Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘elizabeth may’

High-ho, high-ho, it’s election time again in Canada. And it sure does feel an awful lot like 2008:

• 4 out of 5 of the party leaders are unchanged. Only Iggy is new this time around, though his post-election political days are probably as numbered as Stephane Dion’s were.
• The party positions and platforms are largely unchanged since 2008 as well, at least on the big issues.
• Elizabeth May is once again angry about being excluded from the debates – and, like last time, I predict she’ll probably get her way.
• Jack Layton is still sporting his used car salesman ’stache.
• The Tories are once again sitting in comfortable minority-government territory, at once unlikely to lose and unlikely to form a majority.

So remind me again why we’re going to all this expense and trouble?

I would love to see the Tories get the boot. Between the long-form census debacle, the convenient-for-Harper prorogation of Parliament, corruption scandals, arts funding cuts, attacking women’s right to choose,  social engineering in the guise of economic policy that punishes anything other than the “traditional” family values, and Harper’s megalomania, the reasons abound. I simply cannot believe I live in a country where we keep electing this party.

Unfortunately, the only hope for replacing the Tories, the Liberal Party of Canada, is still in shambles. Ignatieff’s personal popularity is fairly low (no doubt made worse by those horrible Tory attack ads), the vote-splitting on the left bolsters the NDP and Greens at the Liberals’ expense, and the Bloc is standing at nearly 50% popularity here in La Belle Province.

My vote, which I have no problem saying will be for the Liberals, is a wasted vote, since I live in Gilles Duceppe’s riding and unless he gets morphed into an alien and starts singing Vegas showtunes in the shower, he’s going to run away with it here. But I will still trudge out and cast my ballot – on my birthday, no less – even though I know it won’t do any good at all.

No, I’m not a huge fan of Michael Ignatieff. I liked Stephane Dion a lot better, even though he failed to rally widespread support. But I’d much rather have a party in power that I agree with ideologically on most points, as opposed to one that I believe is steadily taking the country in the wrong direction.

The CBC has launched a short but fairly accurate online tool to help you gauge your political positions vis-a-vis the major parties. Check it out. And make sure you vote, because if we’re paying for this pointless election anyway, you might as well get your voice heard.

(Even if I do sometimes wish I could vote for the onion ring.)

17.

That’s the number of seats where the Liberal-Green combined vote total was higher than the vote total for the winning candidate.

Of those 17 seats, 9 were won by the Conservatives. The remaining 8 went 5 to the Bloc and 3 to the NDP.

Of course, it’s illogical to assume that all or even a large portion of the Green Party’s votes would have gone to the Liberals. Despite both parties having run on “green shift” platforms, they are quite different, and many people who voted Green did so largely because they did not want to vote Liberal.

And yet… With all the discussions around vote-splitting, I can tell you that Stephane Dion is eyeing those 17 seats today and wondering whether his “friendship” with Elizabeth May was worth it.

As for May, she probably understands a bit better how Ralph Nader must have felt in 2000.

Is a Liberal-Green alliance really such an outlandish idea?

Well, it was lively and even funny at times. That’s all I can really say about the debate format that provided more of a chance for attack zingers than real reasoned debate. Still, I guess it made for good TV, since we were all glued to the screen for a couple of hours – the longest I’ve watched the CBC for in a while. My initial impressions:

• Stephen Harper seemed surprisingly nervous. Though his calm tone of voice contrasted well with the others, as it did two years ago, and he had the advantage of incumbancy, his positions lacked the moral clarity that they used to hold. He seemed almost wishy-washy, and he got backed into several embarrassing corners, namely on Iraq, on arts funding, and on a promise not to raise taxes that will surely come back to haunt him. He seemed rattled by May’s presence, and his showing was surprisingly poor, especially compared to expectations. I can respect someone whose views I don’t necessarily agree with, but it’s hard to respect someone who doesn’t show the courage to have those views. He missed chances to take the stance of the right on issues such as foreign policy. But then, he also had a horribly biased moderator (I mean, what kind of question is “do you think Harper is a barbarian?”). And ultimately, he can be declared the winner if only because he won the portion on the #1 voting issue, that being the economy. The rest probably won’t matter much. Still, I was surprised to see him looking so shaky.

