Formally organized green parties, based on the principles of “green politics”, came into being in different parts of the world during the “Protest Movement” of the 1960’s and 1970’s. The “Protest Movement” is an umbrella term that includes many social movements that were occurring during this time such as the anti-nuclear arms movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the women’s movement, the American Civil Rights Movement, the “Gay Rights” (LGBTQ2+) Movement, the Student Movement and the Environmental Movement.
According to Walden Bello of Inequality.org:
For industrialized countries in the West, the post-war period up through the mid-1970s was one of increasing economic equality, strong welfare states, limitations on the movement of finance and high taxes on the rich. The result was not heaven. There was still rampant discrimination against women, people of color, etc… But these roughly 30 years stand out as an exceptional time when economic gaps narrowed. https://inequality.org/research/inequality-corporate-capture-state/
With more young people achieving higher levels of education and affluence than their parents, the Protest Movement of the 1960’s and 1970s focused most keenly on social justice and political issues. The Protest Movement did not by any means solve all the world’s problems, however, by challenging the values of the “establishment” and the directions that governments were taking at the time, the people (protesters and then the mainstream) identified the values that they wanted their governments to champion going forward.
The values identified in the Protest Movement became values of green parties – green parties that can now be found in over 90 countries around the world. The values of nonviolence (and striving for peace) between states, inside societies and between individuals; intersectional social and economic justice, respect for human diversity; participatory democracy; ecological wisdom; and sustainability all came together in the Protest Movement.
Greens believe that political and economic systems should serve these values.
So, what happened in the 1960’s and 1970’s? What follows is a Western Canadian perspective on some of the crises that Canadians were facing at that time – testing of increasingly powerful nuclear bombs, the nuclear arms race, economic and social injustice with compounding effects for women, indigenous people, blacks, people of colour, 2SLGBTQI+ people and others as well as environmental degradation of the planet.
But first, a section on how nonviolence within societies helped bring about change.
The Protest Movement of the 1960s and 1970s sought change through nonviolent means such as:
Television, PVC records and print media were critical, at that time, for raising awareness of the social movements of the day and the issues being protested.
(i) Collective peaceful resistance
The methodologies of collective “peaceful civil disobedience” and “peaceful resistance” were popularized by Mahatma Gandhi of India in the 1930’s. Gandhi advocated for “peaceful, non-violent resistance (Ahimsa) implemented through Satyagraha –holding on to the truth by non-violent resistance to evil, by refusing to submit to the wrong. Gandhi believed it is irrational to try to use violence to achieve peace”.* Gandhi’s path of collective peaceful resistance was most famously demonstrated by the “Salt March” that inspired collective peaceful civil disobedience in relation to the British’ salt tax and collective peaceful resistance to British colonial rule. Such collective acts of peaceful resistance were instrumental in bringing about India’s formal independence from Britain in 1947.
Gandhi’s methods were later adopted by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968) that sought equality for black people in the United States. Dr. King Jr. described nonviolence as follows:
(ii) It has been said that all nonviolent actions are creative expressions because it takes creativity to imagine and communicate the change we want to see in the world.
(https://mupeacemaking.medium.com/the-art-of-nonviolence-f2a7174dc263).
Many forms of creative expression helped drive the Protest Movement, particularly music. In the late 1950’s, with the advent of long-playing records and widespread access to television, English language music was easily transmitted around the world. Musicians began making themed albums and “rock” concerts became part of the Movement, bringing people of diverse backgrounds together and raising awareness of the issues of the day as well as providing comfort and healing, joy and hope.
(iii) The “counter culture” of the 1960s and early 1970’s was interwoven with the more serious social movements of the day. “Counter culture” was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that embraced free thinking, hippie fashions, natural hair styles, experimentation with drugs, sexual freedom and more. While some have criticized counter culture as childish and frivolous, it supported and contributed in a nonviolent way to the deeper social movements that were occurring during the Protest Movement. Wikipedia describes its lasting impact as follows:
As members of the hippie movement grew older and moderated their lives and their views, and especially after US involvement in the Vietnam War ended in the mid-1970s, the counterculture was largely absorbed by the mainstream, leaving a lasting impact on philosophy, morality, music, art, alternative health and diet, lifestyle and fashion. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterculture_of_the_1960s#Criticism_and_legacy)
PROTEST MOVEMENTS IN THE 1960’s AND 1970’S
Young people in Western countries typically had higher levels of education and greater affluence than their parents. They were also the post-World War II generation. They looked back in horror at the destruction of World War II. Going forward, they were witnesses to the Cold War, proxy wars such as the Vietnam/American War, the Korean War, a nuclear arms race that seemed to be on track to cause global annihilation and increasing harms to the natural world.
