Category: Green Party of Canada

Elizabeth May: still not ready for prime time

Green Party release on the Manley Report:

Green Party rejects Manley Report conclusions

OTTAWA – The federal Green Party shares a vision of a stable and secure Afghanistan, but today challenged the newly-released Manley Report’s premise that Canada’s troops must remain in Khandahar beyond February of 2009 to achieve this objective.

“The Manley Report fails to consider that the recommendation of more ISAF forces from a Christian/Crusader heritage will continue to fuel an insurgency that has been framed as a ‘Jihad’. This, in turn, may feed the recruitment of suicide bombers and other insurgents,” said Green Party leader Elizabeth May. “Better human security is certainly needed in the South but it should be provided by a different cultural mix of UN countries as well as the Afghan army and police. Even if this proves challenging to accomplish, this key objective should have been included.”

The Green Party also questioned the Report’s recommended indefinite exit date for the Canadian Forces from Kandahar, citing concern that an open-ended departure date could significantly prolong the training time of the Afghan military and police. The continuous availability of external personnel and logistical support in a poor country like Afghanistan risks creating a structural disincentive to rapid military preparedness, especially in an ongoing conflict situation.

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Would somebody please tell Ms. May that this conflict shouldn’t be framed in the words of lunatics that strap dynamite to their chests in order to achieve paradise? This isn’t a war of Christians vs. Muslims and it is troubling to see Ms. May speak about it in the same twisted terms as do the enemies of reason.

Let’s see what Ms. May says about Darfur:

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The Green Party is recommending that the Canadian government take leadership in rapidly organizing an international emergency initiative that would:

Offer new financial, political and logistical support to the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) to encourage it to continue its deployment and also strengthen its capacity to protect civilians at risk;
Break the logjam in the Inter-Sudanese Peace negotiations between the Sudanese government and all rebel groups by guaranteeing a crucial $100 million to the Darfur Compensation Fund and offer Canadian expertise in governance issues related to domestic power and wealth-sharing; Take the lead in persuading other middle-power nations to contribute alongside Canada to a rapid reaction international force that would be immediately deployed to a willing host country bordering the Sudan, and ready to intervene if necessary under a legitimate “responsibility-to-protect” UN-sanctioned process and mandate;

Two Muslim countries, one in Africa and one in Asia. Canada is in Afghanistan with a U.N. mandate.

UPDATE: May retracts her statement, “In hindsight I would have phrased it differently,” the Green Party said on News 940 AM Radio in Montreal, January 24, 2008.

That time when I met Elizabeth May

This week I also met Elizabeth May. The leader of the Green Party was in high spirits that day despite Garth Turner’s betrayal of everyone (conservatives, constituents, May and the Greens) just a few hours earlier. Turner campaigned for May in London North Centre, teased us all by telling us that he was considering “going Green”. He even turned his back on his constituents, which during a townhall in Halton, about 1 in 4 told Garth to go Green while not one told him to go Liberal.

Anyway, this post is about Elizabeth May. Unfortunately, we didn’t have too much time to chat.

Stephen Taylor and Elizabeth May
Stephen Taylor and Elizabeth May

It would be interesting to see May in a debate with party leaders during an election. However, should a party have at least one elected (or sitting) MP in order to have such a platform? What is your opinion?

If I remember correctly, Reform was allowed to debate only after Deb Grey won a by-election. If Turner had gone Green, he would have been a sitting, yet unelected Green MP. What should the threshold be? Also, consider that the laws governing the identity of a “party” have changed since 1989 when Grey became the first Reform MP.

You’ll find Liberals advocating that May should be allowed to debate because the Green vote is thought to cut into NDP support. NDPers thus are less likely to support the idea. Since Conservatives are depending on the NDP to split the left, they’re more likely to support the NDP position.

What may be certain though, is that we ought to have clear guidelines for Green Party inclusion in a televised debate.

BUT… this brings us to another topic to consider. The national networks are largely in charge of debate format and the participants invited and their decisions are largely subjective and outside of parliamentary review and jurisdiction. If a debate were held in a different forum (and medium — say… online) who would accept an invitation to debate and on what terms? If Harper, Dion, Duceppe and May accepted an invitation, would Layton turn down the opportunity to debate?

Is there such thing as an “official” debate?