Re: Would like to see May in a cheerleader costume

Stéphane Dion is a fine person. I can understand that you have a hard time understanding a relationship between two parties that *isn’t* bellicose and adversarial.

The “belittling” attack ads that the Conservatives have been hitting Mr. Dion with since he was elected leader of the Liberal Party are quite telling of their own character.

Do you agree with Mr. Harper’s decision to drop his “objections”?

“Yes, Stephane Dion would like to see me in the House of Commons and I think that he should be prime minister,” she said, adding with a laugh: “Of course, I’m my first choice for prime minister but he’d be very good as second choice.”

May also vowed to defend Dion’s record and character, calling him a man of “deep integrity and extraordinary character.”

“I admire Stephane Dion enormously. … I think it would be despicable to hide the truth from Canadians when I think Stephane Dion’s a fine person.””

She should be in the bleachers with all the others cheering their favorite candidates on.

It’s quite obvious that the Neo-Cons are pulling the corporate puppet consortium strings.

This may be the first time that I have EVER agreed with you. Thanks for having the cajones to break from the right/left ideological split and call a spade a spade!!!

C’mon! It is their job to try to win the election. If they have the chance to knock out an adversary, they will. You cannot blame them. Why in heck would Layton, Harper, Duceppe do otherwise? You have to blame us! You have to blame this ridiculous bradcasting coalition, which is a cartel that should be illegal. We are the ones that are supposed to hold their feet to the fire. If people want the Greens in the debate, they should demand it, or threaten to park their votes for the Greens, or the Rhinos. If they are not prepared to send their votes elsewhere, then they should stop whining about the Greens.

The fact is, the Greens do not have enough popular support or potential to win in order for this to cost the other parties.

I would be worried for Canadian democracy if the other parties did NOT try to exclude the Greens. Then I would be wondering about the corruption and the collusion.

Ms. May says she will attend the debates nonetheless. That’s good. She can cheer Dion from the bleachers.

You have to make a distinction between candidate expense reimbursement and party funding. Recognised, registered parties that receive more than 4% (IIRC; the exact % may be diff) get annual funding from the government ($1.75/vote each year or something like).
Is this an arbitrary standard? Yes. Is it reasonable? I’d say yes. As did the Parliament of Canada.

I’m arguing (and I guess David Strbavy is too) that since we have this standard already anyway, for a similar purpose (ie, recognising when a party is mainstream enough to get on-going public funding AS A PARTY, not as individuals), we might reasonably use the same standards inclusion in the debate structure (which itself needn’t be a single pair of all-in debates).

I think the NDP should drop the word “Democratic” from their name. The irony is just sickening.

1) 5% of vote in last election
2) Official party status as of dissolution of the House
3) Seats in 2 out of 4 regions as of dissolution of the House (or X out of X, depending on how you want to break up the country)
4) Running candidates in 95% of ridings in current election

If your party meets three out of four criteria, your leader gets to participate in national debates.

Then set up regional debates with a much lower criteria to be included.

This would keep the national leaders debate restricted to leaders that at least were trying to be Prime Minister, eliminate purely regional parties from a national debate, and probably lead to a better debate with fewer participants.

Some rules would have to be established for the dissolution/merging/renaming of parties…

MYL: Actually, that’s all Harper could ever do. My understanding of the reporting was “if she’s there, I won’t be.” Only the reporting said that three parties made that position clear (BQ now apparently backpedaling). So he cannot “eliminat[e] the Green Party from any national debate,” he can merely choose to not participate himself.

And Harper’s childish reasoning for eliminating the Green Party from any national debate only reflects his immaturity and lack of confidence in his ability to debate an issue he does not support: the environment. Let him take his bat and ball and go home like the spoiled child he is and allow the remainder to debate. The whole process is a farce and most of the citizens are the real victims and losers as this policy is to maintain the rigid control of the political system by the ruling economic interests.

Not only do we need Green inclusion but we also need more debates and less smarmy lying commercials. Provincial debates might be a few too many, but certainly regional debates or multiple national debates including all Elections Canada funded parties should be the norm. AC is correct this should not be in the hands of the media or involved parties.

Ditto, my friend. Ditto.