It can reasonably be argued that in Western Canada, the “Protest Movement” mainly found expression in the Anti-nuclear arms and Anti-war Movements, Social Justice Movements and the Environmental Movement. These are briefly discussed below.
World War II was the largest and deadliest war in human history. It involved more than 30 countries and lasted for 6 years. Wikipedia states the military deaths on all sides are estimated at between 21-25 million people and civilian deaths on all sides are estimated at between 50-55 million people, including 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Nazi Holocaust. World War II ended when nuclear atomic bombs were detonated over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, leading Japan to surrender. The fallout from these nuclear bombs shocked the world.
After World War II, a “Cold War” ensued (March 1947-December 1991). This was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. Rather than a direct War between the major players, the Cold War involved espionage, nuclear proliferation, propaganda against the other side, technological one-upmanship and proxy Wars such as the Vietnam/American War and the Korean War.
The “Vietnam War” as it is known in North America, or the “American War” as it is known in Vietnam, began in 1955 and lasted until 1975 when the North Vietnamese (backed by China and the Soviet Union) conquered South Vietnam (backed by the United States). As the war dragged on, it became increasingly unpopular in the West, prompting anti-war protests across North American and in other parts of the world. It has been estimated that between 30,000 and 40,000 American “draft dodgers” came to Canada during the Vietnam War.
It was against the backdrop of World War II, the “Cold War”, the Vietnam/American War and the Korean War, that the United States, France and the Soviet Union engaged in increasingly powerful nuclear atomic and nuclear hydrogen bomb testing, thinking that more arms would either deter future wars and/or give victory to the country with the most destructive weapons.
The post-World War II generation and many of their parents were horrified at the environmental destruction caused by nuclear bomb testing and the disregard for the health, safety and way of life of indigenous peoples living within the testing zones. For a sense of how destructive these bombs were, see the photographs of nuclear bomb detonations on this link from the American Atomic Heritage Foundation: https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/location/marshall-islands/.
According to “Minority Rights Group International”:
The Marshall Islands were the main nuclear-testing area for the United States (US) during the Cold War, with long-lasting environmental effects that still leaves the Bikini atoll uninhabitable and Enewetak atoll with issues of contamination……Islanders have also suffered serious health defects as a result, with high levels of thyroid cancer and stunted growth among children years after irradiation……Another legacy of nuclear testing is the displacement of many islanders to other atolls, where they are no longer able to continue their traditional fishing culture. (https://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?page=printdoc&docid=4954ce22c)
Between 1965 and 1971, the United States moved its nuclear bomb testing to the north Pacific, carrying out three underground nuclear detonations on the island of Amchitka in southwest Alaska. Although the native Aleutian people were no longer living on Amchitka at the time, they did inhabit the nearby island of Adak.
In 1972, in British Columbia, thousands of people engaged in collective civil disobedience and collective peaceful resistance to protest the underground nuclear detonations at Amchitka. Students walked out of high schools, participated in sit-ins, marches, and other forms of nonviolent protest.
A small fishing vessel set sail from Vancouver, B.C. with a group of activists on board. They headed to Amchitka to bear witness to what was happening there and draw world attention to the environmental damage being caused. The group later named themselves “Greenpeace”. Although the 1972 detonation at Amchitka proceeded, it was the last detonation at that site.
(Underground nuclear tests conducted by the Soviet Union continued until 1990, the United Kingdom until 1991, the United States until 1992, and both China and France until 1996. India and Pakistan last tested nuclear weapons in 1998.
A “Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty” banning all forms of nuclear bomb testing was adopted by the United Nations in 1996, however, it has never been declared in force because of eight countries who have failed to ratify it, namely, China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the United States.
North Korea conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, 2013, 2016 and 2017.
