All posts by Chris Tindal

The Same Sex Marriage Debate

social justice

If you take for granted that reopening the same-sex marriage debate is a bad idea from a human rights and social justice standpoint, you’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of the multitude of reasons this vote shouldn’t be taking place.

First, it’s a politically cynical move. Harper’s not just doing this because he said he would. (He’s already demonstrated his sense of humour by breaking a key promise that had the word “trust” in it.) Rather, he’s orchestrating this vote because a number of his socially conservative MPs and supporters want him to prove that he’s still at least open to the idea of discriminating based on sexual orientation. (Call it, neo-openmindedness.) Since the vote is almost certain to fail, that’s the only thing he could possibly accomplish.

Second, it’s a moot move. Not only is the vote likely to fail, but even if it succeeded, Harper would need to invoke the Charter’s notwithstanding clause in order to actually outlaw same-sex marriage, and he already said he wouldn’t do that. So, again, what are we doing here?

Finally, it’s a waste of time. The House can only accomplish so much, and there’s lots to do. They shouldn’t spend any more energy on something that was already decided (and decided correctly) just to appeal to the small number of Canadians who want to believe they’re still voting for the Reform party. And Canada should not be subjected to more divisiveness because a minority government wants to boost its ratings.

Some Advice

conservative party, green party, liberal party, ndp

The two campaigns in the London North Centre by election that went negative were the Conservative campaign (which went negative on the Liberals) and the NDP campaign (which went negative on the Greens). It’s no coincidence that those campaigns finished third and fourth, behind the positive campaigns of the Liberals and the Green Party.

I bring this up because late last night the NDP sent out an email to their supporters (and moles like me). The first paragraph read:

There’s a new Liberal leader but it’s the same old Liberal party. After 13 years of broken promises and corruption, the Liberals have picked themselves a new front man. Their choice – an out of touch academic who spent 10 years in a scandal ridden cabinet and who’s record as Environment Minister was condemned by environmentalists and the Environment Commissioner. Liberal arrogance – some things never change.

The second paragraph — ready for this? — was as follows:

Today Jack Layton offered his congratulations to Stéphane Dion, saying that he looked forward to debating the new leader in Parliament to get things done for today’s families.

The second paragraph loses some of its sincerity coming after the first, doesn’t it? Listen folks, we’re not going to accomplish anything by being close-minded, mean, and partisan beyond reason. And if that isn’t enough, Canadians increasingly won’t vote for these kinds of politicians and parties. The London North Centre result showed that.

If I were in charge of the NDP’s messaging, I’d turn the venom down a shade, or risk being poisoned by it.

London Debrief

green party

So many others, including Elizabeth, Adriana, Camile, Jim, the other Jim, and more, have already said it. I’m not sure what to add.

Today, the Greens are the story. It was true that we had a shot, and the numbers don’t even tell the full story of how close we came. Due to the overlapping municipal election, the federal campaign only started to build real momentum in the last week, and wasn’t going full-tilt until this past weekend. I’m certain that with one or two more weeks, we would have taken the riding.

Sobara says this result should worry the Conservatives. He’s 1/3 right. It should worry the Liberals and NDP too. Compared to the last election, we took six and nine percent from them, respectively, and another six percent from the Conservatives. As Elizabeth says, we’re not vote splitters, we vote unifiers.

We beat the governing party, and the NDP, who started the campaign by saying “the Greens won’t be a factor,” came a distant fourth. Everyone who voted NDP because they thought that candidate had a better chance, or Liberal because they were afraid of the admittedly frightening Conservative should, in the words of the NDP attack piece, “think carefully.” Same for everyone who didn’t bother because they didn’t think their vote would change anything. We’ll always get distorted election results, and have a less healthy democracy than we should, until people feel like they can vote for the candidate they want.

Congratulations to everyone involved, this is great stuff to build on and we’ve definitely shaken things up. As usual, I can’t wait for the next campaign.

ps. Anyone who wants to debrief in person, I’ll be at the Toronto Centre Greens pub night tomorrow (Wednesday) at The Ben Wicks, from about 7:30pm on.

NDP Attacks Greens!

green party, ndp

Oh boy is this an exciting day. The NDP, whose candidate said at the start of this campaign that the Green Party wouldn’t be a factor, has been distributing a specifically anti-Green flyer. Clearly, we’ve now convinced them that we are a factor. There’s much celebration here in the May campaign office.

I heard about the flyer today from a disgruntled NDP volunteer I bumped into while canvassing. She’d been shocked to see it and had refused to hand it out. She mentioned that her young daughter, who’d been canvassing with her, had been particularly upset by the whole thing.

For the text of the flyer, Elizabeth May’s take on the attack, and some pretty funny context to a quote of Elizabeth’s that had its context unduly removed, check out Elizabeth May’s blog post.

Tomorrow. Monday. This is it.