The Green Party of Canada today held a press conference to demand inclusion in the televised leaders' debate in the next general election campaign, and to launch the www.demanddemocraticdebates.ca website.
Leader Elizabeth May and co-deputy leader Adriane Carr held the media event at Parliament Hill this afternoon, in which the Greens lobbied the media to include the party in the next debate.
Noting that the Greens are virtually tied with the Bloc Québécois for popular support, and that Canadian political parties are now primarily funded by taxpayers according to the votes they receive, May and Carr remarked that Canadians deserve to hear from the parties that they financially support - including the Greens.
Canada.com coverage
The press release in full:
Attention News Editors:
DemandDemocraticDebates.ca
OTTAWA, Dec. 14 /CNW Telbec/ - More than 660,000 Canadians voted for the Green Party in the last federal election and the latest public opinion polls show that the Green vote will be in the millions in the next election.
With its historic second-place finish in the recent London North Centre by-election, beating both the Conservative and NDP candidates, the Green Party confirmed its status as the fastest growing political party in Canada.
But party leader Elizabeth May is not yet allowed to participate in the leaders' debates during the upcoming general election which will likely be called early in the new year.
"Voters have a right to hear where all the major parties stand on the issues," Ms. May said today. "That's one of the cornerstones of democracy - an informed electorate. The continued exclusion of the Green Party from the leaders' debates is an affront to democracy in Canada."
DemandDemocraticDebates.ca is a national e-mail petition campaign aimed at the broadcast consortium - a group of TV network executives who control the debate content, format and which leaders get to participate. The DemandDemocraticDebates.ca website gives Canadians the opportunity to send a message directly to these decision-makers, adding their voice to an online petition demanding the Green Party leader's inclusion in the next leaders' debates.
According to Canada's Chief Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley: "Canadians today draw their electoral information primarily from television... The public broadcast of a debate held by several leaders of registered political parties is not a contribution to the parties but the provision of a service to the public."
The Green Party's popular support has earned it the right to be included in the debates.
"It's a ludicrous situation," said Green Party Deputy Leader Adriane Carr. "Every Canadian voter had the opportunity to vote Green in the last two elections. Their tax dollars support us. Our popular support is virtually tied with the Bloc Quebecois'. Canadians deserve to hear from our leader. Besides, including a woman with the debating skills of Elizabeth May would liven up the debates for everyone," concluded Carr.
For further information: Camille Labchuk, (613) 882-4761
6 Comments:
By endorsing Stephane Dion last week, Elizabeth May has damaged the prospects of Green party’s in the next general election. There is no doubt that her action has caused an erosion of her party’s support to the liberal party. Now she wants to be included in the federal election debate as a separate party to recoup some of her support, without having even 1 seat in parliament. She needs to realize that she cannot have her cake and eat it too.
She needs to realize that she cannot have her cake and eat it too.
Of course she can. What she can't do is eat her cake and have it too. I really wish people would stop getting that expression wrong.
Thanks for that unsubstantiated opinion, Tony, but you only need to look back to last month's byelection to see that your prediction is not likely to come true.
In the LNC byelection, Elizabeth gave praise where appropriate, especially to the Liberal camp. Rather than causing the Green support to move to the Grits, support from the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP all moved over to the Greens.
Political nerds like us aside, normal Canadians don't like mud-slinging politics. They find it refreshing when a politician can compliment their colleague of another partisan stripe if they have a good policy idea. And that's the way it should be.
Besides, with the plethora of parties, and a possible move to a proportional representation electoral system in the future, Canadian politics is very likely to become increasingly based on consensus rather than conflict over the next decade.
We Greens would very much like to elect MPs, but if we can achieve our goals via co-operation with another political party, then those means are fine with us.
Tony, the Conservatives only had 2 seats in parliament in 1993-1997 (or was it '98?). How many seats a party has before the election is not relevant to whether they should be in the debates or not.
This is how boring and pointless the debate will be without the Greens. The Liberals will attack the Conservatives on their governing record, the Cons will blame the Liberals for wrecking everything before they came along, Jack Layton will be out with is predictable message box statements, and Gilles Duceppe will be concerned with Quebec only. Few will trust the Liberals plans, most of us (over 60%) will be mad as hell about being governed by a party we voted against, Layton will try to make us feel good by defending the working family while putting his party firmly in park as opposition. Consipicuously absent will be ideas. And on an on until climate change and world war cause Canada to become a nasty, brutish and short totalitarian regime, democracy will be replaced by consumerism permanently until finally Canada is sold in a bundle package with the United States to China.
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