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When a Green Party rep told Fast Forward in November 2004 that the “Green revolution” would start in Calgary and spread through the rest of the country, the idea seemed farfetched. Three years later, however, the party has polled ahead of the NDP nationwide for the first time in its history — a trend first seen in Calgary.

“It’s great,” says federal leader Elizabeth May, who will be speaking in Calgary November 26. “The province that gave us our highest percentage return in the last [federal] election was Alberta.” Calgary in particular gave strong support to the Greens in both the 2004 and 2006 federal elections, and in the last provincial election, Green candidates in Calgary collected more votes than NDP candidates.

Now that federal Green support has strengthened elsewhere, the Greens are proudly calling themselves Canada’s “third national party.” The Strategic Counsel poll, which was conducted for the Globe and Mail-CTV and released November 12, put the Greens at 13 per cent nationwide and the NDP at 12 per cent. In Western Canada, Green support was significantly higher at 18 per cent, compared to 16 for the NDP. (Strategic Counsel polled 1,000 Canadian voters. The poll has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.)

May says the numbers are huge news for the party. “I’m not wildly enthusiastic about polling as a way to run one’s life,” she says. “But when the trend lines are good, that’s really important…. We are in the zone where we’re likely to elect people.” (The Greens currently hold none of the 308 seats in the House of Commons, even though the party got 4.5 per cent of the vote in 2006.)

University of Calgary political scientist Doreen Barrie says that while the poll numbers are promising for the Greens, the party still has a long way to go. “If we had proportional representation, then they could break out the bubbly,” says Barrie. “But not now, because we don’t know how these numbers are going to hold and whether they will actually win any seats.”

The Greens reject the traditional political spectrum of “left” and “right.” (The party says its policies are neither left nor right, but “forward.”) While the Greens have a strong emphasis on the environment — “People tend to think of us as a one-issue party,” says May — the party also has some policies that appeal to conservatives. For example, the Greens were opposed to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s move to tax income trusts. “It makes absolutely no sense in terms of fiscal policy,” says May. “It was a huge breach of trust with the people who really thought Stephen Harper would be different.”

For Greens in Alberta, the party’s federal success isn’t surprising. Polls show the provincial Greens are also neck and neck with the Alberta NDP. “There’s a shift going on,” says George Read, leader of the Alberta Greens. “People are starting to see that environmental sustainability and economic prosperity go hand in hand.” Read says the Greens appeal to Albertans because of the party’s strong focus on fiscal responsibility. “We’re a fiscally responsible political party, and we believe in true conservation of resources and planning for the long-term,” says Read. “Albertans do, too.”

The Greens reject the idea that only people on the left side of the traditional political spectrum are concerned with environmental stewardship. “Anyone who’s a grandparent is thinking about their grandkids’ survival and health and what kind of world their grandchildren are going to grow up in,” says May. “That doesn’t fall along the old party lines at all. That’s just sensible.”

Barrie says an important challenge for the Greens will be participation in the leaders’ debate during future election campaigns. “Their profile has to be raised even further,” she says. The Greens have been excluded both federally and provincially in past debates despite the party’s relative popularity. The party has long complained that its exclusion is undemocratic, and May believes the recent surge in Green support will get her into the debate. “We’re polling in a zone that means that excluding us becomes really hard to justify,” she says.