Joan Russow
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Joan Russow | |
|---|---|
| Leader of the Green Party of Canada | |
| In office April 3, 1997 – 2001 | |
| Preceded by | Harry Garfinkle (interim) |
| Succeeded by | Chris Bradshaw (interim) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Joan Elizabeth Russow November 1, 1938 |
| Party | New Democratic (since 2003) |
| Other political affiliations | Green (1993–2001) |
| Occupation | Peace activist and politician |
Joan Elizabeth Russow (born November 1, 1938) is a Canadian peace activist and former national leader of the Green Party of Canada from 1997 to 2001.[1][2] She is also a co-founder of the Ecological Rights Association and the Global Compliance Research Project.
Russow received her BA in art history and a master's degree in education from the University of British Columbia.[1] She received her Ph.D. from the University of Victoria in interdisciplinary studies.[2]
Russow first gained attention in the "Lord's Prayer Case" which resulted in the banning of school prayer in public schools in British Columbia in 1989.[3]
In collaboration with the professors in the Law faculty of the University of Toronto, Russow was the litigant in the Charter challenge of the first-past-the-post electoral system in Canada.[2]
The Green Party and politics
Russow joined the Green Party in 1993 and became leader in 1997.[2] She ran for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada in three federal elections; in Victoria in 1997 and 2000, and in Okanagan—Coquihalla in a by-election in September 2000.[2] She lost all three elections.
Russow was the partner of David Scott White, the former chair of the Green Party of British Columbia, until his death in 2006.[4] White was the manager of Russow's election campaign as leader of the federal Green party.[5]
Under Russow's leadership the party developed policies promoting social justice, human rights, and peace, as well as the more traditional concerns with environment.
In the 2001 Quebec City protest against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, Russow was detained for taking a photograph of the jail that was being emptied to incarcerate the FTAA protesters.[6] Russow promoted the Green Party as a leader in the anti-globalization movement, in particular the anti-corporatist and pro-peace movement.
Russow and White left the Green Party in 2001, partly due to the German Green party's support of the NATO attack on Serbia.[5] Russow and White both joined the NDP in 2003 and White continued his work as an activist until his death, most recently researching and writing against Canada's military role in Afghanistan.
In 2005, Russow criticized the Green Party under Jim Harris for moving away from some of its original left-wing principles.[7]
Legal activism
Russow is a co-founder of the Ecological Rights Association and the Global Compliance Research Project.[2] In September 2007, she collaborated on a declaration related to climate change. This declaration called upon the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to calculate the contribution of militarism to greenhouse gas emissions.[8]
In March 2008, at the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, she collaborated on a paper related to the delegitimization of war; this paper was officially sanctioned for distribution to state delegations at the UN. [9]
On August 4, 2008, in Victoria she presented a representative of Stephen Harper with a paper entitled 95 Articles of Condemnation of the Harper Government.[10]