Citizen Ralph
The world’s most famous consumer activist speaks out against his critics

Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, corporate watchdog and ex-White-House hopeful, is coming to Alberta.

Today many people know him as the Green Party presidential candidate who captured three per cent of the vote in the 2000 U.S. election, and as many bitter liberals point out, split the vote on the left, effectively allowing George Bush to steal the election.

Nader, in a phone interview with SEE, brushes off the criticism he’s recently received from progressives who hold him responsible for Bush’s election.

"I don’t think they’re progressives. Everyone has a right to run for office. If they don’t believe that then they’re not progressive. They just believe in a two-party duopoly."

He says he’s taken much heat from the left because liberals in the States were so obsessed with preventing Bush from entering office that they strategically voted for a party that was only slightly better.

"That’s what I call ‘least worst’ voting. Then, of course, every four years the votes get worse in our country. You’re basically signalling to the least worse that you’re captive. Republicans are worse. But if the Republicans are D- and the Democrats are D+, they both flunk. You have to have a flunking grade here; how long do you wait?" says Nader.

He hasn’t ruled out running again: "It’s too early to say; we’ll wait until after the 2002 Congressional elections."

dek: The beginnings of a consumer rights movement

Of course, Nader has been a consumer advocate for much longer than he’s been a presidential candidate. For almost 40 years he has been a tireless defender of citizen rights and a harsh critic of government and private business. He first gained notoriety in 1965 when he published Unsafe at Any Speed, a book that chronicled the American auto industry’s deliberately unsafe manufacturing.

While the book wasn’t a big seller, General Motors feared that the book’s poster child of shoddy safety standards, their Corvair, would generate many lawsuits. GM hired detectives to follow Nader and dig up dirt in an effort to discredit him. "Get something on this guy ... Get him out of our hair ... Shut him up," GM told a private detective.

Unfortunately for GM, there was no dirt to be found. Nader was, and still is, a notoriously private man who has essentially forsaken social and family life in exchange for an unblinking life dedicated to policy debate and consumer activism. Even when call girls were hired to seduce Nader in a grocery store, he refused to take the bait. In the end, GM was found to have invaded Nader’s privacy and was forced to pay a $425,000 settlement.

GM unwittingly launched Nader’s consumer activist movement. Using the money from the lawsuit, he started his first Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) in Washington. A full-blown celebrity, Nader used the lecture circuit to continue funding his activist projects. His citizen advocacy PIRG groups, which are financed by campus levys, have spread across all of North America. (University of Alberta students voted for their first PIRG group in a 2001 referendum.)

Nader went on to found dozens of organizations and initiated some groundbreaking legislation, including the Freedom of Information Act and the Clean Air Act (1971). In 30 years of activism, Nader has fought against deceptive labelling, unsafe cars, useless drugs, unsafe workplaces and price hikes on commodities – and he’s won.

Now Nader is coming to the University of Alberta’s Green and Gold Eco-Conference to speak about the environment. His visit couldn’t be more timely, for the Alberta government has thrust itself into the Kyoto debate this week, vowing to use legal action against its ratification. The Kyoto protocol, if ratified, would call for a reduction of one-fifth of the greenhouse gases, namely CO₂, that are thought to cause global warming. The province has promised a public campaign to inform Albertans about its anti-Kyoto stance. In a press conference earlier this week, Ralph Klein said "People still don’t know what Kyoto means, other than it’s a city in Japan." Alberta Environment Minister Lorne Taylor has said signing the Kyoto agreement will only damage the economy.

"It’s nonsense," says Nader, "because meeting Kyoto is simply being more efficient in the use of energy. The more modest advances can come without any increase in cost."

"The way to sell Kyoto, which Clinton never did, is you start with the pocketbook of the motorist. You say: if you like cars it will save you hundreds of dollars on gasoline, and if you buy these cars, you and your kids will breath less polluted air. Then you say another benefit is reducing greenhouse gases. You go from the local to the global."

Nader argues that the technology for reducing greenhouse gases is available, especially when it comes to automobiles, which cause almost a quarter of all greenhouse emissions. But he claims that the energy industry is reluctant to convert to efficient technology, because wasteful technologies are profitable.

"The key is: what is primary? Is it the efficiency that benefits the consumer or is it the inefficiency that leads to greater sales by the gas-guzzling motor vehicle corporations?" says Nader, dismissing the lack of initiative from western governments.

"They’re under the influence of the extractive industries. Who do you think controls your parliament? Who controls dear Mr. Klein? I mean, it’s the same as the U.S.: they listen to the oil industry, gas industry, the motor vehicle industry. The motorists are not organized, so the motorists are not reflected by heavy-duty lobbyists here."

The U.S. withdrew from the Kyoto Accord because they feared it would damage the economy. Nader disagrees with Bush’s appraisal of the Accord as being "fatally flawed," but he thinks it doesn’t go far enough to reduce the threat of global warming. While he may have a reputation for being a regulation wonk, he is a true capitalist. Hence his disdain for any subsidies for big business or what he would call "corporate charity."

"Kyoto is not an ideal treaty to begin with. It doesn’t do enough. And politically, you don’t let China and India off the hook. They should have the same efficiency [standards]."

Despite resistance to Kyoto, Nader believes that recent ecological changes have promoted concern about ruining the environment. And while he’s been, among many other things, fighting for things like fuel efficiency reform for decades, he’s never been discouraged, because the need for change builds slowly until it happens suddenly.

"You never know when the tipping point is. How many people knew 20 years ago that we’d be collaborating with the Russians and dismantling their weapons? How many people 20 years ago knew that you wouldn’t have to go into a restaurant and imbibe secondhand smoke?

"You have to keep pressing and pressing all of the time. Then something will break."

1955 - Nader becomes disenchanted when he enrolls at Harvard Law School, and starts to write for various magazines, including the Nation.

1965 - After a few years of lawyering, Nader moves to Washington and writes Unsafe at any Speed: The Designed-in dangers of the American automobile.

1966-69 - Initiates and helps pass laws that reform the unsanitary practices of meatpacking plants and poultry farms. Publishes damning report of cronyism within the government department of the Federal Trade Commission. Opens de facto headquarters, The Center for Responsive Law.

1970 - Nader founds auto safety and corporate watchdog groups as well as first-ever PIRG group in Washington.

1971 - Launches ambitious Congress Project, which, by way of a comprehensive 21,000-page study of Congress, was meant to promote accountability and transparency. Also founds Public Citizen, which serves as an umbrella organization for ever-growing lobby groups initiated by Nader.

1974 - Ushers in the Freedom of Information Act.

1980-90 - Resigns as director of Public Citizen to free up time for other projects and lectures.

- Speaks out against government-corporate merger of NAFTA, "corporate charity" in the Savings and Loan Industry scandal.

1996 - Runs for president as a Green Party candidate, a grassroots party that advocates environmentalism and social justice, and only gets one per cent of the vote.

2000 - Again runs for president with the Greens, and gets three per cent of the vote, two shy of qualifying the Greens for federal funding during the next election. Also angers some liberals for splitting the vote with Al Gore, allowing George Bush to win election.