Green politics in Alberta got its start around the kitchen table of Betty Paschen, a pioneer leader of the provincial party.

Around half a dozen activists involved with the Edmonton Friends of the North Environmental Society would meet at her place down by the university. Over tea and homemade vegan muffins, they would trade articles and documentaries, and discuss their different watchdog initiatives. The goal of the informal meetings — which went on for years during the early 1990s — was to keep the environmental movement alive.

David Parker, a forefather of the Green Party in Edmonton and now a federal Green election candidate in Edmonton-East, was one of those in attendance. And now, as the Greens continue to gain mainstream support — ahem, Elizabeth May did get into the leaders’ debate — he marvels at the changing demographics of who counts as Green.

Back when he and Paschen got involved, he says, the idea of evolving into a credible party was embryonic. Most members found the political sphere disenchanting. “We weren’t into strategy,” he says, “[and we weren’t] constrained by the practicality of having to get elected, having to raise a lot of money and all that stuff.”

Parker and his colleagues had tapped into the more ephemeral sides of the movement, but there was a longing to put something more tangible into practice. At present, the Green Party continues this precarious evolution between its ideological, activist roots, and the newer side of calculated, pragmatic politics. And for many, this political bridle suggests environmental pioneers are handing over the reins of the very movement they started.

“Maybe [the success of the Green party] will ultimately involve backing away from it and letting the other political types take over,” Parker says.

Parker likens this transition to the one made in the late 1970s by the German Fundies — a group of politicized hippies who swallowed their distaste for organized government out of a need to gain mainstream support. Leaders from disparate social movements pooled their resources. They cut their free-flowing hair and started speaking through conventional channels. And people listened. Germany has had one of the most successful, longest-running Green Parties in the world ever since.

Cameron Wakefield, who has run in one provincial and two federal elections, may be a good example of this new brand of Green thinking. Raised in an emphatically Tory household, fiscal responsibility and the free market remain his watchwords. “However,” he says, “I do think that there’s an opportunity there for environmental abuse, and we are way out of control.”

Lorene Turner, a former education professor at the University of Alberta, says she doesn’t consider herself a political person, but she’s seriously considering her options this election, and the Greens are in the mix. She considered making the switch in the last provincial election because she’s concerned Alberta is failing to diversify ­— relying solely on resource extraction to bolster the economy. She’s considering the party once again in the federal election, and even went to see Elizabeth May when she stopped in Edmonton recently. And she’s not the only one. In the 2006 federal election, the party gained their highest percentage of votes in Alberta.

But the evalution of the party has been slow. Until 2006, for example, the Alberta Greens didn’t even have a phone number. Wakefield set up a virtual call centre system which automatically forwarded calls to various party members’ houses.

Wakefield sees this election as an opportunity to reach out to more voters, and he hopes the cash the party will receive from the federal government after the election, assuming they get more than two per cent of the popular vote, will act as seed money to do more extensive fundraising in the time between elections. The next step, he says, is hiring full-time employees who can finesse policies to the point where the Green platform can stand up to any scrutiny.

Despite getting into the leader’s debate, in many ways the party continues to work around the kitchen table.