Is It Or Isn't It?

Elizabeth May confrims why she shouldn't have been allowed in the debate

In what should be treated as cause for second thought for those Canadians who support Elizabeth May taking part in the televised leaders' debate, Green party leader Elizabeth May told CTV's Question Period today that she's going to help Stephane Dion explain his Green Shift plan to the Canadian people.

Moreover, she actually wants to take credit for the entire policy.

"Since it's our plan, the 'Green Shift' plan, I can explain it fully," May insisted.

This could certainly put an amusing twist on Stephen Harper's insistence that "Elizabeth May is not an opponent of Stephane Dion. She is his candidate in Central Nova, and I think it would be fundamentally unfair to have two candidates who are essentially running on the same platform in the debate."

Apparently, Stephane Dion may in fact be Elizabeth May's candidate in St Laurent-Cartierville. After all, she's formally taking credit for his policies.

To her partial credit, May has voiced some disagreement with Dion on some issues.

"Where I agree with him, I'll agree with him," she insisted. "And where I disagree with him -- on issues like NAFTA, nuclear power, some of the economic policies that the Liberals have traditionally espoused -- I will be taking him on in a respectful way, as I will the other leaders."

Yet on the fundamental issue on which Dion wants to contest this election -- "his" (apparently actually Elizabeth May's) Green plan -- May has already formally pledged herself to help him during the debates.

All of this, even as she and Dion decline to field candidates against one another, and as Blair Wilson -- conveniently, a former Liberal -- conveniently defects to her party. And May still claims there's no backroom deal.

"I think the notion of a backroom pact is such nonsense," she told Question Period.

At least one thing's for certain: if May and Dion haven't made themselves utterly transparent -- and their backroom deal obvious -- by this point, May will do so for the both of them the instant she utters "What Stephane is trying to say" during the course of the debate.

If further evidence that May's inclusion of the debates is actually needed, one can rest assured that May will provide it in time. If not on Oct 1 & 2, then sooner.