Dear Postmedia Editorial Board

This : 

is not an adequate response or apology for what was previously published in that same space by the Postmedia Editorial Board on August 24th : "[Elizabeth] May must renounce anti-Israel resolutions". Excerpted :

You are not RebelMedia. 

You are not some partisan advocacy organization that can pass off the blame for this appalling libelous attack on some hapless newbie book reviewer - although I notice you share with them the phrase "figleaf of Jewishness". 

No, you are the editorial board of Vancouver's largest newspaper. Shame on you for stating Independent Jewish Voices supports terrorism and denies the Holocaust.

IJV Statement On Canadian Media Giant Libeling Us

Corey Levine : Why I Asked The Green Party To Challenge The JNF's Charitable Status

The only upside to this ridiculous op-ed is the thorough drubbing you received in comments below it. First five comments, excerpted :

"As a former journalist and chair of Langara's journalism program, I'm shocked by the degree of distortion in this editorial."

"This editorial is preposterous!"

"What a very sad editorial, full of errors and inaccuracies and probably conscious lies."

"This 'editorial' is purposely disingenuous."

"This editorial could have been written by the Likud party."

Indeed.

Your op-ed also condemned a resolution sponsored by Elizabeth May and 28 other Greens calling for Canada Revenue Agency to revoke the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund, the largest private landowner in Israel. JNF has used its tax-deductible status in Canada to build and maintain the infamous “Canada Park” on the ruins of three Palestinian villages.  As you note in your correction, at the convention the language was watered down to call for any charitable organization's status to be revoked if they are in violation of Canadian or international law. 

In 2014 Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey was Honorary Chair of the Jewish National Fund's annual Negev Gala.  
Elizabeth May has attended their galas in the past and consulted with JNF CEO Josh Cooper prior to the Green Party convention vote.


The offending op-ed, now taken down, published in the Vancouver Sun and Ottawa Citizen :

In February, the House of Commons passed a motion 229-to-51 condemning any actions by Canadian groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement. IJV was the first national Jewish organization globally to support the non-violent BDS movement; the Green Party is the first national party in Canada to follow suit. Bravo to you both.

h/t  Waterbaby
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Hey Electoral Reform Committee: It's our system, not Parliament's

Sometime between the first televized ERRE committee meeting and the end of the second in camera meeting, Nathan Cullen's motion to have the committee set aside a timeslot for members of the public to ask questions of expert witnesses in real time via social media got axed.

As Cullen put it at the time of his motion in the first meeting : "This process is not ours - This entire conversation belongs to Canadians."

Cullen's motion, seconded by Elizabeth May, was received cautiously at first by the Lib MPs and then with growing enthusiasm to give it a chance. 

Jason Kenney's response was to suggest that Cullen could just give up one of his own allotted speaking slots to questions from the public if he was all that keen on it. 

A majority vote sent the motion off to subcommittee, from whence I noted at the time, it may or not return intact. 

Kenney, who was also very keen on the Brexit referendum, was not on the in camera June 28 subcommittee or at the also in camera second meeting of the whole committee that followed it but something akin to his view appears to have prevailed nonetheless, and the original motion favoured by Cullen and May did not. 

Le Devoir :

"The problem was to determine who would have chosen the issue, says Mr. Scarpaleggia. It's not fair to ask the researchers or clerks to select questions because, for them, it could remove their neutrality. And it becomes very difficult to manage. "

The amended motion [see below] allows you to tweet your questions to #ERREQ for members of the committee to decide at their discretion whether or not to pose any of them to the witnesses. 

Big whoop. We can do that already.

David McLaughlin: It's our electoral system, not Parliament's 
Anything less than a citizen-focused electoral reform consultation will cheat Canadians out of their rightful voice.

"During its first meeting, the ERRE Committee announced it had $300,000 to hold nationwide consultations and to complete its work. That same week, the National Energy Board announced $10 million for citizen consultation on the Energy East pipeline.

Such a contrast in priorities and effort is disturbing. The government and House of Commons need to reassess their thinking on electoral reform and engaging Canadians. A more citizen-focused electoral-reform consultation is required.

To do anything less will cheat Canadians out of their rightful voice. After all, it’s our electoral system not Parliament’s."