In February 2024, Russia is believed to have launched a 3M22 Zircon thermonuclear-capable hypersonic cruise missile against Ukraine, a warfare gamechanger that raises the spectre of a new nuclear arms race.)
Historically in Canada, women’s bodies, their property and their right to have a say in the laws that governed them, were controlled by men. In 1892, Canada’s first Criminal Code prohibited anyone from distributing birth control products or birth control information to women unless it could be shown to be in the “public good”.
In 1895, a motion was brought forward in the Canadian House of Commons proposing that women be granted the right to vote. In discussing the matter, “it was argued that a woman’s “proper sphere” was the home, and that “it [would] take away from the real charm and womanliness of women if they were given the franchise and allowed to mix in politics.” The House voted 105 to 47 againstgiving women the right to vote.
In 1918, women were finally granted the right to vote in federal elections in Canada, however, even then, there were significant exceptions – indigenous women were not allowed to vote unless they gave up their status and treaty rights and women from other minorities were excluded entirely from the right to vote.
During World War II, women took on many roles that traditionally had been performed by men and this emboldened women to demand equal status with men in the post-World War II period. They demanded access to post-secondary education, the right to work outside the home and to be paid fairly for their work. These demands were not met right away. In fact, there was still much resistance by men arguing that women were physically, intellectually and creatively (art and literature) “the weaker sex”. Men argued that women working outside the home should be discouraged because women might take jobs away from men.
The advent of “The Pill” in May 1950 was a huge boost to the Women’s Movement. For one, The Pill enabled women to defer marriage and childrearing in order to pursue post- secondary education, which gave women more career and employment options. (On July 1, 1969, contraception was officially decriminalized, thus giving all Canadians the right to prevent pregnancy without engaging in criminal behaviour.)
During the 1960s and 1970s, women found many peaceful ways to resist male patriarchy and asset their power as women. The presence of women in the Protest Movement also illustrated the changing times. Women stood shoulder to shoulder with men, IBPOC and 2SLGBTQI+ people to demand an end to end to sexism, racism, the Vietnam/American war and the Korean war, nuclear arms testing, pollution and destruction of natural habitats.
Some have estimated that there may have been between 300,000 and 500,000 indigenous people living between the Rockies and the Pacific coast before contact with foreigners (https://opentextbc.ca/postconfederation/chapter/11-3-natives-by-the-numbers/).
Indigenous Corporate Training Inc. states the number could have been more than a million. What is certain, however, is that early contact with Europeans brought diseases for which indigenous peoples had no immunity and indigenous populations were vastly reduced due to these diseases. (https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/the-impact-of-smallpox-on-first-nations-on-the-west-coast ).
Europeans started arriving in significant numbers after the voyage of James Cook in 1778 and the mapping expedition of George Vancouver in the 1790s (https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/british-columbia-and-confederation).
By the time the colony of Vancouver Island was established in 1849, records indicate there were a few hundred settlers and approximately 50,000 indigenous people living west of the Rocky Mountains.
In 1867, most of the different colonies within Canada joined together and Canada became a self-governing country. Canada’s second Prime Minister, John A. McDonald, directed that indigenous children be sent to residential schools far away from their homes and families. At residential schools, children were intentionally deprived of their languages and culture, they were denied adequate health care and they were subjected to emotional, psychological, physical and sometimes sexual abuse. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system). The residential school system led to inter-generational trauma.
See other sources for more information on the history of indigenous relations in Canada. One source is the federal government website at https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1307460755710/1536862806124#chp2
In the 1960s and 1970s, Canada’s indigenous people were struggling with many compounding colonial impacts – racism, elimination of traditional ways of life, the devaluing of indigenous culture, the effects of residential schools, “the 60’s scoop”, and paternal government structures. It was another low point for indigenous people in Canadian history. This situation was not turned around in the 1960’s and 1970s. However, there was a dawning awareness among the dominant culture that Canadians were painfully ignorant about the real history of indigenous peoples in Canada and that that history was a shameful one.
The American Civil Rights Movement that demanded equality for black people in America compelled Canadians to examine Canada’s unequal treatment of indigenous peoples, as well as its treatment of blacks and other people of colour.