1. They are not debates. Debates require arguments and counter-arguments, and – arguably – involve only two people. They involve a debating question. And, they usually involve the use of MATERIAL facts. What we get, instead, is usually a boring 1 hour effort in which everyone tries to deliver an ad hominem gotcha for the 11 PM news, a la the oh-so-tired “You had a choice, sir” (apparently, the best clip Canadian political history has to offer…pathetic). Worse: almost all opinion-makers present these jokes as though they are an important consideration for reasoned voting.

2. The ACTUAL purpose of the debates is to tell the voting public who is to be considered “legit”. The message sent by the networks is: “These are the leaders of the only parties you should vote for. The rest are all fringe parties, with nutty ideas, and it would be dangerous or stupid to vote for them. Look no further than the parties led by these 4 clowns”. In other words, the ONLY reason for appearing on the stage is to communicate to the public that the establishment has VETTED you. Elizabeth May (or, in provincial elections, people like myself, Frank deJong etc.) are excluded precisely to prevent the emergence of parties who propose actual CHANGES. Shorter still: the function of the televised debates is to maintain the status quo. So for people to argue about how to set a bar for inclusion misses the entire point: the only real prequisite is that your party will change nothing that matters to big business, big unions, and other big organizations who don’t want their government hand-out, protection, exclusive contract, etc. put at risk.

3. Arguments about who should be included are really arguments about who should be EXCLUDED. If you want to have a better grasp on the issue, consider the policies of the parties that are excluded. It is all you really need to know.

4. Consider that, during an election, the idea of how many seats a party has is pointless: nobody has any seats – the legislature/Parliament has been dissolved, and the Conservatives currently have no more seats than do the Communist Party of Canada.

5. Arguments about inclusion usually propose considerations about past performance, rather than about ideas. If the purpose of a debate is to debate ideas so that voters can decide for themselves with which party’s ideas they agree, how many people voted for the ideas that purportedly got the parties elected 3 or 4 years ago is irrelevant: hopefully, they are not the same ideas that are being debated today.

Journalists who think that the networks deserve to have their asses whooped over exclusion of political party leaders should take a tip from their own practices. When a party comes up with a good idea, but the party proposing it is someone they do not want to legitize by explicitly mentioning it, they do one of two things: pretend the party doesn’t exist and write nothing, or say that “some are saying” the thing that the journalist finds to be a good idea. To whack the networks: give the “leaders debate” the silent treatment. Don’t write about it. Don’t legitimize it. Don’t help the effort to pretend that it is a debate of ideas. Don’t make voters believe that it actually matters a pinch of racoon-poop which leader “looked statesman-like”. Just pretend it didn’t happen, until leaders debates cease to be vetting processes, and start to be what they purport to be: a service for voters.

Messers Harper and Layton, should you choose not to accept an invitation to participate in the debate which is to include the green party, then so-be-it, but the CANADIAN PEOPLE do have the right to hear the ideas and platform proposed by the green party.

1) Are there not enough Green Party seats ? The (populist) Reform Party only had 1 seat in 1993 and Preston Manning was permitted in the debates.

2) Is there not enough Green Party support ? The Green Party received much more support in their last election than the Reform Party did in 1988. Currently, between 1 million and 5 million Canadians are considering voting for the Green party in 2008. The establishment is obviously feeling threatened by a populist leader whose party is the epitome of progressive, environmentalist policy.

3) The Green Party doesn’t have official party status ? Well, Neither did the NDP and Progressive Conservative party in 1997, but both were allowed to debate .

4) Are there not enough Green Party candidates ? The Greens ran candidates in all 308 ridings in the last election. Now, how many ridings do the Bloc run in again ?

Again, the authoritarian, secretive, manipulative, hypocritical Neo-Cons are behind this.

“You can’t have one leader on stage that has already endorsed the candidacy of another and signed an electoral co-operation agreement,” said Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas.

“When it comes to the debate, they can have May or they can have Dion,” he said.

“But they can’t have both.”

That sounds like the decree of a self-appointed dictator.

Canadian political parties have long had agreements not to run candidates in the riding of the leader of another party. But the Neo-Cons attempt at Green Party banishment and blindly authoritarian hypocrisy shows that that Harper is a ruthless, dictatorial, oblivious Neo-Con just like Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld and Bush. Instead of free debate and genuine democracy, the Neo-Cons have (again) chosen blatant, partisan stifling and hardline repression of opposing viewpoints.

