Can the Greens come back from a disastrous election?

The Greens lost support everywhere, but especially in the regions that once showed promise

The Greens had a very bad election.

With the Green Party seemingly at war with itself, it was obvious from the start that the Greens were going to struggle. The knock-on effects of the internecine fighting sparked by the floor-crossing of Jenica Atwin from the Greens to the Liberals were significant:

• The party suffered an immediate drop in the polls.

• The Greens did not run a full slate of candidates.

• Paul either felt unable or unwilling to mount a national campaign, spending most of the election period in her own riding.

Each of these alone were not necessarily fatal. Paul could have used the campaign to halt and then reverse those negative polling trends. Failing to run a full slate is not much of an issue if you can run good campaigns where you do have candidates. Paul’s decision to spend most of her time in Toronto Centre could have resulted in a seat win.

But none of those things happened.