The Interview Project
After the 2025 Federal Election, your friends at the Vancouver Granville Electoral District Association Executive Committee (the EDA) sat down together and had a conversation about what to do next. We didn’t do great in the election, coming in fourth of four, and had only a little bit of money left over and only four active members on the EDA executive.
We decided to start by reaching out to people in our orbit who might have some advice to share on where we should go. We spoke to current and former green party candidates and politicians from the municipal and provincial levels, academics, business and community leaders, to seek answers to questions like:
- from fundraising to building a volunteer base to recruiting a candidate to anything else what should we do to better prepare for the next election and to serve our community?
- what should we look for in a candidate?
- what do we need to offer to make sure we can attract someone with a real shot?
Throughout the process we hoped to also build connections with people in the community as well as get help in identifying our next candidate. Maybe it would be one of the people we spoke with. We ended up talking a lot about what the ideal candidate looks like, and those conversations naturally led to discussions of different approaches to building up capacity (I’m reluctant to call it a “movement”) in between election cycles.
Now that we’ve spoken with a good chunk of people, some themes on the ideal “Green Party Candidate” have emerged, and those details are published below in the Summary Report.
Also, depending on when you’re reading this, we have a workshop coming up! Details are below.
Workshop Details:
When: Tuesday May 12, 2026 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm
Where: Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Main Floor Lobby
1440 West 12th Avenue at Hemlock Street
Nearby transit on Granville and Broadway
Ground Level Parking at West end of building; Evening parking on 12th and Hemlock
The Summary Report
Find the full report here:
Members of the EDA executive have initiated a project to develop a strategy for electoral success in the Vancouver Granville riding in the next Federal Election. This is a summary report, abstracted from the results of the first step in the project: interviews with community leaders for their insights and recommendations.
The thirteen community leaders, who we interviewed, were identified as having important knowledge to contribute to the formulation of the strategy. They included people who had been successfully elected as Green representatives in local elections, environmental and social activists, academics, and journalists. The interview questions covered three topic areas: factors for electoral success, suggested candidates and advisors, and the role of the EDA or riding association.
Within the four factors for electoral success, the questions focused on the profile of the candidate, a volunteer corps, an early start, and financing.
This summary describes three distinct candidate profiles or types:
- The Community Servant
- The Faithful Partisan
- The Charismatic Populist
These names were given to the three types which emerged from the analysis of the interview results. The categories appear to provide an exhaustive summary of the candidate characteristics which were identified in the interviews as contributing to electoral success.
There is further explanation of the three types in the next section of this report.
The purpose of the May 12, 2026 workshop is to explore the implications of the three alternative candidate types. The aim is to build a shared understanding of our options, based on the insights of the Vancouver Granville constituents and the broader community.
Based on this consultation with the community and the interview results, the riding executive will prepare a first draft of an electoral strategy for review and comment by the EDA membership. We hope to include all interested constituents in the formulation of the strategy, and to adopt an action plan which will be pursued no later than mid year 2026.
Describing the Types
From an analysis of the interviews with community leaders, three themes or distinct candidate types have emerged:
- The Community Servant. Has a history of service in the local community, through supporting the interests of community organizations or possibly serving in municipal government.. Consults with constituents. Aims to improve the system through advocacy for specific local interests using lobbying and collaboration. Forms alliances to get results.
- The Faithful Partisan. Spokesperson for party policy. Aims to improve the system through legislation. Supports the national leader; wears the team jersey. Willing to collaborate with other parties to advance the public good. “I am not interested in the Greens being a protest party standing on the legislature steps with a megaphone. I am focused on holding the balance of power inside the legislature so we can enact more Green policy”.
- The Charismatic Populist. Influencer. Generates buzz, using social media, fire, and confrontation. Adversarial. Fix the system by getting rid of the bad guys. Return power to the people from the self-serving elite, A charismatic leader who spurs action through public advocacy and demonstrations.
The table below contrasts defining characteristics of the three types.
| COMMUNITY SERVANT | FAITHFUL PARTISAN | CHARISMATIC POPULIST | |
| MAIN MESSAGE | Looking after your issues | Serving the public good | Leading the bandwagon |
| PRIMARY COMMUNICATION MODE | Face-to-face | Advertising | Social media MemesImages |
| FIXING THE WORLD | Community organizing, advocacy | Legislation, Political alliances | Getting rid of the elites |
| PROFILE | Community roots | Supports party leader, wears the team jersey | Popular Influencer/Celebrity |
| CALL FOR SUPPORT | Improve your community | Glorify the party | Join the movement, Be part of the buzz |
| USE OF POWER | Collaborative | Collaborative | Adversarial |