Mr McLaughlin, deputy minister of the New Brunswick Commission on Legislative Democracy 2003-05, now with Policy Options, has five good recommendations for the committee "to expand its process to fit its own expansive mandate."   Go. 

ERRE calendar this week, all televized :
Wednesday July 6, 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m : Maryam Monsef, Minister of Democratic Institutions

Thursday, July 7, 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m : Marc Mayrand, Chief Electoral Officer

Thursday, July 7, 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m : Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Chief Electoral Officer, 1990-2007

CPC MP Scott Reid, who so far is speerheading the idea of an electoral reform referendum in committee, was adamant at the 1st meeting that Marc Mayrand not share a session with JP Kingsley because he intends to question Mayrand in depth on the time needed to set up a referendum. 

Mayrand was already pretty clear about this at PROC last month : 

Six months to set up a national referendum because the act has not been amended in 24 years. 10 months to redraw electoral boundaries, another 7 months to implement ... total of 24 months before the next election on October 17, 2019. 

Cullen's amended motion :

"That the Committee invite Canadians to participate in the debate through Twitter using the hashtag #ERRE #Q; and that this participation includes questions that can be submitted to members of the Committee, who may, at their discretion, be selected to be posed to witnesses appearing before the Committee; and that the Analysts provide analysis of the public input received and that this analysis be included in the Committee report."

.

First meeting of Electoral Reform Committee

The most interesting and innovative idea to come out of the first meeting of the all-party Special Committee on Electoral Reform, or ERRE, was Nathan Cullen's suggestion, seconded by Elizabeth May, to allow members of the public access to question the expert witnesses before the committee in real time via email or twitter hashtag.

Cullen (paraphrased @mark 18:00) :  As MPs we will have the privilege and advantage of engagement with experts from around the world, and with televised meetings Canadians can be learning right alongside us. It is always possible a Canadian will notice something we have missed or have a completely different insight or perspective on expert testimony that will open up avenues we had not considered before. Their questions can be sent to the impartial clerk of the committee and read out by the Chair in the equivalent of one MPs speaking slot. [That would be about six minutes for Q&A]

May : Seconded. The more Canadians are able to interact with this unprecedented committee and its witnesses, the more interested and informed they will be. Instead of thinking - gee I wish they'd asked *this* question, they can submit it. This will reach tens of thousands more Canadians.

DeCourcey : Open and accessible is good but we're already conducting consults in our ridings. What if the same person sends in questions over and over again? [Note : Clerk could deal with that!] Send motion to subcommittee for study. [DeCourcey warmed to the idea as debate progressed]

Kenney : 

"My primary concern about this motion is that it proposes a fundamental change in the role and nature of parliamentary committee thereby creating a precedent before we've studied the implications of such a precedent. This is a parliamentary committee ... woof woof woof ... We are not here to be conduits for twitter or other platforms of social media in which there is sometimes a robust and vulgar public debate ... woof woof woof... " 

Kenney suggested if Cullen were so keen on this idea, he could give up one of his own allotted speaking slots to questions from the public ; Cullen said he would be willing to do that.

May : This isn't radical, will engage young people and lend to the legitimacy of this process.

Cullen : "This process is not ours - This entire conversation belongs to Canadians."

A majority vote in favour sent Cullen's motion to the untelevised subcommittee for study ... from whence it may or may not return. We'll see. 

Meantime, send @ElizabethMay and @nathancullen kudos for their excellent work here.

Cullen's motion : 

"That the committee alot the equivalent of one MP's speaking spot per meeting to hear questions directly from Canadians at each meeting with witnesses, that the committee receive questions from Canadians via the committee's email address and twitter hashtag #yourvotecanada #yourvotecda, and that questions be reviewed and selected by the clerk of the committee and posed to the witnesses by the Chair."

Green Party guy endorses Gordo ; Gordo endorses Harper

G&M : Campbell urges support for Harper government
Blaming Quebec separatists for election results, Premier says it's time to work together

"The Liberal Premier of British Columbia blames Quebec separatists for the country's third minority government in a row.
"Everyone should understand that the only thing that prohibited Mr. Harper from getting the majority he was seeking was the separatists in Quebec," Gordon Campbell said yesterday"

Can I get a lolcat to go with that, please?
We have all already given our collective thanks to the Bloc, Gordo.

"He added that Mr. Harper is clearly the man most Canadians want as prime minister."