• Stephane Dion is obviously the worst debator of the group, and had the worst showing tonight by far. His debate style mirrors the problem plaguing his election campaign: He lacks charisma, leadership ability, and the confidence to get his ideas across. I did like that he talked about standing up for what it means to be Canadian, believing in our accomplishments, and regaining our place in the world. And I also believe that he has better ideas than his debate skills would seem to indicate. But there’s no doubt that he needed to do a whole lot better than he did in order to have any chance of picking up votes tonight. This was a missed opportunity for Dion.
• Jack Layton accomplished something I didn’t think possible: he managed to make me hate him even more than I already do. I will give him points for consistency, mind you. He consistently managed to take the exact views I disagree with each and every time. Quite the achievement. Seriously, though, he was the only candidate who actually managed to get across what he stood for, rather than just spending all of his time attacking the others, and he deserves some grudging praise for that. I still can’t stand his used car salesman smile, his annoying little moustache, and his habit of saying “Exxon” in every second breath.
• Gilles Duceppe had nothing to gain or lose in this debate. He didn’t make nearly as strong a showing as he did in the English debate in the last election, mind you. As expected, he talked a lot about the province’s rights, and issues important to Quebec. He also scored the most points on the arts funding issue and – surprisingly – did a better job of defending environmental rights than either Dion or May. He had one of the best lines of the debate, when asked what he would do first if elected Prime Minister, he glibly said that he won’t ever be PM… and neither will three other people at the table. But mostly, he seemed tacked on, since he didn’t really answer any of the questions with a real policy answer.
• Elizabeth May was impressive. Period. She’s obviously a skilled debator and, though her style seems vaguely reminiscent of our neighbours south of the border, she scored a lot of clear zingers. I disagree with her on a lot of issues, but she did the best in terms of being prepared with statistics, facts and researched answers. She scored a lot of points that way, and she rattled Harper’s cage more than once. Where I felt she missed an opportunity, though, was in getting her party’s message across. The Green Party platform is all about how every other issue is related to the environment and cleaner, healthier, better living. May’s debate style lended itself well to the format, but she scored more points on attack than on ideology. Since people voting Green are mostly doing it out of ideological reasons, I felt she could have been clearer on what she stood for. Still, I think a lot of heads were turned by her showing in this debate. And she certainly had a right to be there, probably even more of a right than Duceppe.

Overall, the debate won’t lead me to change my vote, but then, I wasn’t really on the fence. For undecided voters, I suspect that Dion will have lost ground, Layton might have gained some among people who actually agree with him (read: not moi), and May probably picked up some points. What this will mean for Harper’s chances at a majority, though, is anyone’s guess.

And no, I didn’t watch the US vice-presidential debate.

Well, this is a new one, I have to admit: A politician apologizing for not smoking pot:

“I am not a fan of marijuana use. I have to confess this — I know all politicians are asked. I’ve never used marijuana. I apologise,” said Elizabeth May.

May’s Green Party, of course, calls for the legalization of marijuana in its platform.

No, not a merger, just some limited cooperation.

The deal between the Liberals and the Green Party that will see the Libs step back so that Elizabeth May can compete seriously for a seat, is, on the surface, a smart move for both parties. The Liberals have made it clear that, under Dion’s leadership, the environment is their #1 issue. The Greens have always made the environment their #1 issue. So they’re competing for the same pool of voters, and that pool is getting bigger every day as climate change has gradually shifted from being a “polls well but irrelevant on voting day” issue to an issue that can actually affect election results.

But will it backfire? If the Libs move left, will that just open up more space for the Conservatives to make gains in the middle? Conversely, it was arguably the Green Party that – despite a lack of elected MPs – elevated the environment to such a key voting issue in the first place.

The Liberal Party can’t afford to become a one-issue party, even if it is tempting for them to spend the entire next election campaign attacking the Harper government on its environmental record. (The ads are already in the can, I hear). That’s what fringe parties are useful for; bringing single issues to the forefront. But both parties that can govern – the Libs and the Tories – need to campaign on a range of issues representing the broad spectrum of governmental responsibilities. Anything less simply isn’t fair to Canadians.