During the Protest Movement, there were some early signs of the dominant culture wanting to uplift and show solidarity with indigenous peoples. For example, Moccasin Miles, a 3 day walkathon from Vancouver to Hope in 1970 to raise money for the “Resources for Native Progress Society” attracted hundreds of walkers, both indigenous and non-indigenous, from different parts of the province.
In 1963, in the U.S., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., leader in the American Civil Rights Movement, participated along with 250,000 people in the famous “March on Washington” to demand an end to segregation of blacks and whites, fair wages and economic justice, voting rights as well as education and civil rights protections for African Americans. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. that Dr. King Jr. gave his famous “I have a dream…” speech that called for equality and freedom for black people.
While the American Civil Rights Movement aimed to address racial discrimination in America, its influence was also felt across the border, in Canada, forcing Canadians to acknowledge Canada’s history of racial injustice against indigenous peoples, blacks, Chinese, Japanese and others. There was also discrimination against the Doukhobor Sons of Freedom due to their cultural background and beliefs.
Canada introduced its first Human Rights legislation in 1977. This was, however, just the start of what is a long journey towards racial equality that includes such things as equal healthcare, educational justice, equal treatment under the law, economic justice, and “truth and reconciliation” with indigenous peoples.
It was recognized that some people fall into multiple categories – for example, race, skin colour, background, sex and gender – that creates overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. Today, this is referred to as intersectionality.
In the post-World War II era, society expected 2SLGBTQI+ people to hide their gender, gender expression and sexual orientation because the majority, at that time, falsely assumed that everyone is ‘naturally’ heterosexual, and that heterosexuality is an ideal, superior to homosexuality or bisexuality. For an eloquent statement on the harms caused by forcing people to hide their gender and sexual orientation, see https://egale.ca/egale-in-action/history-of-discrimination-against-gays-and-lesbians/
During the 1960s, 2SLGBTQI+ people met clandestinely in “gay bars” or in “gay groups”. In “gay bars”, they were frequently harassed and bullied by police. One example of 2SLGBTQI+ people fighting back against police brutality was the Stonewall Inn Uprising in New York City that began on June 28, 1969 and lasted for 6 days. Stonewall emboldened other 2SLGBTQI+ people to become visible and demand equal rights.
“According to NACTO, in 1970 there were 143 “homosexual or gay groups” operating in the United States and Canada. After Stonewall, the number of LGBTQIA+ groups proliferated so rapidly it becomes difficult to keep track. However, just a year after Stonewall, there were upwards of 1500-2000 LGBT+ liberation groups in the United States, and many more internationally.” https://guides.loc.gov/lgbtq-studies/before-stonewall.
In 1969, “same sex” relationships were legalized in Canada (they were legalized in the United States in 1980).
On June 28, 1970, on the one year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, the first Pride marches were held in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Thousands of 2SLGBTI+ people gathered to commemorate Stonewall and demonstrate for equal rights. Since that time, Pride Parades have been held in Canada and other countries around the world on June 28 each year.
The work is ongoing to ensurethat 2SLGBTQI+ people are safe, welcome and included in every aspect of society.
Indigenous peoples of North America (“Turtle Island”) stewarded the lands for millennia before the arrival of Europeans. According to https://www.vox.com/22518592/indigenous-people-conserve-nature-icca:
While different Indigenous and local groups have different cultures and practices, they tend to share a holistic and human-inclusive view of nature that’s imbued with cultural or spiritual value. It’s this view, in part, that forms the basis for Indigenous land management, which often includes protecting sacred lakes or forests, or creating rules against exploiting certain species.
That’s not to say that Indigenous peoples don’t alter habitats and drive down populations of animals, or that they bear the responsibility for protecting wildlife. But in general, the concept of conservation appears to be more embedded in Indigenous traditions, compared to Western cultures.
When Europeans settled in North America, indigenous methods of land and resource management were largely replaced by European methods.
As European-style towns and cities were established, forests were cut down for farmland, homesteading and trade. Wildlife and birds were mercilessly hunted, often to near extinction. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, by 1889, the plains bison who had roamed across North American from Mexico to Canada had been reduced from about 60 million bison to less than 2,000. Beavers were also almost hunted to extinction for the fur trade. In the late 1800s, migratory birds such as the snowy egret, great egrets, blue herons and peafowl were hunted for their feathers ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plume_hunting).