Yo! Gordo! Steve won less of the popular vote than last time!
But I can see where you might be hoping to hitch your little rightwing wagon to Steve's in time for your election campaign next year.


In other fabulous cross-party wankfests:
"The former Interim Leader of the BC Green Party endorsed Premier Gordon Campbell’s leadership and joined the BC Liberal Party team today."

"Over the past year I’ve been impressed with Premier Campbell’s leadership," said Christopher Ian Bennett. "It was time for me to move over and be part of a party that was making a difference and truly leading Canada blah blah blah..."

For his part, Gordo said he "respected [Bennett's] ability regardless of party label to stand up for what was right for British Columbia blah blah blah..."
Previously, Bennett was Elizabeth May's communications director in her successful bid for GP leadership.

Ok, are we done with this nonsense of referring to all Greens as "left wing" now?

Election '08 - Canada doesn't vote!

So what the hell was that good for?

No majority for Steve, mostly due to the Bloc in Quebec.
Voter turnout was 59%, the lowest in Canadian history.
In his acceptance speech, Harper said, "Voters have entrusted us with a mandate".
Given that Steve's win here is based on the support of 22% of eligible voters, at least that mandate isn't likely to be anyone that you know.

Libs boast the lowest popular support in a general election in the history of the Liberal Party of Canada. Tomorrow liberal media pundits will explain that this was caused by not enough of us voting for them.

No seat for Lizzie May but Dippers up by 8 seats.

Note that a voting coalition of Libs and Dippers can now no longer beat Steve, so I would like to propose a new coalition - one made up of the Libs and the Cons.

Then any candidate who doesn't support imperialistic war-mongering and corporate-run deep integration will leave to join some more progressive party that the 40% of the rest of Canada might actually feel like showing up to vote for.


TV coverage P.S. : Is it just me or is Michael Ignatieff beginning to resemble the American eagle in appearance?

Elizabeth May's third strategic voting do-over in as many days

Today's Star : It isn't easy being Green

"Green Leader Elizabeth May has called on her candidates to consider whether their participation in a close contest could help elect a Conservative MP – an outcome she opposes.

May made the statement yesterday after acknowledging that some Green candidates have expressed concern about vote splitting that could result in Tory victories.

"It's up to our local candidates to decide in a close riding whether they feel their participation is likely to elect a Conservative or not. I'm not weighing in on that. But in the vast, vast majority of ridings in this country, voting Green is clearly the right thing to do," she said in an interview last night.

May made the comments after two Quebec Green candidates were reported to have asked their supporters to back their Liberal rivals."

In both of those Quebec ridings, the Bloc is an absolute lock - nowhere near being close ridings - so their switchover to the Libs does not help defeat the Cons and changes absolutely nothing in the vote outcome.

May acknowledges their actions were a mistake/misquoted.
Meanwhile the rest of us are waiting for May to finally throw the whole Green Party under the Liberal bus.
Ekos polling has May running third in her own riding against Con Peter MacKay and NDP Mary Louise Lorefice, who came second in the last election.

May's previous SV do-over.

The Greens must be tearing their hair out.

h/t Rabble

Nanos Daily Election Tracking ending October 10 :
CP... 32, LP... 28, NDP... 22, BQ ... 10, GP... 8

Sunday night Update : Right under the bus!
G&M : "Ms. May has been accused of “selling out” the Green candidates and supporters in close ridings, but the Green Leader says those candidates understand Canada's first past the post-electoral system forces situations where voters sometimes must leave their first choice.

"Those are not places where we're going to win seats. I love our candidates. I think they're fantastic people,” said Ms. May. “Of course the situation created by first past the post and the Green Party's larger commitment to action on climate means there is a certain amount of confusion… I cannot lie to voters and say there is no issue [with voting Green] in these ridings. I trust the voters. That's what it comes down to."

In addition to Central Nova, Ms. May said there about six other ridings where the Greens will have a chance of winning on election night."

LaPresse called it back in early September

Elizabeth May and strategic voting...again

Poll from Nanos Research


The G&M has Elizabeth May endorsing strategic voting for close-race ridings again today, mentioning both VoteforEnvironment and DemocraticSpace as sites to go to for advice/info.
VoteforEnvironment is still endorsing May in Central Nova against Peter MacKay, even though the Ekos, Decima and Nanos polls listed there all show her running a close third place behind the NDP candidate. Come on, guys, get it together - these are your own rules.


