Battle of the Bulls

The Green Party will not be allowed to participate in the televised leader's debates.

I think this is a telling letdown by the media and the mainstream politicians, not because I'm a Green supporter (I have voted for every party at some point except the Bloc) but because of the lack of credible reasons behind it.

Stephen Harper says that Elizabeth May is just another Liberal, and his followers claim that the debate is for leaders, not for environment ministers. The Green Party is a one issue party.

Funny, all this time I thought the Bloc Quebecois was a one issue party as well. And they certainly don't field candidates in every province, let alone in every federal riding.

What was the excuse last election? Oh yes, the Greens weren't an official party. Now they are.

They didn't have a sitting MP. Now, they do. Granted, he wasn't elected, but he's there.

The Reform Party and the Bloc were not official parties when they first participated in the televised debates.

In fact, I think every argument used against them in the previous election has been nullified. Except, of course, that no one wants Elizabeth May there.

As for being a one issue party, please see yesterday's posts concerning transparency about party policy. You can read every word of the Green's policy, and while it is based on environmental and health practices, it basically covers everything without stooping to the use of pooping puffins and other mudslinging techniques.

On another note, concerning the similarities between Liberals and Greens, I was told confidently by the Honourable Jim Abbott, MP for Kootenay-Columbia, in 2006 that should I care to compare and contrast Green and Conservative environmental policy I would be hard pressed to discern a difference. Hmmm. I would love to do so, Mr. Abbott, were your party's plans as easily accessible. All I see on the Conservative website is boasting about what has been done, not what will be done.

In typical classy politician style, the media consortium asserted that, had May been allowed to participate, three of the other leaders would have refused to show. It amuses me to no end that grown men and women revert to behaving like spoiled children in order to get their way.

What are Jack Layton and Stephen Harper thinking? I would certainly like to know. Layton certainly might be thinking that giving the Greens more exposure would mean less support for him. He's probably right. He doesn't like the fact that May supports Dion, but then again Mr. Layton doesn't like it when anyone works together to govern effectively. Heaven forbid two parties work together in a minority government to make things happen, or agree to a common cause so to better face the enemy. That never happens in the real world.

But Harper? Would it not make sense for him to encourage further splintering of the right to bolster his own showing? Call me crazy, but allowing the Greens to woo voters from the Liberals and NDP would increase the Conservative chances of a majority government.

Instead, the would-be prime ministers look like overgrown school boys who stubbornly refuse to let the new kid into the games at recess. Come on, gentleman. (How dearly I wanted to put that word in quotation marks.) Play nice with the newcomer. If indeed May represents a one issue party, should you not be able to pick her apart with your oratorical prowess and knowledge of all the important issues, reducing her to her proper place on national TV?

Making such an issue of the whole debacle only provides the Greens with free media coverage and more political firepower. I'd say that it resembles shooting oneself in the foot, but that wouldn't be prudent, given Mr. Harper's latest announcement on gun control. But who was listening to that announcement? Not me. I was reading about pooping puffins.