Daniel Green (born May 29, 1955) is a Canadian politician, environmentalist and scientific communicator. Since 2000, he has been a consultant for

Sierra Club of Canada The Sierra Club Canada Foundation (SCCF) is a Canadian environmental organization made up of a national branch and five chapters in Ontario, Atlantic Canada, Québec, the Prairies, and a nation-wide Youth chapter. The organization's mission is t ...

, ''Société pour vaincre la pollution'' (SVP), Coalition Eau Secours, the Rivers Foundation, ''Nature Québec'' and

Parks Canada Parks Canada ()Parks Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Parks Canada Agency (). is the agency of the Government of Canada which manages the country's 37 National Parks, three National Marine Co ...

. In 2014,

Elizabeth May Elizabeth Evans May (born June 9, 1954) is a Canadian politician, environmentalist, lawyer, activist, and author. She has served as the member of Parliament (MP) for Saanich—Gulf Islands since 2011. May is the leader of the Green Party ...

appointed him deputy leader of the

Green Party of Canada The Green Party of Canada () is a federal political party in Canada, founded in 1983 with a focus on green politics. The Green Party is currently the fifth largest party in the House of Commons by seat count. It elected its first member of ...

. He served as deputy leader alongside

Jo-Ann Roberts Jo-Ann Roberts (born September 8, 1956) is a Canadian politician and former journalist who served as the interim leader of the Green Party of Canada from November 4, 2019, to October 3, 2020, having been appointed upon Elizabeth May stepping d ...

until November 2019, when Roberts became the interim leader of the party.

Environmental science career

A graduate in

biological sciences Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution of ...

and environmental science from the

Université du Québec à Montréal The (UQAM; ), is a French language, French-language public university, public research university based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest constituent element of the system. UQAM was founded on April 9, 1969, by the government o ...

, Green has been working on the problem of toxic substances in the environment since the 1980s. Between 1980 and 2000, he headed ''Société pour vaincre la pollution'' (SVP). Since the early 2000s, Green has acted as the SVP's co-chair and has been vocal against the effect of pollution on

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the de ...

. Examples of his activism are the asbestos controversy, the

trichlorethylene Trichloroethylene (TCE) is an organochloride with the formula C2HCl3, commonly used as an industrial metal-degreasing solvent. It is a clear, colourless, non-flammable, volatile liquid with a chloroform-like pleasant mild smell and sweet taste.

contaminated water case in Shannon, the

Lac-Mégantic rail disaster The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster occurred in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, Canada, on July6, 2013, at approximately 1:14 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, EDT, when an unattended 73-car Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA) freight train ...

and Montreal REM train project.

Political career

In 2014, Green became a member of the

. In December 2014, Green Party leader

appointed him deputy leader of the party. He ran in the

2015 Canadian federal election The 2015 Canadian federal election was held on October 19, 2015, to elect the 338 members of the House of Commons of Canada, House of Commons of the 42nd Canadian Parliament, 42nd Parliament of Canada. In accordance with the Fixed election date ...

in the new riding of

Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Sœurs Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Sœurs is a federal electoral district in Quebec, Canada, that has been represented in the House of Commons of Canada since 2015. It encompasses a portion of Quebec formerly included in the electoral distri ...

. He lost to

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * Generally, a supporter of the political philosophy liberalism. Liberals may be politically left or right but tend to be centrist. * An adherent of a Liberal Party (See also Liberal parties by country ...

candidate Marc Miller. As part of the Liberal government's plan to reform Canada's

electoral system An electoral or voting system is a set of rules used to determine the results of an election. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, nonprofit organizations and inf ...

following the 2015 election, Green pushed for the introduction of a

proportional voting system Proportionality, proportion or proportional may refer to: Mathematics * Proportionality (mathematics), the property of two variables being in a multiplicative relation to a constant * Ratio, of one quantity to another, especially of a part compare ...

, which, in his opinion, would make the electoral process more democratic and more representative. To this end, he sought to show the differences between

first-past-the-post voting First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or first-preference, and the candidate with more first- ...

and proportional representation. Green ran in a federal by-election in the riding of Saint-Laurent in March 2017, which happened due to former Liberal leader

Stéphane Dion Stéphane Maurice Dion (; ; born 28September 1955) is a Canadian diplomat, academic and former politician who has been the List of ambassadors of Canada to France, Canadian ambassador to France and Monaco since 2022 and special envoy to the Eu ...

's resignation from the House of Commons. He came third behind Liberal candidate

Emmanuella Lambropoulos Emmanuella Lambropoulos (born September 12, 1990) is a Canadian politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Saint-Laurent since 2017.Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

candidate Jimmy Yu, winning 8% of the vote. In February 2019, he came third in the federal by-election in

Outremont Outremont () is an affluent residential borough (''arrondissement'') of the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It consists entirely of the former city on the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec. The neighbourhood is inhabited largely by F ...

, which happened due to former

New Democratic Party The New Democratic Party (NDP; , ) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic: * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Editors of ''Encyclopædia Britann ...

leader

Tom Mulcair Thomas Joseph Mulcair (born October 24, 1954) is a Canadian lawyer and retired politician who served as the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) from 2012 to 2017 and Leader of the Official Opposition (Canada), leader of the Official Oppos ...

's resignation, with 12.9% of the vote, the best result for the Green Party of Canada in Quebec elections.

Electoral record

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Green, Daniel 1955 births Green Party of Canada candidates in the 2015 Canadian federal election Green Party of Canada candidates in the 2019 Canadian federal election Canadian science communicators Canadian activists Living people