Elizabeth May's Political Homelessness Coming to an End?

Green party leader may run in BC

According to a National Post Full Comment blog post by Kelly McParland, Green party leader Elizabeth May might have finally found a riding to run in.

According to an article appearing in the Vancouver Sun, the Green party leader seems to have selected the riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands to contest. The riding is currently held by Conservative Minister for State and Sport Gary Lunn, who held it by less than 2,000 votes in the 2008 federal election.

"It's not personal," May insisted. "He's vulnerable."

"I am so strongly leaning toward running here and I have got the most wonderful response," May later professed. "My heart is here, but I just want to make sure."

"This is a traditional area of strength for the Greens. People have small-g green values and many people think it would be exciting and important to elect the first Green MP," she added.

Yet regardless of how decided Barabara Yaffe insists the matter is, the ultimate decision will not be made until September. In the meantime, May -- who once promised she would never run anywhere but against Peter MacKay in Central Nova -- has continued her search.

Speculation regarding May's political future continues to swirl around the riding of Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound.

Like Saanich-Gulf Islands, May insists that Bruce-Grey-Own sound is the "greenest" in the nation. The riding, which is currently held by Conservative Larry Miller, seems to have a history of attracting parachute candidates.

A parachute candidate is something that May has insisted she wouldn't like to be -- in fact, something that she insisted she would never be. But apparently May is willing to break this promise so long as it elects a Green MP -- so long as that MP is herself.

In fact, if one can tell anything for certain from May's comments, is that she intends to get elected, come hell or high water.

"There is no question that I am considering this riding. Based on previous federal and provincial election results, it is clear that there is potential for a Green Party candidate to be elected here," May told a town hall meeting in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound. "The focus of the Green Party of Canada is to get candidates elected to Parliament, and there has been a very clear mandate from the party to get our leader elected."

"The Greens need to be in the House of Commons," May told BC journalist Yaffe over dinner. "And I've got the best chance of anyone to do it."

It probably shouldn't be at all surprising that the mandate May speaks of -- to get herself elected -- is one that she handed down to herself as the leader of her party. And as her single-minded efforts to build a pervasive political mythology around herself as the alleged saviour of the Green party continues, she's prepared to do anything and everything she can to promote herself.

Including, reportedly, offering to serve as Minister of the Environment in a Liberal government -- although she says she told Liberal party President Alf Apps that she would draw the line short of formally running for his party.

It also probably shouldn't be at all surprising that the lesson about four-way vote splitting in the 2008 federal election apparently remain unlearned for Elizabeth May. but that's another story altogether.

She should probably consider herself free to continue her futile quest to elect the unelectable until the Green party finally wises up and divests itself of her leadership.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Mark Kersten - "Elizabeth May to Run in Saanich and would 'happily' Become Environment Minister in a Liberal Government"

John Oglivie - "Win Me Back"

Steve May - "W Minus 53 - Time For a Little Damage Control"

Mark Taylor - "Lack of Strategy"

Jeff Jedras - "Some Advice for Elizabeth May"

When Incompetent Dumbfucks Collide

Lunn, Keen wrangle for last word before parliamentary committee, but what the fuck does it matter?

The latest news to come out of the Chalk River reactor fiasco is a bombshell-and-a-half.

Linda Keen will get the last word before the special House of Commons committee called to investigate Lunn's push to fire Keen. Conservative MPs and Opposition MPs had been scrapping it out over who would get to testify second.

And this matters precisely how?

Anyone paying attention to the Chalk River debacle may, at this point, have learned that the incomplete upgrades at Chalk River are a problem that has persisted throughout Keen's tenure as Nuclear Safety Commission president and beyond. Yet Keen did nothing until November.

But in the most astounding dumbfuckitude surrounding this matter, Atomic Energy Canada Ltd, the crown corporation that operates Chalk River, has accused the CNRC of issuing misleading statements.

