[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoon
Title: Dis-May'd (click to view)
Date: September 13, 2008
Well, the powers that be have decided that Elizabeth May, the leader of the perennially unpopular Green Party of Canada will be allowed to participate in the prime ministerial debate of all the major party leaders for the upcoming Canadian federal election.



The Green Party's support remains static at around 5%, and they remain unable to elect a single member of parliament, despite what I believe to be an enormous media bias in their favor that always ballyhoos how "this year might be the one!" I thus can't see Ms. May's inclusion in this debate as anything other than a reward for failure.



For more on my views on the Greens, I encourage you to check out my forums, where we have been vigorously been debating the Greenies quite a lot lately.

[roger-roger]

Awesome!

[hurley_108]

Quote:

Well, the powers that be have decided that Elizabeth May, the leader of the perennially unpopular Green Party of Canada will be allowed to participate in the prime ministerial debate of all the major party leaders for the upcoming Canadian federal election.

If it's a "prime ministerial debate" then the Bloc should be excluded on the grounds that they are virtually incapable of forming government running only 75 candidates.

But it's not a prime ministerial debate, now is it? No. Its a leaders debate. One of them will be PM, but most, if not all, will win some seats, and May is just as deserving of the opportunity to communicate her platform and debate with the leaders as the other four.

If it happens that they win a seat, then they'll be vndicated. If they don't, they'll have a hard time convincing more floor crossers next time and she'll be out again.

The others will also have the opportunity to debate her. If the Green party is really so fringe as their opponents claim, it should be clear, and perhaps they'll drop away.

So no matter which way the debate goes, and whichever way the Green party's support goes as a result, it will have been a good thing for May to have been in it.

[roger-roger]

The only reason she got a seat was from someone switching parties after being elected in. Her campaign looks more like an early fall vacation rather than real political campaign. I mean seriously she is riding a train, and tomorrow one of the highlights of her stop is the hockey hall of fame.
We cant let every party who gets a few votes take part in, the debate is timed. Having May in the debate takes time away from the politicians that actually have something to add. The bloc was at least able to get enough votes to have a few MPs.

[hurley_108]

Eisensapper wrote:

The only reason she got a seat was from someone switching parties after being elected in. Her campaign looks more like an early fall vacation rather than real political campaign. I mean seriously she is riding a train, and tomorrow one of the highlights of her stop is the hockey hall of fame.
We cant let every party who gets a few votes take part in, the debate is timed. Having May in the debate takes time away from the politicians that actually have something to add. The bloc was at least able to get enough votes to have a few MPs.

The Greens don't get just a few votes. They get hundreds of thousands of votes. They get as many votes as six average ridings have in their entire populations.

The next biggest party after the Greens, Christian Heritage, could barely muster 28000 votes nationwide. A whopping 55 candidates (1 in 6 MPs) won their ridings with more than that number for themselves alone, with at least one candidate for every other party earning that little title. The CH are fringe. The Greens are not.

[knoper]

I'd say the best idea would be to do it like they do in Germany: Have one round with every party leader (Above, say, 2% or so) on domestic issues, then knock it down to the top 2 for foreign policy and other matters usually for the executive.

[roger-roger]

hurley_108 wrote:

The Greens don't get just a few votes. They get hundreds of thousands of votes. They get as many votes as six average ridings have in their entire populations.

The next biggest party after the Greens, Christian Heritage, could barely muster 28000 votes nationwide. A whopping 55 candidates (1 in 6 MPs) won their ridings with more than that number for themselves alone, with at least one candidate for every other party earning that little title. The CH are fringe. The Greens are not.

If they are so main stream how come they havent had a party member voted into office?

[hurley_108]

Eisensapper wrote:

hurley_108 wrote:

The Greens don't get just a few votes. They get hundreds of thousands of votes. They get as many votes as six average ridings have in their entire populations.

The next biggest party after the Greens, Christian Heritage, could barely muster 28000 votes nationwide. A whopping 55 candidates (1 in 6 MPs) won their ridings with more than that number for themselves alone, with at least one candidate for every other party earning that little title. The CH are fringe. The Greens are not.

If they are so main stream how come they havent had a party member voted into office?

On one level because their support is diffuse. You can't win a seat under the SMP system if your support is spread thinly and evenly across all ridings.

On another level because they haven't had the opportunity to present their case the same way the Reform Party or Bloc Quebecois did in '93 in the debate.

[roger-roger]

So basicly they have never been popular enough in one single area to matter.

[bootlegga]

hurley_108 wrote:

Eisensapper wrote:

The only reason she got a seat was from someone switching parties after being elected in. Her campaign looks more like an early fall vacation rather than real political campaign. I mean seriously she is riding a train, and tomorrow one of the highlights of her stop is the hockey hall of fame.
We cant let every party who gets a few votes take part in, the debate is timed. Having May in the debate takes time away from the politicians that actually have something to add. The bloc was at least able to get enough votes to have a few MPs.

The Greens don't get just a few votes. They get hundreds of thousands of votes. They get as many votes as six average ridings have in their entire populations.

The next biggest party after the Greens, Christian Heritage, could barely muster 28000 votes nationwide. A whopping 55 candidates (1 in 6 MPs) won their ridings with more than that number for themselves alone, with at least one candidate for every other party earning that little title. The CH are fringe. The Greens are not.

I may not like the Greens, but saying that 600,000 votes is fringe is a poor argument at best. With rationale like that, then Liberals/NDP in Alberta shouldn't be allowed to attend local debates, and neither should Conservatives in large urban ridings in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

See what happens when you get start excluding those that don't have seats?

[Psudo]

bootlegga wrote:

saying that 600,000 votes is fringe is a poor argument at best.

Within Canada, sure. In the USA, Nader gets about 2 million per cycle and remains fringe.

[ridenrain]

Comaprisons with the Block are unfair because the block should never have been allowed to run as a federal party in the first place.

[Reverend Blair]

Yeah that would have helped keep Quebec in Canada, Riden.

[knoper]

ridenrain wrote:

Comaprisons with the Block are unfair because the block should never have been allowed to run as a federal party in the first place.

Why not? Canada is a democracy, whoever the people vote for should be represented. If we start to deny people representation based on their views, there is no use for democracy.

[hurley_108]

ridenrain wrote:

Comaprisons with the Block are unfair because the block should never have been allowed to run as a federal party in the first place.

Who's the Block? There's no Block party. Did you mean Bloc?