If Elizabeth May still mattered ...

... the overwhelming response to this story in the MSM and the alt-media, would be howling cries of hypocrisy based on this ...



But to be fair, it's not that May is entirely irrelevant. Clearly people voted for her and her party in the last election. It's just that her inexplicable antics, propensity for internal scraps and unsubstantiated claims have alienated many of those voters as well as many respected GPC stalwarts.

On that basis, the need to hold her to the same standard of seriousness and consistency as the other leaders is just not there. And in politics, that's as brutal a condemnation as you're likely to get.

Only 300 ridings left to go ...

Taking a cue from others, this corner of the internet has for some time observed a policy of not commenting on the musings of the leader of the Green Party, nee Liberal Party spokes-thingy.

The point having already been made, and nothing having changed, what’s left to say? But an article in the Owen Sound Sun Times does change things. For the worse ...

Coming off of this week's election in BC which saw Green support tumble 37% from their electoral high, Elizabeth May is now suggesting she’s looking at running in “seven or eight” ridings across the country.

For those keeping score at home, since re-entering electoral politics in 2006, May has now mused about running in no fewer than EIGHT federal ridings:

Central Nova: here

Cape Breton-Canso: “I’d love to be the Member of Parliament for Cape Breton--Canso. That's where my family home is.” – CTV Question Period, January 7, 2007

London North Centre: “I want to be the best MP London-North-Centre has ever had, quite honestly, I want to work really hard for the riding." - London Free Press, October 26, 2006

Sydney-Victoria: "One morning I wake up and think for sure I’m going to run in Cape Breton-Canso . . . Then I think maybe I should run in Sydney-Victoria by the end of the day.” – Halifax Chronicle Herald, February 21, 2007

Ottawa West—Nepean: "I love the idea of running against one of the cabinet ministers of this (Conservative) government. I live not that far away from where (Environment Minister) John Baird's riding is in Ottawa.” - Halifax Chronicle-Herald, January 18, 2007

New Westminster—Coquitlam: “Green Leader Elizabeth May says she would consider running for a seat in a soon-to-be-vacant riding out west but will not make up her mind until a by- election is called.” – Toronto Star, May 11, 2009

Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley: “It depends on when and if a byelection is called because if there is a general election first, then there is no byelection opportunities. If a byelection opportunity presented itself, I’d be very interested.” – On running in Bill Casey’s former riding, CBC "Politics with Don Newman", April 28, 2009

And now, Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound

Honourably in the last three years, May has managed to eke out a shrinking share of the political space talking about the need for politicians to be straight with people. So it’s more than a bit revolting to find her ending her political comeback by packing-up her carpet bags after making this solemn promise to the people of "her riding" ...

Where was this editorial months ago?

… because now this just seems ironic.

“In the campaign's final days, Ms. May shamelessly shilled for the Liberals, pleading with voters to cast ballots for Mr. Dion's party if that would stop the Conservatives from being re-elected. She turned her party into a false front for a competitor, in other words. It was a disgraceful move, one that made fools of all those (such as this editorial board) who argued she should be admitted to the televised debates.”

The Red-Green deal was dirty politics from the word go. Everyone who called it that was right and everyone who said otherwise was either naive or in on it.

Credit goes to these valiant soldiers: Ed Broadbent who from the beginning called it the kind of politics that is as “old as the hills;” Green partisan David Chernushenko who predicted May would turn the party into a Liberal cheerleading squad; Paul Wells, who astutely called May “Dion’s auxiliary backup party leader”; and New Democrats who responded to May’s pleading to be put in the debates by saying “the Liberals already have one leader in the debates.”

This is not to say that all, or even many Greens were in on this. Watching Claude Genest, the deputy leader of the Green Party here, you can see how May and Dion’s endgame maneuvering left a lot of niave Greens flat-footed.



What’s lamentable is how much uncritical time and oxygen was given by the mainstream media to build May up as a independent political player given how obvious her strategic voting scheme was.

The Red-Green deal did not “squeeze” the New Democrats, as it was intended. And it did not even deliver voters to the Liberals. After months of scheming to fatten up the Green Party the Dion Liberals were still too weak and tired to catch it and eat it themselves. The Red-Green deal backfired because once Liberal supporters left their former affiliation, they didn’t want to go back, no matter how much Dion and May begged them to.

This may not be the last we ever hear of “strategic voting,” but it should be.

