In the spirit of Cronus, son of the Earth deity Gaia in Greek mythology, Andrew Weaver devoured his own children on the weekend. The Greens always said they would do politics differently, and they weren’t kidding.
Weaver quit the Green caucus earlier this year after resigning as leader and reportedly has let his party membership lapse. Thus freed of any clubby inhibitions, he let loose Saturday night on MLA Sonia Furstenau for her expressed interest in a four-day work week, telling her on Twitter it was “an absolutely kooky idea.”
“Kooky,” Jack Knox of the Times Colonist pointed out Tuesday, is like kryptonite for the Greens – a potent verbal weapon that strikes to the heart of their credibility.
“You clearly haven’t thought this through, as it’s far more complicated than just a few soundbites & a tweet,” Weaver tweeted. “Perhaps you should do background research before shooting from the hip. Classic decision-based evidence-making.”
Even more incredibly, Weaver went on to blame Furstenau and MLA Adam Olsen, the interim leader, for failing to back his play to stop LNG, saying “they were more interested in re-election than they were about standing up for @BCGreen principles,” a charge that both of them denied.
In all the media coverage, Furstenau, the MLA for Cowichan Valley, was described as Weaver’s almost guaranteed successor. She’s billed as “poised to become the next leader of the party,” the “leader-in-waiting,” indeed the job is “hers for the taking.”
The Victoria pundits seem to be unaware that former party vice chair Kim Darwin is also running, or they don’t consider it worth mentioning, but the Greens who will vote for a new leader will certainly know and possibly care. And Weaver’s attack on Furstenau could win points for Darwin, a former Sechelt Chamber of Commerce president. As Knox explains Weaver’s rationale for going after the front-runner: “Casually bringing up the idea of a four-day week ‘scares the hell’ out of a business community he spent years wooing.”
Launching her short-lived leadership campaign in March, before the race was suspended due to the pandemic, Darwin talked about following the trajectory Weaver set for the party and said her business and professional background makes her the ideal person to lead the Greens into the next election. “It’s something that the Greens haven’t been known for, being business-minded per se,” she said.
Furstenau has the distinct advantage of being elected (a big deal for a Green) and more widely known, but Weaver is making sure she is carrying some baggage into the race when it does resume. And if the “kook” label sticks, even a bit, there could be a pragmatic turn to the “business-minded” party insider from the Sunshine Coast.
When it gets down to the survival of the fittest, Darwin might just surprise them all.
