The country is drunk on Green! And it's time for a bucket of water.
While the Green Party may be a de facto national party, their place in the televised debates is a bad decision, driven more by hysteria than logic or fairness. I know this goes against the general consensus, but I believe my position is valid, and if you stop to consider the reasons, you will agree.
I wish to make it clear though, that I'm not saying the Green Party is irrelevant. On the contrary, the Green Party has a role to play in our national discourse, but the televised debates is not an appropriate forum.
First, the Green Party doesn't have a single elected member of the house (Blair Wilson doesn't count because he was originally elected as a Liberal). Despite running candidates in all ridings they have yet be elected in a single riding. That alone should be enough to keep them out of the debates. The communist party could have candidates in every riding, does that mean they should be included? What about the Christian Heritage Party, or the Marijuana Party? If the Green Party wins seats then maybe they will then be entitled to a spot in the debates. Until then, the Green Party is just another seat-less political party, albeit a national one, and no more entitled to a spot in the national debates than the Communist Party.
But wait! The Greens got 665,940 votes in the last election!
Big deal. That's barely 2% of the population. Even if you consider the popular vote based on votes cast it's still only 4.5%. The Green Party is an "also ran". Which brings me to the second reason why the Greens should be excluded: they do not have the representation to demand inclusion in the debates. Let's consider what 4.5% represents. It means that 95.5% of voters rejected the Green Party. It means that 98% of the entire population wasn't moved enough by what the Green Party represents to bother casting a vote in their favour. How does this poor showing entitle them to a spot in the national televised debates?
What 4.5% does mean, and this should anger a few people, is that $1.2 Million per year of your hard earned tax money goes directly into the Green Party bank accounts because thanks to Jean Chretien, political parties get to suckle at the public teat in the amount of $1.75 per year for every vote they received in the previous general election. Nice, eh? I wonder how much greenhouse gas gets expended so people can earn the money to "give" to Elizabeth May's party every year? But I digress...
Third: if the environment wasn't in the top five issues of the day, we wouldn't even be talking about this. That's right, Elizabeth May is going to participate in the debates because its fashionable, because people want to hear her tear a strip off Stephen Harper, and because the media made a big deal out of it. Most people won't even take the time to learn about what the Green Party really stands for. Other than the environment, what has she been vocal about? What policies does Elizabeth May have?
Conflict of Interest
Elizabeth May supports Stephane Dion for Prime Minister, that's no secret. If ever there was a conflict of interest, this is it. How can Green Party candidates across the nation expect May to properly debate when she has a well known soft spot for the leader of the official opposition? This will affect her performance and she will be less likely to score points off Dion when the opportunity presents itself. When you participate in the nationa debates, you are debating because you want to be Prime Minister. Elizabeth May does not want to be Prime Minister, therefore, she shouldn't be in the debates.
Most grievous, is that the nation, having left its collective wits at the door, argued to include May when they should have been lobbying to have Duceppe disqualified. Duceppe is the real elephant in the room. Those that demanded May's inclusion should have argued for Duceppe to be booted from the debates entirely. No one outside of Quebec gives a 'tinkers cuss' what Duceppe thinks.
It's bad enough that issues of national importance affecting our future, our stability, our freedom, our wealth, our pride, and our place in the world are compressed into a single 2 hour event. To cloud it with the likes of a single issue fringe party, and a separatist group bent on the destruction of our country is something none of us should be fighting for.
5 comments:
Facebok group: "Elizabeth May is a Liberal in disguise and should NOT be in the debates."
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24836279444
Actualy they only have candidates in half the ridings, May just can't help herself, exageration and mis-information is her stock in trade.
4.5 % is nothing to sneeze at, especially given how little exposure the Green Party receives. This time around, people are talking about the Greens more than ever before, and everyone wants to hear them defend and promote themselves. Also, like all Green Parties around the world, they are not 'single-issue'. In fact, their policy platform is quite extensive. Stop trying to keep Canadians ignorant by excluding a legitimate voice from the debate.
noamzs,
4.5% is nothing. And the Green Party gets TONNES of exposure. What planet are you from, anyway?
I take exception to your comment that I'm trying to 'keep Canadians ignorant'. That comment implies that it is someone else's responsibility to inform the masses.
If you want to learn about the Greens, go to the website and read the platform. You certainly aren't going to get the whole picture from the debates, anyway.
And if you read my post thoroughly, you would have read that I conceded that the Greens are a 'legitimate voice'. It's just that 4.5% doesn't entitle them to participation in the debates.
Besides, May lost all my respect when she played the gender card, which was a bogus and cheap ploy, used only because she couldn't come up with any other credible reasons why she should be in the debates.
Of course their Angus Reid poll showing over 60% of Canadians wanted her in the debate.
That's a larger mandate then our current Prime Minister enjoys.
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