The Case for Elizabeth May in the Debates

As the 41st Canadian federal election unfolds, one thing that is becoming clear is that the media has managed to make itself one of the main issues in the campaign.

On one front is the issue surrounding the number of questions Prime Minister Stephen Harper is taking at each of his campaign stops: two from the national media in english, one from the national media in french, and another from local media.

The media is resentful of this, and not without cause. No one should blame Harper for wanting to keep control of the amount of time he spends answering questions. But answering a finite number of questions not only frustrates the media, but it focuses media attention away from his party's campaign and toward his own relations with the media. It reduces his party's ability to message.

But the media has its own controversy to handle. The decision to exclude Green Party leader Elizabeth May from the televised leaders' debate has proven to be unpopular in some circles.

This is especially the case within the Green Party itself.

"Fundamentally, we expect to be treated like the other national parties," May complained. "With the support of nearly a million Canadians in the last election, it seems pretty obvious that the Greens deserve a voice at the table."

May has even sworn to take this matter before a court to have the decision overturned -- a rather dubious act, as May cannot force the broadcasting consortium, who decided unanimously to decide only the parties represented in Parliament, to put her on television.

But there are many good reasons to include the Greens. This is only underscored by the recent support May has received from former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin and former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Joe Clark.

Martin spoke to the need for Canadians to be as well-informed about their electoral options as they can possibly be.

"Canadians are entitled to points of view of all of the valid players and Elizabeth May and the Green party are certainly valid participants," Martin insisted. "In terms of the popular vote, the Green party has demonstrated that there is a strong group of Canadians who are prepared to support that party."

Joe Clark echoed these sentiments, then continued to talk about the importance of democracy.

"The decision to exclude flies in the face of the worldwide demand of democratic citizens for more open-ness and more alternatives," Clark said in a statement. "As education and technology are forcing political systems to open up, this consortium proposes to use its power to limit the choices Canadians can consider."

"There are good arguments to change the format of these debates; there is no justification for an arbitrary decision to shut out a significant and legitimate political party, like the Green Party," Clark added.

There are many reasons to include the Green Party in the televised leaders' debates. Paul Martin and Joe Clark articulate them well.

This author isn't entirely decided on this issue just yet, but one thing is clear: the media cannot expect to complain on one hand that Stephen Harper is restricting their ability to ask him questions, then shut another party out of the debate entirely.

Closing The Books on Petro-Canada

20 years later, Petro-Canada goes away quietly

The recent announcement of a merger between Petro-Canada and Suncor made news internationally.

More than simply a monster merger in the energy industry, the merger also marks the final closure on a long chapter of Canadian history.

Petro-Canada was founded in 1975 as part of Pierre Trudeau's scheme to partially nationalize the Canadian oil industry. It was founded in 1973 as a response to the quadrupling of world oil prices. Working in close cooperation with the NDP -- who actually tabled the bill to create the company -- the Liberals created the company, and placed more stringent controls on it than was usual for a crown corporation. The goal was to use the company as a policy tool.

The company was also the beneficiary of a surcharge at all the country's gas pumps, which was used to finance Petro-Canada buyouts of foreign-owned oil companies.

When Joe Clark arrived in office in 1979, his first goal was to eliminate this surcharge -- a goal he attempted to achieve in his ill-fated first budget. However, Clark also proposed an 18% tax on gasoline as a deficit-fighting measure. The Liberal party officially insisted that they defeated Clark's government over this fuel tax hike.

But Trudeau had also warned Clark against dismantling Petro-Canada. His proposed elimination of the Petro-Canada surcharge seemed to be a prelude to dismantling the company.

When Trudeau, returned to government, introduced the National Energy Program in 1980, Petro-Canada was used to administer it, making the company even more unpopular in Western Canada -- particularly in Alberta.

In 1991 Brian Mulroney finally began to privatize the company. Now, only a regulatory approval by Stephen Harper's government stands between Petro-Canada and its absorption into Suncor.

It's taken 20 years and the efforts of three different Prime Ministers to finally ferry Petro-Canada into the turning pages of history, but the task has finally been finished.

Ontario Reform Party: Not-So-Giant Killers?

Ontario Reform party targeting John Tory in by-election

After the Ontario Provincial election of 2007, Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory has been weighing his political options for more than a year.

In that election, Tory lost in his riding of Don Valley West. Now, more than a year later, Tory has decided to seek election in a by-election in Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock, a contest in which Premier Dalton McGuinty has (wisely) opted to delay in order for other parties to nominate candidates.