Would be very peculiar if this means Greens are expected to not vote for May in her own riding on top of her having done the deal with Dion to not run a Lib there, but last time Lizzie was quoted as coming out in favour of stategic voting, she says she was misquoted, so we'll have to see. Her oft-stated position is that the most important thing is to stop the Cons.


I was part of a two hour radio show on SPP and the election today, with local candidates giving their thoughts. Unsurprisingly the Libs and Cons both declined to participate.


Thursday night Update : Yup, it's happened again. May says she did not endorse SV.
Received from Adriane Carr, Green Party, 2pm:

"Media reports and suggestions from other parties that I am urging strategic voting across the country or that backroom deals are being made are complete nonsense,” Ms. May said. “As I have said over and over, strategic voting is generally not a sound strategy at all and I do not support it. Canada needs to elect Green MPs."
Ms. May was responding in particular to the headline and opening of a Globe and Mail story that directly contradicts what she said to the reporter.
“I clearly said that voting strategically as advice is pretty useless. I also said: ‘Suggesting one should jump away from the Green Party is very bad advice indeed.’
“I want to do politics in a much different way, with collaboration, civility and respect. But I am not making deals with other parties, and the Greens are not in discussions with other parties.
“I will say it once again so absolutely no one can be confused or misled: I want Canadians to elect Green MPs."

The G&M had reported May as saying :

"As the leader of a grassroots party, I'm not in a position to yank anyone, or tell anyone what to do. I just think Canadians need to take a long hard look at the potential here to get rid of the government of Stephen Harper and all that it represents…”
“That includes Greens as elected MP's, and to make that change it includes Stéphane Dion as a minority prime minister.”
She said it's a bad idea to leave the Greens in most ridings in the country, but that it would make sense in a small number of ridings where there are tight races."

I dunno. If the above G&M quote is accurate, it clearly is a limited endorsement for SV. If that's what she said. This misquoting business happens a lot to May. Hard to say whose fault that is.

Peterborough Politics has background on the Green reaction.

Saturday Update : And she's back to endorsing SV again.

Election 2008 - the English debate

Right now Susan Orniston has a big pie chart up onscreen at CBC : "Twittering about the Leaders"
Gosh, I wish I'd said that.

Shorter debate
Jack to Steve : Where's your platform? Under your sweater?
Steve : We don't need no stinkin' platform - we're the government.
Stephane : Hi. I was the third choice for party leader at the last Liberal Leadership Convention.
Gilles : Jeez, but you guys all talk a load of crap!
Lizzie : [Answering the question - and I'm paraphrasing here - What would be your first order of business upon forming the government?] Reform the electoral system.

Thank you, Lizzie May - the only one to bring it up.

She was a very good addition to the debate - many times piping in a fast fact-checking refute on Steve while he was talking, too quick and stoccato to be called on interrupting, although she did a lot of that too. Steve was furious but in terms of vote-splitting, it will ultimately help him to have had her there.

After-polls all showing for Steve - bigtime.

Most devastating line of the night :
Jack to Stephane : "You supported Mr Harper 43 times. His policies, your responsibilty. If you can't do your job as leader of the opposition, I don't know what you're doing running for prime minister."

Gilles Duceppe for Prime Minister!

We are so fucked.

Ipsos Post Debate Summary : Sample size -2512

Who is winning this debate?

Did you change your mind about who to vote for on October 14th because of tonight's debate?

YES - 15% ....... NO - 85%

Update : Hah!

Elizabeth May to throw Green votes to Dion

says LaPresse : May prête à tout pour battre Harper

At least I think that's what this article says.
Ok here goes my truly terrible French translation :

The leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, will ask her troops in the last sprint of the electoral campaign to put all their political weight behind the liberal candidates of Stephan Dion in certain districts where the fight is tight in order to block Stephen Harper's Conservatives.
This forms integral part of the non-aggression pact concluded between the leader of the Green Party and the Liberal leader Stephan Dion in April 2007, LaPresse learned yesterday

OK, we knew that, but :

But this pact also provides that Mrs. May possibly decides in favour of the election of Stephan Dion for Prime Minister in the last days of the electoral campaign. This electoral strategy had never been revealed up to now.
"The idea of the agreement, it is like a non-aggression pact so that the day before the vote, the environmentalist forces in the urban centres join Stephan Dion. In the discussions with Mrs. May, it was implicitly understood that she will launch a call in favour of Mr. Dion. That was always the spirit of the agreement", affirmed a liberal source well acquainted with the talks between the Liberals and the Greens.