Political parties owe it to their supporters, candidates, donors and adherents to fight to be heard and to win as many votes as they can based on what they stand for – not for what another party stands for. That’s what Jack Layton and the New Democrats did in this campaign, and Canadians rewarded them for it with near historic support.

The one where Paul Wells says what we are all thinking

Sometimes it happens. And this is one of those times.

Paul Wells has said what we've all been thinking -- this time dismissing Elizabeth May's role as Stephane Dion's "auxiliary backup party leader".

With honesty simultaneously refreshing and exclamation-mark-rich, the Inkless one intones: "THE GREEN PARTY OF CANADA HAS NO SEATS IN PARLIAMENT!!! ... It feels unaccountably more rewarding to pay attention to people with power than to pay attention to people without power."

The Green Party, it will be recalled, has been available for comment since 1982. And yet it has historically merited barely a paragraph of press outside elections. So really, why all the attention now, pollsters, journos and pundits alike?

Is it because suddenly they have a leader whose stated raison d'etre is to have another party form a government, and another party leader become Prime Minister? Is it because Greens are inexplicably seeking common cause with the Liberal Party, and Liberals are doing the same for May - punctuated by a fatuous comparison to Barack Obama?

Treating May as an objective political actor, particularly after her most recent role, is the same as believing "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" were interested in truth.

Wells puts it more bluntly, suggesting the unconvinced ask themselves if it's "really fair for the Liberal leader, who thinks the Liberal leader must at all costs be prime minister, to be joined onstage by a special auxiliary backup party leader who also thinks the Liberal leader must at all costs be prime minister."

For his part, Wells says "NO" (exclamation marks redacted).

Does Dion think Afghanistan is a Holy War?

There are a lot of criticisms against the current Afghanistan mission. The at-times confused report of the Manley Panel even added to them today. The mission lacks criteria to measure progress, a definition of success, and an exit strategy. It’s unbalanced. It lacks broad support in NATO. It lacks support at home.

But until now, one of those criticisms hasn’t been to equate the mission to a holy war “from a Christian/Crusader heritage.” But that’s before Elizabeth May spoke up.

Maybe May meant to say that more non-Western nations need to be involved. Maybe she meant something else entirely. But that’s not what she said. Instead she compared the Canadian Forces to a Caucasian religious army on a war to bring Christendom to the heathens.

This isn’t the first time May has shown simply awful judgment in choosing her words. One need think only of her recent Nazi quip, which she even waded back into in the new year. In politics, the way you say things is sometimes more important than what you are saying. May doesn't seem to grasp that.

No one knows why the Liberals didn’t comment on the Manley report today, but you can bet they wish they had now. Because tomorrow they will have to explain why they don’t agree with their coalition partner’s equating Canada’s army with an ancient Pope's holy warriors.

Elizabeth May sacrifices Kyoto to appease a desperate Dion

Anyone who remains unconvinced that Elizabeth May takes her cues from the Office of the Leader if the Artificial Opposition should pay careful attention to this:

As has been discussed here and elsewhere, Stéphane Dion is ready to give Stephen Harper the mandate he wants in the coming Throne Speech votes. The Liberals are too weak and don't know what their values actually are.

Here’s the wrinkle though: yesterday’s Throne Speech included a very definitive statement that Kyoto is now dead. How can Dion support that? Well, it makes it a lot easier if Kyoto suddenly doesn’t matter anymore.

That’s where Elizabeth May comes in . . . here, and here.

If it is written honestly, history will record Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, Stéphane Dion and Stephen Harper as those, who together by indifference or design, killed the Kyoto Protocol in Canada.

For her part, Elizabeth May will be remembered for having given Kyoto a hasty burial on national television.

A place to grow . . . Ontario

The numbers say what a lot of people aren’t: Last night, the NDP were the only party to increase both their popular vote and their seats over 2003. It’s incredible!

It’s testament to the fact that Howard Hampton ran an honest campaign that stuck to the issues. In fact, if real issues that matter to everyday people – like tuition fees, property taxes, and the decline of Ontario’s manufacturing sector - were addressed and reflected in the media coverage at all it is due entirely to Hampton.

And while Dalton McGuinty wasn’t held to a minority as many had hoped, the results were far worse for both the Liberals and Conservatives who saw fewer Ontarians vote for them than four years ago.

The Greens should also be proud of increasing their vote from 2.8 to 8 percent. In large part, this was due to the MMP referenda. An unusual number of Green supporters came out to vote in this election in support of MMP.