The Ontario Liberals -- who in 2005 contested the last by-election Tory won -- have yet to announce whether or not they'll contest this riding.

The Reform party of Ontario, however, has announced they'll be running a candidate against Tory. They just haven't announced who.

"We were going to run a candidate wherever John Tory was going run," announced Reform party leader Brad Harness.

That being said, one shouldn't underestimate the Reform party's desire to defeat Tory. Harness has referred to Tory as an "urbanite", and as a member of "the Canadian establishment, the moneyed establishment".

Certainly, there may be more to Harness' focus on defeating John Tory than simply that.

The Reform party of Ontario attempts to fuse Preston Manning's focus on populism with former Ontario Premier Mike Harris' fiscal conservatism. The official party doctrine appears to be a combination between Manning's "new Canada" and Harris' "common sense revolution".

Targeting John Tory is, similarly, a combination of two pages out of Preston Manning's old political playbook.

When the federal Reform party contested their first election in 1984, Manning himself attempted to defeat Clark in his riding of Yellowhead. Among the memorable events of that election was a horseback posse formed to confront Clark about his policies at the dedication of a railway museum in the riding -- a dedication that Clark wound up skipping.

The media stunt was staged complete with wanted posters accusing Clark of failing to represent the interests of his constituents.

The other strategy Harness is emulating here is in allowing a candidate nominated from within the riding to contest the by-election against Tory. Preston Manning did this when he declined to run in a 1989 by-election in Beaver River. Instead Deborah Grey -- the Reform party's first ever MP -- ran in that election and won.

It's hard to believe that Brad Harness didn't closely consider these two examples before making the decision to attempt to defeat Tory in Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock.

The idea is clearly to try to establish himself as an anti-establishment figure, taking on the province's established political leaders while also establishing himself as a leader with deep faith in the grassroots of his party.

But considering the chilly reception the federal Reform party received in Ontario, it will be far more difficult for Harness to establish such credentials for himself in Ontario than it was for Preston Manning and the federal Reformers to do so in Alberta.

To make Harness' strategy further dubious is the fact that John Tory isn't nearly the political giant in Ontario that Joe Clark had established himself as in Alberta -- at least at the time. There's a difference between taking on a federal Minister and former Prime Minister and taking on a Progressive Conservative leader who can't even win his own seat.

In other words, John Tory isn't so giant, and the Ontario Reform party may not be able to 'kill' him.

And Another One Bites the Dust

No free ride for Tories as Dion will continue as leader until after convention

It's said that bad things happen in threes. But in the case of Stephane Dion and the Liberal it all depends on perspective.

After being defeated in the third federal election in four years, Stephane Dion has called the third Liberal leadership convention in five years.

"I have informed the president of the Liberal Party of Canada and the president of the national caucus that I will stay as leader until a new leader is chosen at a leadership convention that I have asked to be organized," Dion announced today.

In finally announcing his intentions after nearly a week of silence and reflection, Dion seems poised to neither fully accept nor question the judgment of Canadian voters.

"I still think that if we would have been equipped to explain why I'm fighting for my country, what kind of leader I would have been, what kind of prime minister I would have been and what kind of policy we're proposing, we would have won this election and we would have today a much better government than the one we have," Dion added.

Although he's hardly proven to be a wise leader, or gracious in defeat, Dion seems to have looked to the past for inspiration regarding his decision to continue to serve until replaced. In 1979, Pierre Trudeau resigned as Liberal leader in the wake of an electoral defeat at the hands of the Joe Clark Progressive Conservatives, but left himself available to return in the event of Clark's defeat.

In Trudeau's place, Clark's fall didn't take long to occur. And while he may have asked "the sovereign" to "ask on bended knee three times" before returning, the result speaks for itself. Clark's government was replaced with a Liberal majority.

What all this means is that there will be no free ride for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government. Even if the Liberals aren't fully confident in Dion's ability to contest another election, they need not be hesitant to topple the government if the opportunity should arise.

With Dion -- the principle pillar in the "Red Green alliance" -- having resigned, it isn't at all unfair to continue speculating on the leadership prospects of the Green party's Elizabeth May.

Having hitched both her own and her party's electoral prospects to Dion and the Liberals, May has to face up to the reality that her gambit failed in both of its objectives: defeating the Conservative government and electing Green party MPs.

Many Greens are demanding May's resignation over a last-minute attempt to sway Green party voters to vote strategically against the Conservatives -- but not necessarily in favour of the Greens.

Whether May joins Dion among the ranks of defeated former leaders has yet to be seen.

