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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Shorter Green-supporter Christy Clark

Shorter Christie snorter : 'Hey leftie enviros! If you're not gonna vote for 2nd-place me directly, please at least split the vote by voting for the 3rd place Green instead, promoted right here at the top of my full page ad in the Times Colonist and paid for by "Today's BC Liberal Party".'




Gotta love that "Today's BC Liberals". 
Nothing at all to do with Gordon Campbell's "Yesterday's Liberals" presumably, from whom Christie inherited her unelected premiership. 

Hat tip to RossK for Ian Bailey's pic of the Liberals' Times Colonist ad, to CBC for the May 9th Ipsos Reid poll, and most especially to :

• those $500-a-ticket fundraisers held for Christy at the Calgary Petroleum Club "targeting deep-pocketed oil patch players", 
• Gwyn Morgan of Encana for smoothing over the transition from the unre-electable Gordo to the unelected Christy, and 
• Encana itself for donating over half a million dollars to Christy's Liberals in the last three years while simultaneously lobbying the BC government about LNG terminals and fracking.

Update : And right here I was going to post Kevin Logan's video about how a combination of 

1) the June 2010 "Equivalency Agreement" between Harper and the BC Liberals and 

2) the TILMA/New West Partnership Agreement between BC and Alberta 

effectively prevents BC from prohibiting pipelines from being built across BC to the coast. 

But Norm at Northern Insight has posted it along with a nice short precis of the New West Partnership Agreement so go watch it there.
Video creator Kevin Logan's links to back up his research at his own site here.

A little background on the two gents portrayed in Christy's infomercial embedded in Logan's vid from The Tyee.

Economist Robyn Allan says BC could legally cancel the Equivalency Agreement with 30 days written notice on pipeline projects not yet approved, but first of course the Libs would have to acknowledge the effing agreement exists, which would naturally lead to questions about their non-disclosure agreements with their oilbidness buddies even as they simultaneously try to portray themselves as somehow representing the people of BC .

No mention at all of the Liberals locking BC into pipeline agreements before they are even inked in the BC media election coverage leading up to the May 14 BC election unless you count this Vancouver Sun report a whole freaking year ago.  You're shocked, I'm sure.

Monday update : Changed my mind - here's Logan's vid for all you non-clicking-through guys :

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Wednesday update : Voter turnout - 48% 

Elections BC 
Seat count : Libs - 50, NDP - 33, Green - 1, Independent - 1
% of popular vote : Libs - 44.4%, NDP - 39.5%, Green - 8%, Con - 4.8%, 
.

A Maclean's Conjob MP Circle Jerk

On Tuesday Michael Petrou at Maclean's reported on a controversial Peace Conference organized by two current and two former Green Party members, due to take place in Ottawa today:

"An RCMP “ethnic liaison officer” is urging his colleagues to attend a conference on a “Just and Sustainable Peace” that was organized in part by a Green Party of Canada candidate who believes the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job,” and whose participants include the director general of an NGO that endorses hate-filled stereotypes about Jews. Three academics from Iran are flying in for the event."

A bit further down he notes that Zijad Delic, head of the Canadian Islamic Congress, will also be attending, and that he was advised by organizer Paul Maillet, a retired air force colonel, that, in the group's effort to get a free Hill booking :

"Bloc Québécois MP Richard Nadeau was originally booked as a sponsor but canceled due to a scheduling conflict."

On Wednesday a new piece by the same author at Maclean's reported the following exchange in the House :
Mr. Steven Blaney (Lévis—Bellechasse, CPC):

"Mr. Speaker, we recently discovered that some Bloc members are supporting a conference that will be attended by the executive director of an NGO that sanctions hateful stereotypes about Jews. The spokesperson for the Canadian Islamic Congress claims that all Israelis over 18 are legitimate targets for Palestinians. That organization will be represented at the conference. Those remarks are unacceptable."

Can the Minister of Public Safety comment on the Maclean’s magazine article that reports that the Bloc Québécois member for Gatineau is sponsoring this hateful event?"

Six years after former CIC head Elmasry made his ill-chosen remarks about the Israeli draft system - remarks for which he apologized and resigned - a Con MP pretends those were the words of Zijad Delic, the current head of the CIC, and Maclean's duly reports the Con MP's disinformation at its "World Desk".

