Vote Bravely, NOW!
(Editorial from the Mascaret election issue.)
Last month, I decided to stand up for fiscal conservatism and social justice and the environment, and run as the Green Party candidate for Moncton- Riverview-Dieppe.
I lasted two weeks. Ho ho ho.
It wasn’t the campaign: it was the national party administration. It has lost touch with the grassroots. There is no New Brunswick Riding Association for the Green Party, because it failed to conform to Elections Canada protocol. The Riding Association organizes nomination meetings. Without a Riding Association, there can be no formal nomination meeting.
However, the Greens are about the grassroots. Why didn’t they hold informal nomination meetings? After I stood as candidate (thinking no one else would, and despite my disabilities) I was approached by hostile and prominent Moncton environmentalists who would have thrown their hat in the ring - if there had been a ring and they’d known to bring a hat.
By the time they agreed to support me, I - as you may have read in the Times & Transcript - no longer supported the Green Party. A party calling for democratic reform cannot act undemocratically within itself. The Green Party is in a stage of transition where it could easily lose its way, and I urge all Green supporters to work hard to ensure that doesn’t happen. At risk of belabouring the point: the Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe candidate, Camille Labchuk, has a similar name to, but is not, me.
A month ago - what a long time in politics! - I also thought the $1.75 solution was a great idea. That’s the federal funding change where any party who runs candidates in all 308 seats, and draws 2% of the overall vote, gets $1.75 per vote. I thought it was a great encouragement for emerging parties. Now I think it causes them to fixate on money, leading them to run inferior or inappropriate candidates. The Greens, for example, have a candidate running in the Yukon from New Zealand.
The 2% restriction is being challenged on constitutional grounds, and this is another thing the public should get involved with. We do need more opportunities to become involved in politics - but we also need those opportunities to not corrupt us too terribly early.
A month ago I was going to run so I could vote for somebody I trusted. Now, I don’t know. The Green Party is still the only party speaking passionately about issues that are bigpicture important to me: democratic reform, the environment, social justice. But I can’t vote for a party whose leadership is showing such a break with its own ideals after achieving such a minimum of power. The Greens have to reclaim themselves, and it’s extremely important that they do.
Independent candidate Joel Macintosh is running because he believes it’s better than sitting around griping about the lack of lousy candidates. Bravo, Joel, and best of luck to you.
Given that the NDP has been the de facto leftist political party in Canada for decades, I don’t know why the NDP isn’t aggressively defending what should be its turf. Not understanding the NDP strategy on my core issues makes me not want to vote for them. But it’s my job, as a voter, to inform myself, and I hope you’ll do the same. I already know how the Liberals feel about my core issues. They don’t care. If they cared, disabled people such as myself would be able to afford food and shelter and medication.
Then we have the Tories: led by a man who supported the Liberal gun registry, and who generally seems to believe that the State does in fact have business in the bedrooms of the nation. We have too many sick, poor, bankrupt and homeless for private adult issues to be occupying a hundredth the airtime they get. It’s shameful and unacceptable and cruel. For all that Harper flaunts his religion, his nose for nontroversies is genuinely unChristian.
This is a far more important election than it appears. It is an opportunity to take power from the culture of entitlement, but only if you vote for, not, as Canadians so often do, against. Vote for the Canada you want. Read the platforms, talk to the candidates, and choose carefully.