Category Archives: green party

Elizabeth Buys Dinner With Jack

green party, ndp,

As you know, Elizabeth May has been trying to get a meeting with Jack Layton, but to no avail. She’s of the opinion that politicians need to work together to address the climate crisis, and that it would be helpful for the leaders who want to take action to discuss how to do that in the face of a Prime Minister who doesn’t.

So, last Saturday night at the parliamentary press gallery dinner when Layton (who was not actually on the agenda) stepped up to the microphone and announced that he was auctioning off a dinner date with himself and his wife Olivia Chow for charity, Elizabeth saw her window.

Mr. Layton auctioned off dinner for four with himself and Ms. Chow to raise money for a scholarship in memory of Dennis Bueckert, a respected Canadian Press environment and science reporter who died suddenly this year.

Ms. May said Monday she had already planned to make a $1,000 donation to the scholarship as she and Mr. Bueckert were old friends, so the auction was perfect.

“I decided I’ll go as high as $1,000,” she said. “If anyone goes higher than that, I can’t afford it.”

Funny thing: no one went higher. Oh, and another funny thing: she plans to invite Stephane Dion as her guest, so that they can all sit around the same table together. “That would make a very interesting dinner,” she said. “Who knows, something good could come of it.” Let’s hope.

That’s assuming, of course, that Layton actually honors his commitment:

Polls and election results suggest the Greens pose an electoral danger to the NDP, and Mr. Layton seems unwilling to do anything to lend legitimacy to Ms. May or her party. At the end of the auction, Mr. Layton did not even acknowledge that Ms. May was the winner…

…A spokesman for Mr. Layton, Karl Belanger, did not sound keen on the May-Dion-Layton dinner.

“We didn’t talk about who this person might be,” he said. “She won the auction, so we’ll see, but co-ordinating the schedule of three leaders . . . two leaders is already tricky. Three leaders could be even more tricky. But you know, it looks like the Liberal party would be well-represented at that dinner, since she’s the Liberal party candidate in Central Nova.”

Smooth, Karl. And classy too.

Conservatives Attack Vision Green

green party,

The Conservative party actually bothered to pay people to go through Vision Green (our 160 page policy document released on Monday) to find stuff they could pick out in an attempt to make us look as crazy as possible. (I’m going to file this under “you know you’ve made it when.”) Today, they’ve posted a large image on their homepage (wait, that means they had to pay a designer too…that’s not cheap) that links to what they consider to be the “highlights” (their word) of our document. Of the hundreds of ideas and solutions contained within, there are four specific points they’ve decided are worthy of more attention, seemingly because they all start with the letter “P:”

PEACE – In addition to their policy of changing the “Department of Defense” [sic], to the “Department of Peace”, the Green Party is calling a “notice of withdrawal” from the NATO mission in Southern Afghanistan, and a review of our participation in NATO and other military alliances (Vision Green, p. 133, 141).

Uh…wait, sorry, was there a non-spelling-related criticism coming there? No, that’s it? You’re just mocking us for our commitment to work towards peace? Ok then. Moving on.

POT – The Green Party will “legalize marijuana” by removing it from the schedule of regulated drugs (Vision Green, p. 107).

Correct. You know what other group of hippies recommends legalizing (and regulating, taxing) marijuana? The Canadian senate. Anyone who’s studied this issue knows that prohibition on pot has failed, and only serves to criminalize a huge number of Canadians while simultaneously financing organized crime and contributing to gang violence.

PROTECTIONISM – The Green Party wants to “immediately provide the required six months’ notice of withdrawal from NAFTA”, and to scrap the Security and Prosperity Partnership with the United States (Vision Green, p. 146, 148).

The six months notice is to trigger much needed re-negotiations of NAFTA, particularly the parts that say it’s ok for American companies to poison our drinking water, so long as they’re making money while doing so. That’s not trade protectionism, that’s protecting Canadians. Besides, it’s not like the US is respecting NAFTA anyway.

AND BELIEVE IT OR NOT…PARKING TICKETS – Attention shoppers, the Green Party wants to force malls and “megastore retail outlets” to charge customers for parking (Vision Green, p. 67).

Believe it or not folks, the Green party wants to discourage out-of-control sprawl and a debilitating dependence on cars. Shocking news indeed. (Attention shoppers, we cannot shop our way out of this problem.)

Look Stephen, last week we found out that concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have already reached critically high levels that we previously believed would take ten years to accumulate. Meanwhile, the arctic is melting more rapidly than even the most pessimistic climatologists predicted. In other words, we should now be in crisis mode, and must take emergency measures. Given our situation, taking action to discourage the most “mega” aspects of our car culture is the least we should do.

Of course, I don’t expect the Conservative party to understand that. It’s clear they still don’t have any understanding of the extremely serious situation we’re in. That makes Harper and the rest of this government Dangerous with a capital D and that rhymes with E and that stands for Election. Canadians, I know you don’t want one right now (at least, that’s what my TV tells me), but you may need one. Soon, at least.

Two Questions…

green party, news media

…for my friends in the media. First, for The Toronto Star. In your report of this morning’s release of Vision Green, you wrote the following:

The party, which also advocates investments in pedestrian and bicycle “infrastructure,” says good transit and high-density housing is the key to making Canadian cities livable.

Say, um, why the quotation marks? Does the journalist consider pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure to be less “real” than other kinds of infrastructure?

Second, for Craig Oliver at CTV. At the end of an interview with my Liberal opponent Bob Rae, Mr. Oliver said “we look forward to seeing you in Parliament,” to which Bob Rae laughed and replied “me too.” Now, I recognize that Rae’s election is highly likely, but just to clarify, it’s still up to the voters of Toronto Centre, right?