"The commission made a decision and in retrospect, in light of all this evidence, we have shown it was a wrong decision and the reactor's extended outage could have been prevented," AECL spokesman Dale Coffin announced.

You probably just read that correctly: the crown corporation that failed to complete the safety upgrades in question has admitted that the reactor's extended outage could have been prevented.

He's right, too. You know how? If AECL had completed the work in the first fucking place!

Conversely, it could have been prevented if the CNRC had forced AECL to complete the upgrades!

So now Gary Lunn and Linda Keen are going to appear before a special Commons Committee to fight over who should be fired, much like a pair of Apprentice contestants who are mutually responsible for the failure of some insipid business deal.

Donald Trump never had the option of firing both on these occasions on the show. Fortunately for Stephen Harper, he does.

Hopefully, Harper has better taste in civil servants than Trump does in hairdressers.

Stephane Dion on Chalk River: "Uh-Oh! Spagetteos!"

Liberals -- as per usual -- up to their knees in -- you guessed it -- hypocrisy

When Stephane Dion addressed the national media recently demanding the resignation of federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, he was all fire and motherfuckin' brimstone.

“This government has difficulties to understand when partisanship must stop and what [it] means [to be] an independent administrative tribunal,” Dion announced. He accused the government of "threatening democracy" by recommending that Linda Keen, a Liberal appointee to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, be fired.

Naturally, Liberals thought they had hit a home run with this particular scandal, which even precipitated various blogsophere dumbfucks into saying dumbfuckish things.

Then Greg Weston's most recent opinion article went to press, and holy shit! As it turns out, the problems at Chalk River turn out to be yet another Liberal party mess that continually percolated during the entirety of the previous Liberal government, despite very similar warnings (read: identical) directed toward then-Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal. Despite being given various warnings about the state of the Chalk River reactor and various invitations to meet with Auditor General Sheila Frasier to discuss the matter, Daliwal shrugged it all off, writing, "As your report was quite clear and acceptable to me, I felt no need for us to meet at this time. I was particularly pleased that you saw evidence of strong leadership ... and found that good systems and practices existed in several key areas."

Which, as Weston discovered when he examined the actual memo from Frasier, wasn't what it said at all. In fact, the memo said (among other things):

"-Health and safety hazards were "likely to become significant in time."

-A "reduction of environmental risk is necessary to reduce the significant probability of increased environmental contamination."

-"Regulatory, safety review committee or executive concern has been expressed about AECL inactivity, and there is a risk of a public outcry."

Worse yet, Frasier added, "Some members of the (expert) panel concluded that the risks to ... health, safety and the environment were substantially more severe than these descriptions indicate."

Holy shit!

Naturally, there's only one place these revelations can lead to: yet another Liberal flip-flop on the entire Chalk River matter. One remembers that first it was a travesty, according to the Liberals, that the Chalk River reactor was being shut down, leading to this press release. Then the Conservatives ordered Chalk River to be started up again, and it was still a travesty.

Of course, Dion is right about one thing: Gary Lunn should be fired (or resign), just as Herb Dhaliwal should have been fired (or resigned) before him. Nuclear Safety is no laughing matter, even if the most partisan Liberals are absolutely creaming their pants at the prospect of a nuclear disaster they can blame the Conservatives for.

All the same, the stage for Lunn's incredibly incompetent and irresponsible mismanagement of the Chalk River fiasco was set by the Liberal party and its 13 years of deliberate inaction in regards to the matter.

But the possible firing of Linda Keen isn't the reason why Lunn should resign. Keen was appointed in 2001, and somehow six years managed to pass, under Liberal party inaction, until she could finally be bothered to step in and deal with the Chalk River situation.

She should have done that bright and early in 2001. For her (quite possibly politically-motivated) inaction, she too has earned a pink slip. She simply didn't do the job she was paid to do.

She, and the Liberal party, are no less responsible for Chalk River than the Conservatives. Actually, they're a good deal more responsible for it.