Stuart Parker (politician) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Stuart Parker
Stuart Parker giving a speech in August 2009.
Leader of the Green Party of British Columbia
In office 1993–2000
Preceded by	N/A
Succeeded by	Tom Hetherington (interim) Adriane Carr
Personal details
Born	1972 (age 52–53) Vancouver, British Columbia
Political party	BC Ecosocialists
Other political affiliations	Green Party of Canada (1993–2000) ; New Democratic Party (2001–2018); BC Greens (1993–2000)
Residences	Surrey, British Columbia
Occupation	University Lecturer

Stuart Parker (born in 1972) is a Canadian politician and university lecturer. He is best known for leading the Green Party of British Columbia from 1993 to 2000. He started his political journey at a young age and has been involved with several political parties focused on the environment and social issues.

A Young Leader for the Green Party

Stuart Parker became interested in politics and environmental issues as a teenager. Before he was even old enough to vote, he started a youth group for the Green Party called the Young Greens.

Campaigning for the Planet

One of the Young Greens' biggest successes was a campaign against McDonald's. At the time, the restaurant used foam packaging that was bad for the Earth's ozone layer. Parker and his group organized a national campaign to convince McDonald's to stop.

Their efforts worked! In 1990, McDonald's stopped using the harmful foam. This was a huge victory for the young activists. The group continued to campaign, leading Canada's largest foam maker to also stop using the harmful chemicals in 1993.

Leading the Party

In 1993, at just 21 years old, Parker was elected leader of the Green Party of British Columbia. When he started, the party was very small, with only 59 members. Parker worked hard to grow the party. He connected with groups fighting poverty and with labor unions.

Under his leadership, the party grew quickly. By the 1996 provincial election, they had candidates in almost every area of the province. Public support for the party jumped from 1% to 11% in opinion polls. During this time, Parker also participated in protests to protect forests from being clear-cut.

Working with Other Parties

Parker believed in working together. In 1998 and 1999, he helped create "Red-Green coalitions" in the cities of Vancouver and Victoria. This meant the Greens worked with another party, the NDP, in city elections. These partnerships were the first of their kind in Canada and helped the Greens win their first-ever seats on city councils.

However, not everyone in the Green Party agreed with his approach. Some members wanted the party to focus only on environmental issues. After a few attempts by others to replace him, Parker lost the leadership at the party's convention in March 2000.

Working with the NDP

After leaving the Green Party, Parker began working with the New Democratic Party (NDP). He helped them in the 2001 provincial election and the 2004 federal election.

He remained a strong supporter of changing the way elections work. He wanted a system called proportional representation, which helps smaller parties get a fairer number of seats. He served on the boards of groups like Fair Voting BC and Fair Vote Canada that campaign for voting reform.

In 2009, while living in Ontario, he tried to become the NDP candidate for a special election in the St. Paul's area of Toronto but was not chosen. He later planned to run for the federal NDP, but the party disqualified him because of posts he made on his social media page. In 2018, he left the NDP.

BC Ecosocialists Party

In 2019, Parker helped form a new political party called the BC Ecosocialists. The party's goal was to create a greener society and fight for fairness for all people.

The party was inspired by activists like Greta Thunberg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Their main goals were to provide housing and food for everyone and to create a sustainable environment. They planned to create jobs by developing green energy and wanted to stop any new fossil fuel projects.

The party planned to run candidates in the 2020 British Columbia election. However, shortly after the election was called, Parker resigned as leader due to disagreements over comments he had made. The party did not end up running any candidates in the election.

Surrey Municipal Politics

Parker also got involved in local politics in the city of Surrey. In 2018, he started a local political party called Proudly Surrey. The party ran candidates for city council and the school board in the 2018 municipal election. Parker himself was a candidate for city council.

Personal Life

Stuart Parker is the son of Valerie Jerome and the nephew of Harry Jerome, both famous Canadian athletes. In 1994, he was the first leader of a political party in British Columbia of African descent.

He has a deep interest in the cultures of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. He now works as a university lecturer at Simon Fraser University and the British Columbia Institute of Technology.

Election Results

This table shows the elections Stuart Parker has run in and the results he received.

1. In some city elections, voters can choose multiple candidates. This note explains how to understand the percentage of votes Parker received in those elections.