Category Archives: green party

Arrogant And Overly Optimistic

The Globe and Mail printed a particularly silly and, I’d say, irresponsible news story a few days ago. It goes like this:

MONTREAL — Justin Trudeau appears to be a man in a hurry, judging from his profile on Facebook. For several weeks, he has presented himself on the popular website as a Member of Parliament – despite the fact he has never been elected.

It took no time for critics to pounce on the mistake. On the site of Radio-Canada, which first brought the error to light, one woman said it showed that the younger Mr. Trudeau was as arrogant as his father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Another writer on Justin Trudeau’s own Facebook page accused him of being overly optimistic.

Mr. Trudeau was picked as the Liberal candidate for Montreal’s Papineau riding in April, but the seat is currently represented by Bloc Québécois MP Vivian Barbot.

A spokesman for Mr. Trudeau claims the fault lies with Facebook, the social-networking site with some 50 million users. Mr. Trudeau changed his status online to politician last month, and, when asked what he was running for, he wrote Member of Parliament.

The title appeared as his current position. Mr. Trudeau wrote to Facebook after the error was reported in the media, and the reference was removed at midday yesterday.

“Facebook lacks clarity, perhaps, but I wouldn’t make too much of it,” Mr. Trudeau wrote on his page about the slip-up. A spokesman said Mr. Trudeau meant no disrespect to Ms. Barbot.

If I were Trudeau, I’d be mighty annoyed. What the reporter apparently didn’t bother to check was that this is true for every single Canadian Facebook politician profile, including mine. So Trudeau’s spokesman’s “claim” is correct, and could have been verified in about a minute. But then, of course, there wouldn’t have been any story to print, since that sort of defeats the whole point of trying to manufacture a mini-scandal.

Since I’m not Trudeau, I’m just annoyed that he’s getting all the attention. How come no one’s looked at my profile and accused me of being arrogant and overly optimistic? *pouts, stomps out of room*

Greens Ahead Of NDP

Despite all of the standard disclaimers about why it’s a bad idea to pay attention to polls, it’s still notable that this Strategic Council poll (which has not traditionally had the Greens as high as some other polling companies) has the federal Green Party ahead of the NDP for the first time, with 13% to their 12%. Among other things, this is yet another argument that we need to be included in the next televised leaders’ debate. There’s also an argument to be made that this puts us in seat territory, since, as Jim Harris points out, the NDP elected 9 MPs in 1993 with only 6.88% of the vote.

One NDP blogger reacted to this news in the following way:

And I guess the near dead heat of the NDP and Greens shouldn’t go unacknowledged on an NDPers blog. To that I offer this, I greatly doubt the Green’s could sustain these numbers in a national election. However, it behooves the NDP to start giving some attention to a party that seems content on allowing the mis-conception that they are somehow equivalent to the NDP on the political spectrum.

To the first point, it’s true that in the past we’ve had difficultly pulling our vote out in numbers that some pollsters have predicted. That’s less true today, however, for two reasons. One, our party is better organized than it has ever been, with competent riding associations and experienced campaign managers establishing themselves in increasing numbers every day. That helps with the problem we’ve had of not “getting out the vote,” something the NDP excel at. Two, we’ve now passed a threshold of support where people consider us a serious party capable of electing MPs, as opposed to just a protest vote. That helps with the problem we’ve had of people entering the polling booth intending to vote green, but changing their mind at the last second for “strategic” reasons. If you don’t believe me, witness the results of the Ontario provincial election. Right up until polls closed bloggers and pollsters were predicting the provincial Greens would only pull 4%, maybe 6%. When the ballots were counted, however, we’d topped 8%, achieving the high numbers we’d been polling at.

To the second point, hopefully the author will be happy to learn that I am not content to allow any misconception that we “are somehow equivalent to the NDP on the political spectrum” to exist because, of course, we’re not. If we were, there’d be no point.

In fact, if people in general were under the impression that we were equivalent to the NDP, then it seems to me they’d be more likely to support the NDP for the oft repeated reason that “they have a better chance of winning.” (Note to any NDPers thinking of making this argument at my doorstep: if I wanted to blindly vote for the party with a good chance of winning, I’d vote Liberal.) No, quite the opposite is true: our support is as high as it is because people recognize that we are different from the NDP in many of the ways that we’re different from all of the status quo parties. (In short, and without trying to start a debate, we move beyond the old left/right spectrum and approach problems from a pragmatic, holistic perspective, while remaining the only party to acknowledge that there are limits to growth.)

Does that mean I’m cheering for the NDP’s demise, secretly hoping to wipe them off the map completely? Absolutely not. The NDP have a legitimate and important role to play in Canadian politics; I just can’t understand why they’re not playing it. If I were to offer some unsolicited advice, it would be as follows. Be true to yourselves. Stand up for traditionally “left wing,” socialist principals. Put away the focus groups and the talking points, the negative tone and the overly partisan rhetoric. Let Layton be Layton: think back to his excellent work as a city councilor in Toronto, when he was committed to getting things done instead of “getting things done,” if you get my meaning. That, in my opinion, is a recipe to get your supporters excited and believing in your party again.

Whatever you do, stop trying to become the new Liberal party. Please. We’ve got one of those already, we don’t need another one.

Greens Seeing Red: The Star

I’m pretty sure “red/green” puns have jumped the shark and should now be filed under any headline having to do with Kermit’s observations on how easy being green isn’t, but I’m not going to file a complaint or anything. From today’s Toronto Star:

GREENS SEEING RED

NDP Leader Jack Layton‘s dalliance with the Tories on the issue of Senate reform is raising eyebrows among Green party members.

They wonder what happened to Layton’s insistence in the last election that bringing in proportional representation should be a top priority for the minority Parliament. Proportional representation is a voting system that gives seats in proportion to the parties’ total popular vote across the nation.

But when Harper and Layton talked recently about parliamentary reform, it was the Senate – not proportional representation – that was Layton’s priority. Layton is proposing a national referendum on the future of the Senate and Harper offered his tentative support for the idea.

Yesterday, Layton was in Calgary to “shore up the support of Western Canadians in the NDP’s bid to hold a referendum on the future of the Senate.”

So what about proportional representation?

“Since Parliament can realistically only deal with one democratic reform issue at a time, Mr. Layton’s out-of-nowhere proposal to abolish the Senate is at odds with the NDP’s traditional support for reforming our voting system,” Chris Tindal, the Green party’s democratic reform advocate, said in a statement. “What has happened to his priorities and his promises?”

Green Party Leads In Saskatchewan Riding…

…if only just for one moment.

Saskatchewan Election Results Green Party 2007

I don’t think there’s been a general election in this country in over two years that hasn’t had us leading in at least one riding for at least a few minutes. Sure, that’s a very different thing than actually winning seats or finishing a close second under First Past the Post, but it’s also the sort of thing that used to be considered an impossibility. Now it’s normal and expected. Look for us to continue to accomplish the impossible.