The Green Party of Canada
Bringing the Smell of Compost
To an Election Near You!

I am of course, referring to the deal announced today by Elizabeth May and Stephane Dion, respectively the new leaders of the Green and Liberal Parties.

Under the terms of the Nazi-Soviet (oops, I mean Dion-May) non-aggression pact. The Liberals have agreed not to put up a candidate in the riding of Central Nova, held by Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, where Ms. May will run in the next election. In return, the Greens will not field a candidate in Mr. Dion’s riding.

The quotes coming from Elizabeth May at today’s announcement are hilarious!

“There is no time to waste. Because of our electoral system, I do not have a choice. I have to collaborate." Nope, no time to waste at all for democracy and freedom of choice. It’s not like May has her choice of 308 ridings to run in to put her case before the people (oh wait, she does!). Instead it's much better to collaborate with the Liberals to fight global warming, even if they let Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions increase by 30% in the last decade they were in power.

"This is an extraordinary expression of putting progress and principle ahead of politics as usual." Absolutely! This is so much better than offering the people of Central Nova a full-fledged choice about what party or candidate they should vote for!

And in response to NDP Leader Jack Layton’s refusal to enter into a similar deal, “I think it behoves Jack Layton to think about getting beyond the kind of traditional, ancestral, tribal hatreds that are part of partisan politics." Unless of course, you’re talking about the evil regressive Conservatives, you can hate them all you want! Not to mention that the NDs came in second in Central Nova, so their support would have been much more valuable.

And my personal favourite, "I see in Mr. Dion a true leader for this country." Which is why she will deny the people in Central Nova the opportunity of voting for his party.

There’s a long-standing tradition (though not always exercised) of not running a candidate against a newly-chosen party leader running in a by-election. That’s one thing. But this scheme denies tens of thousands of Canadians the opportunity to vote for the party of their choice in a general election. It’s an attack on democracy when two individuals can sit down and remove names from ballots, despite what local riding associations may want and feel. In my view, it’s morally repugnant.

Fortunately, I don’t think it’s going to prove a very wise decision for either leader. Mr. Dion has, in essence, told local Liberals in a riding that it doesn’t matter who they nominate or how hard they’re prepared to work, Dion will toss them overboard to support someone running for a different party. It shows a contempt for local volunteers and workers that I think will come back and haunt him. It’s one thing for a local campaign to decide in the final week of a campaign that, with no hope for victory, they should support someone who shares some of their values (like the Liberals did, once upon a time, for Joe Clark). It’s another thing for the national leader to sacrifice a riding weeks or months before an election. And Canadians might well wonder what other principles Mr. Dion is prepared to sacrifice in order to win?

As for May, her quotes show she doesn’t even need to be elected before engaging in Orwellian truth-speak. By making this kind of backroom deal, she makes a mockery of Green promises to do things differently and destroys any kind of image of the party as an honest broker working for Canadians’ best interests. She’s also taking a big personal gamble that the voters of Central Nova are going to reward her for this kind of manipulation, when they might instead rally around the native son under attack from an outsider. Finally, with her endorsement of Dion, there are probably a whole bunch of would-be Green canvassers wondering how to respond to voters who ask, ‘why should I vote for your party, when I can vote for a real Liberal?’ (except in Central Nova, of course!)