Elizabeth Emily Paschen (February 26, 1927 - March 14, 2019) was a Canadian environmentalist and former provincial level politician from

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, Canada. She served as Leader of the

Alberta Greens The Alberta Greens, also known as the Green Party of Alberta, was a provincial political party in the province of Alberta, Canada. The Alberta Greens were formed in 1986 and received official party status on April 6, 1990. The party was affili ...

from its founding in 1990 to 1996.

Political career

Paschen became leader of the Alberta Greens after founder Norman Conrad moved out of the province. She first ran for provincial office in a by-election held in the

Edmonton-Strathcona Edmonton-Strathcona is a provincial electoral district for the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Canada. It shares the same name as the federal electoral district of Edmonton Strathcona. The boundaries of Edmonton-Strathcona include the neig ...

electoral district on October 18, 1990. Paschen received 4.54% of the vote and finished fifth out of sixth place, losing to

Barrie Chivers Barrie Chivers (born November 8, 1940) is a Canadian former politician and current lawyer. He served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1990 to 1993 sitting with the official opposition Alberta New Democrats. Legal career C ...

a candidate for the

New Democrats New Democrats, also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party in the United States. As the Third Way faction of the party, they are seen as culturall ...

. She finished ahead of

Social Credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made them. To combat what he ...

leader

Robert Alford Robert J. Alford (born December 10, 1950 in Edson, Alberta) is a Canadian politician. He married in 1975 and raised two daughters. Education Alford graduated from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (S.A.I.T.) in 1971 with a diploma i ...

. Paschen lead the party into the

1993 Alberta general election The 1993 Alberta general election was held on June 15, 1993, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The Conservative government was re-elected, taking 51 seats out of 83 (61 percent of the seats) but only having support of 45 per ...

. The party did not make much of an impact as it only fielded a slate of 11 candidates winning 0.20% of the popular vote and finishing second last over all. Paschen ran for a second time in Edmonton-Strathcona. Her popular vote was cut in half from the by-election and she only took 1.5% of the popular vote. After retiring from provincial politics, Paschen moved to Ontario and became a wind farm operator. Paschen died on March 14, 2019.

References

1927 births 2019 deaths Alberta Greens candidates in Alberta provincial elections Female Canadian political party leaders Women in Alberta politics Leaders of the Alberta Greens {{Alberta-politician-stub