But their Ontario result also shows what can happen when Greens campaign against the Liberal Party instead of being a compliant cheerleader as Elizabeth May is doing. Look at the recent Outremont by-election where the Dion Liberals actually used an endorsement from May in their campaign literature -- the Greens lost 2.8% of their vote and came a distant fourth.

Also interesting is that both the NDP and the Greens saw their vote share go up while the Liberals and PC's went down. Quite simply, the cliche that the NDP and Greens are fishing in the same pond is bogus. But don't try to tell that to University of Waterloo political scientist Peter Woolstencroft.

May's "Nazi" comment splatters onto Liberals

For the Liberals, one of the main attractions of their backroom deal with Elizabeth May is being able to contract out their dirty work.

May has been cued up to go on endless tirades – particularly against Jack Layton and the NDP. Recall her ludicrous “What the hell is wrong with Jack Layton that he can't answer a phone call?” And who can forget her incomprehensible conspiracy theory that "the NDP fakes left and goes right."

Liberals see this as smart strategy. The realization among the more sober in their ranks is that after 13 years of “not getting it done” they haven't the credibility to make their attacks stick. There was also the hope of sparing Dr. Dion the indignity of having to sully his fingernails trifling with the NDP.

So, imagine the consternation in Liberal circles today to find that they are now having to explain the tasteless remarks coming out of a woman they called a “prophet” only days ago.

As an appetizer for what there will be generous helpings of in the future, here’s Liberal MP Glen Pearson trying to distance his party from Elizabeth May’s tactless equating of the Conservatives’ environmental policy to appeasing Nazis:

“Canadians need to get more serious about it [the environment], but the whole link to the Nazis over that went beyond the pale, for me. You have to be careful there. We have all messed up on the environment, right? . . . I just didn't think that analogy was probably the best one that could have been used."

You can bet that Liberals who haven't already expressed dread over this backroom deal are begining to right about now.

Elizabeth May is propping-up the Conservatives -- at the bar!

Elizabeth May has been foaming mad for months on the baseless allegation that Stephen Harper and the NDP are in cahoots. Who can forget her over-the-top rant on CTV Question Period:

"What the hell is wrong with Jack Layton that he can't answer a phone call? I don't understand this. He talks to Harper all the time."

Her conspiracy theories about the NDP "propping up" the Conservatives have even earned her a public rebuke from Toronto Green Party candidate Stephen LaFrenie.

All the more incredible then, that over at May's blog, Stéphane Dion' s partner in the war against Harper is gushing about her brilliant repartee with John Baird and how she and the environment minister she pretends to vilify are planning to hook-up for cocktails and "giggles" later.

People who want results for the environment aren't laughing.

May and Dion put out the trash

More signs that the Elizabeth May / Stephane Dion spin-factory have reached the end of their tether.

They've called in former Green leader Jim Harris to spin this piece of fiction. Just like May's groundless "no party leader has ever faced a challenger in an election," Harris is re-inventing history.

As Layton says in the story, it was Harris who requested the meeting because he had a list of his own demands, including that the NDP stand down against Green candidates.

Harris' version of events is baseless. People who worked the 2004 NDP campaign say the strategy on the Greens was to not talk about them at all. Talking about them gave them air. This direction was strictly adhered to at all levels. There was just no way Layton was going to give them the time of day, let alone brokering a Dion-style deal like Harris alleges today.

Greens will recall that when Harris was leader, his tactics were described as manipulative and duplicitous. They couldn't get away from him fast enough. Now that they are losing the argument over their backroom deal with Dion, they are calling on his talents again.

May struggles to defend "Axis of Ego"

This morning's panel on "The Current" on CBC Radio is must-hear-radio.

Ed Broadbent, Elizabeth May and former Alliance MP Val Merideth debate the "Axis of Ego" backroom deal.

Real Player audio here

A few of the more amazing highlights:
08:00 - Broadbent declares "this kind of politics is as old as the hills."
11:04 - May blames Ed Broadbent for the Green Party's electoral failure.
11:40 - May re-invents history to make it appear that no party leader has ever had their election contested.
11:59 - May struggles to muster the sincerity to say it was a principled decision.
12:26 - Ed holds May to account for her Liberals having done nothing for the environment for years.
13:36 - May accuses the NDP of having elected Harper by "faking left and going right." (um, you might be looking at Paul Martin's playbook there.)
18:45 - May launches the clunker that the Greens can't win a seat because their constituency is "the world."
22:46 - Tremonti concludes with "Stephane Dion could not be reached for comment."

