals, they have about 400,000 members, but only 150,000 actually voted in their leadership race. Unlike other parties, signing up for a membership is free. If a caucus of disciplined environmental voters, of only about 17,000 or 10% of the total were to join, they would have significant sway over the vote. They could threaten the role of the liberal leader if they didn't push climate policy enough. If the leader failed to hit climate goals over their term, the caucus could replace them with one who could.
Another option would be to have a caucus in all parties, to ensure some form of progress no matter what party is in office. This seems harder. It would be a challenge to convince environmentalists to join the conservatives. It still might be the most effective way to make change.
What do you think? I'm open to other people's opinions on this.