Back in the House on Wednesday, Bloc MP Nadeau says he has nothing to do with the Peace Conference and asks Con MP Blaney for an apology :

"I am not giving a speech anywhere tomorrow evening, nor have I given any of my own money or my member's allowance to the organization hosting the conference tomorrow. I would like the Conservative member who said that I support hate groups to explain himself and apologize."

Blaney :

"Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Gatineau for his point of order. I would just like to remind him that in my question, I was referring to the fact that it was reported in an article published in Maclean's, which is a trustworthy magazine."

And round and round it goes ...

Result : Elizabeth May made a frowny face at the four Greens; Vic Toews ordered the RCMP not to attend.

Actually the most interesting exchange occurred when the aforementioned colonel Paul Maillet showed up in the comments under the first Maclean's article, where he patiently explained to the resident ZOMGs freaking out that peace talks are, by definition, pretty much usually held with people with whom you may at first violently disagree.

It's a difficult point to grasp, I know.
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BC Election Pablum 2009 : Campbell and James wax fatuous on the RCMP

Responding to Green Party Jane Sterk's proposal that the RCMP be replaced with a provincial police force subject to civilian oversight, NDP Carole James and LINO Gordo immediately fall into matching comas. :

Carole : "It's not a priority I've heard from the public. I think in many of our communities the RCMP are an integral part of our history[Ian Bush], and our future."

TASER™ fan Gordo : "The fact of the matter is the RCMP is the provincial police force and it does an extremely good job across the province. That doesn't mean we can't improve some of the administrative-review things."

One useful "administrative-review thing", Gordo, would be to put a stop to the RCMP running out the clock on the time under which those review things can happen at all.

The current BC contract with the RCMP runs out in 2012.



Meanwhile, over at Braidwood Inquiry, whose eventual recommendations no matter how brilliant or stringent will not be binding because BC does not have jurisdiction over the federal-based RCMP, a federal lawyer took a shot at explaining why all four Mounties' testimony into the killing of Robert Dziekanski is erroneous in exactly the same ways :

"Much time was spent attempting to highlight the fact that there were some discrepancies and suggesting that there was some nefarious explanation," Jan Brongers told the inquiry.
"My point is that other witnesses, too, have had discrepancies between what they told police, and that there is a perfectly innocent explanation."

Unfortunately Mr. Brongers did not elaborate on just what that "perfectly innocent explanation" might be.
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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?

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 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?"

Tsawwassen two-step

BC NeoLib Gordon Campbell's settlement with the Tsawwassen band is a travesty.
And now both the BC NDP and the BC Green Party have given it their blessing.

What's wrong with it?
Couple of things ...
1)The 207 hectares of farmland to come out of the Agricultural Land Reserve via the band. It is to be paved over to park containers for Campbell's pet Roberts Bank Deltaport expansion.
2)Campbell's disregard of both DFO and Environment Canada reports on likely damage to Fraser River salmon and wildlife, including adjacent Burns Bog
3)The $15,000 cash payout to select elders from Campbell upon ratification
4)The stacked voting :
From FN activist Bertha Williams prior to the vote :

"The chief and council of our band ... use such trickery as an “enrollment application” in order to vote on the treaty. In the application there is a section where we have to relinquish our claim to our inherent rights.
If we don’t enroll, we are not allowed to vote. This would pave the way for a more secure “yes” vote."

The First Nations people involved should never have been put in this terrible position, but I don't want to hear the words "green" or "sustainability" or "stewardship of the earth" out of the NDP or the Greens again for a long long time.



UPDATE : The other side of this coin. From Chris in comments :

"TFN has been hollaring for years about the damage in the estuary to fish stocks and migratory birds, but they were dismissed for decades as lunatics. When everyone else was ignoring the damage of Roberts Bank and the Tsawwassen ferry terminal, TFN was on top of it. When they eventually built the development at Tsatsu shores (without the city of Delta letting them hook up into their sewar system) to create some economic development for the band, everyone screamed about how they had destroyed the environmental conditions of Roberts Bank.

TFN is completely surrounded by agricultural, special Crown and private land. I am a supporter of the ALR, but First Nations were never consulted when it was created, in violation of now established Aboriginal rights. If TFN is to be a viable community, they need more land. What are the options?

It strikes me as funny that the people who oppose this treaty are quoting a "First Nations activist", Bertha Williams. It's as if there is a need to find the "activist" in the community and support her position, regardless of what she is saying. The irony is that the TFN were one of the most politically active bands for decades, trying to get the surrounding communities of Delta and Ladner to pay attention to them. They never garnered much support then, when Kim Biard and her predecessors were confronting the red neck citizens of Ladner and Delta. Now they are somehow sell-outs and pariahs?