Green candidate denounces "Layton-bashing" Red-Green deal

For a plan that was supposed to attack Conservatives, the Dion-May deal has been exposed as a cynical scheme to out-flank the NDP, not Harper.

Both Dion and May have gone out of their way to target the NDP in all this. Witness May's ill-tempered and over-the-top rant against Jack Layton on CTV's Question Period.

Baffled by a strategy that purports to save the environment by attacking a party and a leader that has been alone in championing the environment in the Commons for years, Greens are speaking out against it.

Stephen LaFrenie, the nominated Green Party candidate in the Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina has indicated his growing frustration in this comment he posted to the Green Party's website:

"Jack Layton is an honourable man. Stephane Dion is NOT . . . Why should Jack Layton show Ms. May and ourselves courtesy when she has done nothing but insult him since becoming leader. She comes from a conservative mind set and has done nothing in her leadership to build the kind of cooperation she now claims to be trying . . . I continue to find the Layton bashing, partisan nonsense of many Greens on this site to be unacceptable. You are kidding yourself if you think the NDP is going vanish from the political landscape. If we continue to justify failed politicians and political parties like Stephane Dion and the liberals then we will only be seen as liberals and not an alternative."

LaFrenie and others are right: if May is serious about environmental results, working with Stephane Dion against Jack Layton sure is an absurd way to do it.

Elizabeth May, Liberal Party candidate

One day Elizabeth May was the principled leader of the Green Party of Canada and the next she is the Liberal Party's candidate in Central Nova.

Usually people wait until they are in the House before crossing the floor. But at least we should be thankful that Elizabeth May has removed any doubt about her loyalties ahead of time.

But just the same, Green Party supporters are left feeling betrayed and wondering why they bothered.

Exasperated Green supporter Fraser Mowat has said “I know that our EDA has been working hard to get more members. Why join the Green Party when the Liberals will have a great leader that will do it all for us”?

May talks about "shared values" with the Liberals, but Green Party members don't see much to value in a party whose environmental policies May once said were "handed over to the oil patch in Alberta."

Even former Green leader Jim Harris has questioned the sense of working with a party with a worse environmental record than George Bush.

Erin Weir at Relentlessly Progressive Economics points out that by selling out to the Liberals, May has alligned herself with a party that favours further continental integration.

Even the Sun chain of papers get that Greens are being used by the Liberals. Columnist Lorrie Goldstein writes: “Let's ask so-called "progressive" voters, including May, what good comes, for them, from supporting Liberals? Where's your implemented Kyoto accord, folks? Where's your national day care program? Has child poverty been eliminated? When was the free trade deal re-negotiated? All Liberal promises, all broken, despite 12 years in power, most as a majority government.”

Dion and May are calling this cooperation, but it looks more like vote-fixing to most people. It is patently undemocratic for two people to decide who 140,000 people can or can’t vote for.

The Dion-May marriage makes sense from one stand point: they are two party leaders who should be worried about keeping their jobs.

Ed Broadbent tears into the Red-Green Show

Yesterday's panel on the Mike Duffy show was one for the archives. In addition to the ususal suspects - Tim Powers for the Conservatives, Scott "beer and popcorn" Reid for the Liberals - and incredibly - Ed Broadbent was subbing in for the NDP.

Within minutes, it was Ed's show as he punched holes into Reid's weak defence of the Dion-May pact.

An excerpt:

The reality is, the performance of the Liberal Party on the environment - and I cite Michael Ignatieff, never mind New Democrats.

One of the reasons I went back into politics in 2004 was that your party - and Mr. Dion was in the cabinet - was piling up surpluses of billions of dollars in the 1990s
after the deficit was dealt with and did noting about the environment. I repeat, it was Michael Ignatieff that said that and Mr. Dion was in that cabinet.

I went back in because Jack Layton then as now has been the one leader definitely persistently out front on the environment.

As for Ms. May, she actually publicly said she's not a person on the left. She said the Greens aren't on the left. I acknowledge that. She's not on the left. In fact it was a Liberal that Mike quoted that said that she's a social reactionary. That's rather strong language but she's certainly not on left and you're welcome to her.

It was a negotiated deal. Again she talked about this is not back room politics. She only talked, what she said was a dozen times with Mr. Dion on the phone? Well, isn't that -- we're not talking about the 19th century back rooms. That's a negotiated deal over the membership of both parties that they reached and it disenfranchised all those voters in the Nova Scotia constituency who happened - and I respect their choices - happened to want to vote Liberal. It's a simply calculated arrangement between two parties.