In the twentieth century, continued settlement, industry, farming and the expansion of transportation networks meant the amount of land conserved “for nature” continued to be reduced. Pollution posed another threat, however, it was not until the publication of Rachel Carson’s famous book “Silent Spring” in 1962 that there was widespread awareness of how pollution from vehicles and industry was harming the air and water and human health.
After a devastating oil spill occurred in Santa Barbara, California in January 1969, U.S. Senator Gaylord Wilson conceived of the first “Earth Day”. He recruited Denis Hayes, a young activist, to organize “teach-ins” on college campuses across the United States and to scale the idea to a broader public. Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land and the effort soon broadened to include a wide range of organizations, faith groups, and others. The first “Earth Day” on April 22, 1970 inspired 20 million Americans — at the time, 10% of the total population of the United States — to take to the streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate against the impacts of 150 years of industrial development which had left a growing legacy of serious human health impacts. https://www.earthday.org/
On the first “Earth Day”, a rally was held in the Canada-US border town of Windsor, Ontario where protesters sang about giving “Earth a chance,” carried signs warning of environmental disaster and watched a mock funeral on the river Windsor shared with Detroit (https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-first-ever-earth-day-and-its-evolution-into-a-global-event-1.5083110).
Environmental groups sprang up across Canada – from the “Ecology Action Centre” in the Maritimes to “Pollution Probe” in Ontario, to the Society for the Promotion of Environmental Conservation in Burnaby, B.C. (SPEC) and Greenpeace in Vancouver, B.C. As mentioned previously, Greenpeace drew world attention to the environmental and human impacts of nuclear bomb detonations at Amchitka Island in Alaska.
Environmentalists also opposed energy projects such as the James Bay Hydro Project (in Quebec) and the McKenzie Valley Pipeline proposals (in the Yukon and Northwest Territories). The federal government of the day, led by Pierre Elliott Trudeau, created the Berger Commission to review the McKenzie Valley Pipeline proposals. Justice Berger held extensive hearings in which he carefully considered the views of the oil companies, the public and the northern Dene, Inuit and Metis peoples through whose traditional territories the proposed pipelines would run. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia:
The Berger Commission marked a turning point in the history of resource development in Canada. It involved the public and foregrounded Indigenous perspectives to a degree not seen before. Berger’s report also presented the concerns of Indigenous peoples in the North in a way that did justice to their humanity.
Amid declining oil and gas prices, the two original Mackenzie Valley pipeline proposals were shelved. (https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/berger-commission
The McKenzie Valley pipeline hearings in northern Canada were considered “a win” for the environment and for the Dene, Inuit and Metis inhabitants of the McKenzie Valley.
Environmentalism during the 1970s led to federal and provincial governments establishing environmental protection departments, passing environmental assessment legislation and creating legislation to protect endangered species. This was only the beginning of what is an ongoing intersectional environmental fight to protect Canada’s air, land and water from human impacts such as climate change, pollution and habitat loss.
The first green parties began in 1972 when Tasmania, New Zealand and Australia created “green parties”, named after the Australian “green bans”.
The “green bans” were a series of protest actions carried out in the 1970’s by the Australian New South Wales Builders Laborers Federation (BLF) at the request of local residents. The residents wanted to prevent local government from building on environmentally sensitive land and/or land that was of cultural significance to Australian aboriginal/indigenous people. After the first “green ban” was successful, others were carried out.
In the 1970s, green parties (though not necessarily under that name) also appeared in Switzerland, Britain, Belgium and Germany. All the green parties of the 1970s had their roots in the ideologies of the 1960’s and 1970’s Protest Movement – social justice, participatory democracy, nonviolence, ecological wisdom, sustainability.
Today, there are green parties in over 90 countries around the world. As Wikipedia states: “Green parties now exist in most countries with democratic systems: from Canada to Peru; from Norway to South Africa; from Ireland to Mongolia. There is Green representation at national, regional and local levels in many countries around the world.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_party).
Canada’s federal Green Party was founded in 1983, however, Elizabeth May, the 9th leader of the Green Party of Canada was the first Green Party of Canada to win election in 2011. Since then, 16 federal Green Party of Canada politicians have been elected at different times and many Greens have been elected at the provincial and local levels of government.
