There is an enormous difference between arguing that Greens should vote NDP because the NDP is more likely to be able to help the environment, and arguing that the NDP would elect more members if the Greens voted NDP. In the first case it is an attempt to sway the vote; the NDP is in a strong position to appeal to people who might vote Green. To argue, after the election, that if Greens voted NDP, more New Democrats would be elected is foolish and wrong. It is foolish because it is equally true to say that more New Democrats would get elected if any group, especially those who didn't vote, had voted NDP. It is wrong because voters are intelligent enough to make up their own minds.

Those who want to play the "what-if game" of imagining some sort of NDP-Green co-operation should look at the Conservative vote in the federal election. In the 2000 federal election, the Alliance won 3,276,929 and the Progressive Conservatives won 1,566,998 for a total of 4,843,927. In 2004, Stephen Harper's party won only 3,994,682; almost 900,000 votes short. Some of those voters may have stayed home, but some voted Liberal, some voted Block, and some voted for other parties including the NDP. When leaders make deals, people don't behave like sheep being herded into a new pasture.

In British Columbia in the 2000 federal election the Alliance won 797,518 and the Progressives Conservatives won 117,614 for a total of 915,132. This time the Conservatives won only 625,071 in BC. The Conservatives lost 17.5% of their theoretical combined Alliance-PC vote nationally, but they lost 31.7% in BC. The federal Liberal vote in BC increased by 46,000 (10.4%) between 2000 and 2004, and the federal NDP vote in BC increased by 275,000 (150%). With 40% of the population not voting, it is impossible to separate shifts between the parties from shifts between voters and non-voters, but by a strange co-incidence the combined increase in the Liberal and NDP vote is just 20,000 greater than the number lost by the Conservatives relative to the combined Alliance-PC 2000 vote. That could mean that the shift from former Alliance-PC voters to the NDP is greater than many might imagine. If that shift occurred, it could be far more significant for provincial politics than any speculation on the Green vote which was 109,538 in the federal election and 197,231 in the 2001 provincial election.

Some New Democrats want a very strong emphasis on environmental issues in the next provincial campaign. Their argument that the party needs to be concerned about the Greens, may be motivated by their desire to influence the party's policies and platform. The NDP should advance environmentally sound polices because they are in the public interest and have the support of British Columbians throughout the province, not because they are calculated to influence the Green vote in a handful of ridings. Public opinion research before the last provincial election, and an analysis of the shift in the Conservative vote in the federal election, show that the NDP also needs to articulate sound financial, economic and social policies. Hundreds of thousands of people will be looking at the NDP between now and May 17, 2005, far more than the important but relatively small number who voted Green.