Why ? Because they are frightened of a genuine threat to their entrenched power and their desire to exponentially INCREASE that power.

We are witnessing a full frontal assault on democracy and free speech by Harper & Company.

In 2002, Harper said, “Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.” Harper & Co. have recently devised a politically expedient, ideological flip-flop in order to capitalize on earth-friendly popular sentiment. But they are all Dick Cheney oil men at heart.

MYL: I’ll call’em as I see’em. To say that May endorsed the Liberal Party is quite simply a lie. You might just as easily say that Dion endorsed the Green Party, or that Harper endorsed GWB, and they’d all be equally as mistaken.

Personally, I think it’s pretty sad when a politician is able to look at the political landscape, understand that minority governments may well be the future, and be lambasted for having the nerve to suggest they might cooperate for the good of Canadians. Are libertarian/conservatives that against cooperation?

I’m including the primaries. Obviously.

Dion (& the others) debated what, a dozen times during the Liberal leadership campaign? Those ten-way mega-debates across the country? It’s not that it doesn’t happen here, we just don’t pay attention, and we don’t have that two-year many-million-dollar run-up to pick candidates for chief executive. We have five weeks, and that’s all we have — I wouldn’t mind there being more debates in those five weeks, but I think it’s a bit disingenuous to compare our system to the American system straight across.

While we’re at it, how dare Maclean’s not offer space to the Canadian Islamic Congress to offer their viewpoints. After all, if not in the venue of this national newsmagazine, how else will anyone every hear their ideas?

(Comment by sf on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 12:30 am)

sf, I agree the line has to be drawn somewhere. Stockwell Day drew it at 3%, in his direct democracy referendum proposals. The number should be fair in balancing brevity with democracy and apply to all future situations, not just the issue of the day.

I would like to see a Dion-Harper debate as well. Dion has asked Harper but Harper seems to be adverse to this idea. I don’t think there’s such a thing as ‘too many’ people in a debate. This is democracy, after all, which means the voice of the many. Whether or not a party can be expected to form the government, their points of view and policy proposals are just as valid.

Which brings me to your third point, where you said it was stupid of Ms. May to endorse the Liberals. In fact, I think this was very smart of her. Like you said, her party has no chance of forming government. As a pragmatist, she recognizes this and sees parallels in the Liberal environment policy and Stéphane Dion. Perhaps this is the beginning of coalition governments in Canada?

I’m fed up with parties who all share in the challenges facing Canada and overlap in terms of their policy but insist on futile exercises in narcissism which ultimately shall be to the detriment of their supporters.

There’s no doubt, it was stupid for the network to ask the other candidates.

It was also stupid for May to be endorsing Liberals whenever she gets the chance and then whine about the exclusion of the Greens.

Having too many people in the debates is also not good. I would prefer to see a one-on-one Dion-Harper debate. No other party has a chance to form a government. Instead, we can expect to see 4 party leaders gang up on 1, which is not fair.

The last thing that should happen is for government to get involved, for laws to be passed on this, etc. The problem is that the networks are cozy with the government, so getting the government involved further is not a solution.

(comment by Sean S. on Monday, September 8, 2008 at 7:49 pm)

Sean, I totally agree that something needs to change. The existing format is quite staid and no longer congruent with the evolution of our democracy.

I was amazed at the video questions presented to the candidates at the YouTube/CNN cadidate debates last year. Garth Turner took a step towards the idea of direct digital democracy by asking some rather pointed questions of Finance Minister Flaherty submitted by readers of his blog at the last Committee of the Whole for Finance.

When will Canada make this jump? It’s clear the ‘consortium’ is unprepared to rethink democracy in the 21st century. Who will step up to the plate?

MYL: Would it be possible, fellow commenters, to refrain from such silly insults? The troll commenter quoted above has levelled a charge of libel in recent past, charge for which s/he has refused to substantiate with any actual evidence. If only because such silliness detracts from the actual message, please may we all grow up.

Great idea.

Whoops! Harper and Layton are going to boycott.

I’m including the primaries. Obviously.