Wow. If someone more fluent in French can give me a less clunky translation, I'd be grateful.

Update : "May says there is no deal between her party and the Liberals beyond what she called the leaders' "courtesy arrangement" of not running candidates in each other's ridings.
"There's no truth to it whatsoever," May told reporters at a campaign stop in Toronto.

During the 2007 Green leadership contest, rival David Chernushenko accused May of having actually asked some Green candidates to consider withdrawing from the 2006 election to avoid splitting the centre-left vote and thus helping the Tories.
May rejected Chernushenko's characterization of her actions but acknowledged that she did speak to some Green candidates a week before the 2006 vote.
"I was calling them in desperation to say: What could we do? Could you for instance interest the Liberals if they were interested in talking about proportional representation? Was there room for a coalition there?"

Elizabeth May wins the leaders' debate

Some years ago on the little island where I live, an election campaign was in progress to send a local representative to the Islands Trust, the political body that represented us at the time. A local non-partisan group, led by a very nice progressive man, organized everything : the debates, the campaign literature, all the tedious underpinnings of democracy. They hired me to photograph the candidates.

I was setting up to shoot the obligatory family shot of Iain Benson - lawyer, christian, anti-abortion social conservative, and generally a guy who I disagree with about almost everything, when he asked if we were also going to do a nice family shot of Candidate X, local redneck yahoo who had recently made some rather unflattering and distinctly not worksafe public remarks about Iain being, um, an intellectual elitist - let's just go with that.

"We'll look into that," said nice progressive man.
"Could you look into it now?"asked Iain politely.
"For fuck's sake, Iain," says I, realizing he was actually going to refuse to be photographed unless his rival was included.
"Well wouldn't you say Candidate X has a legitimate constituency here that deserves the same consideration you're extending to me?"
Nice progressive man points out the other four candidates might not agree.
"That's ok," says Iain, "we'll call them up."

Look, I know how annoying this story is. Personally I never want another lesson in ethics or civics from a SoCon ever again but he was right : It isn't about the candidate and whether you like them or not or whether they would do the same for you; it's about their constituency, their supporters - whether you agree with them or not.
May has a constituency running at somewhere under 10% in the polls. I imagine by this time tomorrow the reaction to her being shut out of the leadership debate will have driven it a lot higher.

Losers in the leaders' debate : Harper, Layton, Duceppe. And because of their hypocritical anti-democratic actions, the rest of us too.

What Greg said.

And while we're at it, how about taking final say on what happens in election debates out of the hands of the media!

"Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech." ~ Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent

We also have an obligation where elections are concerned to ensure that free speech is heard.

I know you know all this already

but it's still rather satisfying to see it neatly laid out in a national newspaper :

Parliament's record undermines Harper's rationale for election
"Parliament has been working very well for Mr. Harper. He has had one of the longest minority tenures that we have seen. He has been able to get all of his policies through ... I don't know what he is complaining about," New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton told reporters yesterday.
"It boils down to he is quitting his job," Layton said.

If the New Democrats had had their way they would have brought down the Harper government a year ago, but it was the cash-strapped Liberals, not wanting to force an election, who kept the Tories in power well past the average lifespan for a minority.

Harper has complained the committee system is in turmoil with partisan bickering overshadowing the business of Parliament, but what he doesn't mention is that his MPs are largely responsible for the mischief-making.
In fact, it was the Conservatives who last year produced a 200-page manual for MPs on how to disrupt and derail parliamentary committees and slow things down in the Commons and the Senate.

By pulling the plug on their government, the Tories avoid a Commons committee investigation into a controversial financing scheme they used in the last election campaign. The so-called in-and-out scheme has been declared illegal by Elections Canada.

Also, it will delay at least for now opposition demands that a committee investigate the Chuck Cadman affair following allegations the Conservatives tried to bribe the late independent MP in order to get his vote to bring down the Martin government.

"Having Harper claiming the House is dysfunctional ... is like the proverbial man who has murdered his parents pleading with the judge for mercy because he is an orphan," Green leader Elizabeth May said."