As for the link to the Tyee story by Rafe Mair (I mean, c'mon, Rafe Mair?) there is a good reason for allowing non-residents of TFN to vote: they are citizens and Aboriginal rights are held collectively by the citizens of a Nation, not the residents of a reserve. Why shouldn't the governments be on the hook for helping the enrolment vote take place? The reserve system and federal and provincial policies divided First Nations communities in the first place, and having TFN hemmed in by developments and land designations that they never had a say in means that there is limited ability for all Nation members to be on reserve.

The TFN agreement may not be the model of sustainability and the provincial government's plans for Deltaport may be egregious, but it strikes me that one of the best reasons for a treaty is that it finally involves the greenest party of the three in the mix, and, based on their track record, I trust TFN infinitely more than any other level of government to steward the land properly. Given all the damage done there already, it's a tough job, but finally the future of south Delta includes one sane voice in the mix of development-crazy mayors, politicians and CEOs.

I wish them the best of luck "

Earth to Greens

If Gary Lunn, Con cabinet Minister of Natural Resources and fan of nukes in the tarsands, off-shore oil drilling, and a resumption of oil supertanker traffic in BC's inside passage, retains his Saanich-Gulf Islands seat in the next election, he will have Green Party candidate Andrew Lewis and the 17 greens who voted for Lewis' nomination to thank for it.

Last week, six Green Party activists urged members not to run a candidate in the riding because Saanich-Gulf Islands already boasts two stronger environmental candidates from the NDP and Libs. Former Green now Lib Briony Penn is a long time environmental activist and founding member of The Land Conservancy, while former Green now NDP Julian West, also an environmental activist, is a charter member of Fair Vote Canada. This extraordinary request not to run against them, explained the six, was necessary to prevent the three-way vote-split which has handed Lunn the riding in the last four elections.

However at Saturday's nomination meeting held at a private home on a few days' notice without being posted on either the local or national Green Party websites, seventeen Greens acclaimed Lewis in an uncontested nomination.

Green Party member Bryce Kendrick : "I thought on the one hand, I'd love to see Garry Lunn thrown out, but on the other hand I feel that as a Green party member I have a commitment to the party."

Dear Bryce : See Red Tory

If the Green Party does not give priority to the environment over party politics, then what on earth is it good for?
When dippers are urged to vote Liberal in every election to keep out the dreaded Cons, they point to Liberal support for deep integration, corporate cronyism, and a crap record on the environment as the principles which prevent them from doing so. What are you going to point at?

"Greens, The True Conservatives" ???

That's quite the statement, sir.
While I appreciate your candor as the Green candidate for Prince George - Peace River, I fear the rest of your party will not.

And this isn't helping :

"For us Greens, who take pride in our ability to conserve, eliminate waste, and plan ahead for the future, our fiscal responsibility goes hand in hand with our environmental conservation. We believe that a thorough and genuine conservativism will develop policies that are built upon these two pillars. We hope that Jay Hill and the Conservatives in Ottawa will begin to show themselves to be conservative in more than name and begin to take on the principled policies of the Green Party."

As your first commenter points out ;

"When the Green candidate speaks out, we should avoid aligning our self too closely to one of the other parties' values, unless that party is the only significant competition."

H/T Politique Vert

Well, this is awkward...

A member of the Green Party of Nova Scotia intends to run as an independent against Green Party of Canada candidate Elizabeth May in Central Nova.
Sebastian Ronin is protesting May's trampling of local electoral rights for the greater good, or, as he puts it in a letter to his local paper : "treating the Canadian electoral map like a shoe store."

"Let’s not forget that if the national Liberals had their way they would be passing legislation, with accompanying monstrous bureaucracies, to accompany Canadians to the bathroom. If you think the rifle registration was a colossal boondoggle, wait until environmental initiatives come along, irrespective of the federal political party sponsoring such initiatives."

May is now in the awkward position of having to support his right to be included in local debates, much as she herself has claimed the right to be included in the federal debates.

H/T Maxwell's House
UPDATE: Mr Ronin responds to Devin at the Maxwell's House link above.
Red Tory, in his own supercilious way, is rather more sympathetic to his candidacy.
Fot the hardcore : Two threads at Babble on Central Nova.
The uneasy coalition between the right and left factions of the Green Party - this is going to be interesting.