Ed's passion for democracy and principled politics is unassailable. On a day full of theatrics and circus acts, it was great to hear someone of his integrety and experience call this for what it was and expose the faux credentials of Elizabeth May and Stephane Dion.

Who's back? Ed's back!

The pact of 26.2 percent

The announcement just ran on CTV.

May did most of the talking and as usual stepped in it whenever she could. The most stunning bit of vanity was when she over-reached to compare herself and Dion to Ralph Nader and Al Gore.

The overwhelming impression: these two haven't thought this through at all.

Dion has yet to answer this question:

"If your goal is to defeat Harper, and you are willing to concede to a party that has no seats, doesn't it make sense to not run candidates against the NDP and the Bloc in the seats they actually hold?"

Dion's teetering credibility now rests on his answer.

Dion's deal to end the "national governing party"

The prospect that the Liberals would concede to not run in all 308 ridings has been the stuff of wild conjecture for about a month. But few thought it was much more than a prolonged game of footsie designed to buy sympathy from a potential Green voters.

But today all signs are that Stéphane Dion intends to follow though. One can only imagine Laurier and Trudeau would be displeased.

Putting aside the dubious strategic merit of reaching out to the 6% of Canadians who say they will vote Green and the 3-4% who actually will, it’s not too early to conclude that this announcement is going to prove calamitous for the Liberals.

The most obvious reason is that the Liberals have ended their claim to “strategic voting.”

Liberals have won recent elections by telling supporters of other parties that only the Liberal Party is strong enough to stop Stephen Harper in all regions of the country.

In the next election, this argument will be counted by: “if that’s so, then why aren’t you running in all 308 ridings? And by extension of that logic, if you really want to defeat Harper, why don't you step aside in ridings that the NDP and Bloc already hold or where your party is not competitive?

For this reason and more than a few others, Dion’s decision is going to prove extraordinarily short sighted.

Anyone opposed to the union of Elizabeth May and Stéphane Dion should speak now . . .

It looks like ordinary Green Party supporters are starting to notice that Elizabeth May is a bit too cosy with Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, and they don't much like it.

Dion of course is the environment minister who invited the vice president of Imperial Oil to chair a panel on regulations to control pollution. Who made it easier for oil companies to conduct offshore drilling in marine ecosystems. Who voted against mandatory emissions standards for cars. And who weakened his own Kyoto plan, so big industry could pollute more.

Fed up, Green candidate Andrew Lewis has posted this criticism of May's "Red/Green Alliance" to his blog.

Lewis is getting backed up my no less than May's deputy David Chernushenko who told the press "What he is saying is something pretty much every one of us has thought about if not said."

May's strategy is this: defeat Harper by lending the Green Party's credibility to a wounded Dion. Among the huge flaws she ignores with this plan is that the Liberals have as bad a record on the environment as it is possible to imagine.

If this keeps up, Greens may find they have no credibility to lend.

Elizabeth May(be) not.

Idealistic Pragmatist has a excellent piece here on Elizabeth May's soon-to-be-fateful decision to run in Central Nova.

All talk about May's political future begins and ends with this fact: May's one and only chance to get into the House was the London by-election.

The by-election presented the best of all opportunities for the Greens in terms of timing, resources and the state of the opposition. And they still blew it.

Timing: May still had the halo of winning the party leadership. Even though she's been in politics since 1980, she was seen as "new". That's gone now. Only 200 days since the becoming leader, May now has baggage on things like her controversial stance against abortion and supporting Alberta's intensity-based climate change plan.

Resources: The by-election saw Green activists from across Canada converge in London. In order to concentrate their limited ammo, the Greens deliberately didn't run anyone in the Quebec by-election. In a real election, scarce resources (volunteers, money, etc) will be stretched to 308 ridings. The luxury of having the entire party's resources concentrated in May's riding is gone now too.

State of the Opposition: The London by-election dumped misfortunes on the opposition parties that boosted the Greens. The Liberal machine was caught in Fontana's mayoral bid, and the party leadership race. The Conservatives were divided over Harper's office parachuting controversial former mayor Dianne Haskett into the riding. And even the NDP campaign suffered from early setbacks that they couldn't recover from. These coincidental circumstances won't come again.

This state of affairs should have been enough to push May into the House of Commons. But it didn't -- not even close. The hard reality is that if the Greens couldn't sail on calm seas with the winds pushing them along, then they can't at all.

Today, with an election nearing, May has chosen to run in Central Nova. It’s not premature to issue a small craft warning.