A voice to be heard

The decision by the broadcasting consortium to exclude Elizabeth May from the leadership debate, while perhaps defensible from a legalistic standpoint--the Green Party holds no seats in Parliament--is nevertheless both mean-spirited and undemocratic.  Last election the Green Party garnered 7 % of the popular vote. Despite not earning a seat, her vote total represents a constituency as large as that of Gilles Duceppe's, just diffused across the country.  One might even argue that her party has more legitimacy than that of the Bloq Quebecois since it does not seek to support one area of the country to the detriment or exclusion of all others.

The consortium's decision not to invite May is also curious given the decision of the CBC, which holds two of the five seats on the board, to include the Green Party as one of the parties in its Vote Compass survey.  I like Vote Compass!  It's a great way to engage with politics and assess one's values, and I applaud the CBC for its creativity and initiative in developing it.  But if the party was considered important enough to be judged alongside the other four parties in this survey, its leader deserves to be heard in the nationally televised debate.

Let Elizabeth May be heard, and let the people determine for themselves on May 2 how much of a voice they want her to have in the future.  

Here and Now

Here we are, five days into the Canadian election campaign, and rumbling just underneath the surface is that troubling question, Does anybody really care?  There are some who say this current election is a big waste of time, money, and voters' patience, that the politicians should just do what they were elected last time to do and not bother us.  One woman, writing in to the Globe and Mail, laments that in the Middle East people force governments to hold elections while in Canadian governments force people into elections.  Another, a civics teacher, begs everyone to just not vote.  Busy people weighed down by life's responsibilities wonder, well, what will it change anyway?

But just as people in the Middle East can find themselves fighting for democracy after years of dictatorship, so can we find ourselves wondering, where did ours go?  Last election, only 58% of people voted.  Among young people, the percentage fell to 30%.  Stephen Harper, when asked how he felt to be the first prime minister in Canada to be found in contempt of Parliament, muttered, "It was just a vote in Parliament." 

"Just a vote in Parliament"??  Just the response of the highest democratic institution in the land to the behaviour of the person with the most political power in the country.

This is why I believe this election is about reaffirming Canada's commitment to democracy.