Clearly the next task for the Liberals will be choosing their next leader. Numerous candidates -- John McCallum, Frank McKenna, John Manley, Ujjal Dosanjh, Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff -- have already started lining up for the job. Others -- Justin Trudeau, Ralph Goodale -- have already sworn off any interest in the coming campaign.

“We must learn quickly from this experience and move on," Dion noted. "The search for a new Liberal leader will be part of a process of renewing our party, but clearly will not in itself be sufficient.”

One way or the other, the coming months will be crucial ones for both Canada and for its official opposition.

For left-wing Canadians, the defeat of Paul Martin's government may not have been such a good thing. Nor would the reelection of the Harper government have been. For Liberals, the ouster of three-time majority winning Jean Chretien turned out to be a bad thing -- as was the selection of his next two successors. For Liberals, Dion's resignation may or may not be a good thing (depending upon the perspective of the individual). But many Conservatives across Canada will be all smiles today.

Stephane Dion has formally bitten the dust.

A Debate To Be Remembered

Even if the leaders aren't up to snuff, the stakes in the 2008 federal election are historic in nature

Stephen Harper is no John Diefenbaker. Nor is he even Joe Clark.

Stephane Dion is no Lester Pearson, and he certainly isn't Pierre Trudeau.

Diefenbaker possessed the ability to rail vocally against outrage and injustice in a manner so intensely that he could make believers out of even cold-hearted listeners.

Lester Pearson, for his notorious lack of oratorical skills, always tended to know a good idea when he saw it. If one were to ask Diefenbaker himself, peacekeeping was one of those very ideas, deftly snatched by the Chief by Pearson.

Joe Clark had a broad-sweeping vision for Canada: his decentralized "communitiy of communities" that was so idyllic that it was almost utopian.

Pierre Trudeau was a mericless debater and oratorical master without compare. For his own part, he didn't merely adopt the great ideas of others. He also came up with a few of his own, evenif he could never be bothered to actually implement them.

Diefenbaker vs. Pearson and Clark vs. Trudeau stand among Canada's most historical and defining electoral contests. In each case, each man exchanged electoral victories over the issues that defined their times.

For Pearson and Diefenbaker it was Canada's role in the Cold War vis a vis nuclear weapons. For Trudeau and Clark, it was Canada's economic course in a post-OPEC petro-economy.

Harper is no Diefenbaker. His speeches may be elctrifying to the most partisan of his supporters, but they still fail to impress his political opponents. Nor is he a Joe Clark. Whether Conservative voters are comfortable enough to admit it or not, he has no grand vision for Canada. He barely has a vision at all, aside from "tightening the screws" of government via budget and tax cuts.

Dion is no Pearson. His Green Shift economic policy, as championed by Scott Brison and Green party leader Elizabeth May, is so ill-concieved that it can't seem to drive voters away from his party quickly enough. Nor is he a Trudeau. The man seems like he couldn't muster a believable ounce of passion is his life depended on it, nor is he resolute enough to stand by his policies no matter how unpopular they may seem. Pierre Trudeau would never have been caught dead tailoring a policy like the Green Shift to the likes of farmers. Not only were they too far out of the urban elite circle he prided himself on travelling in, but they were unlikely to vote for him regardless.

Yet Harper and Dion, like Trudeau and Clark and Diefenbaker and Pearson before them, do have a historical matter that will be decided in the course of this federal election: namely, the issue of climate change.

Canadians have a historical choice before them: a choice between the frugal, cautious economic environmentalism of Stephen Harper, sprinkled with a healthy dose of skepticism, or the risky approach of Stephane Dion, tearing up Canada's taxation regime in the name of leftist apocalypticism.

Harper's approach, stretching reductions in greenhouse gas emissions over a period longer than 40 years, or Stephane Dion's imaginings that, given what he feels is the proper economic incentive, Canada's biggest polluters will pull off the feat in time to comply with the Kyoto protocol.

As was the case with Trudeau/Clark and Diefenbaker/Pearson, the outcome of this election likely won't be up to the contestants alone. While the Presidential election in the United States may keep individuals such as Al Gore and Barack Obama too busy to attempt an intervention in the Canadian campaign, the individual gaffes offered up by each campaign -- there have already been many, and there will likely be many more still -- may yet prove to be decisive by the time this election concludes.

Then, of course, there's always the NDP. The "conscience of the nation", as it were, may yet prove to tip the scales in this election. Jack Layton holds a very powerful position in the country right now, as did Tommy Douglas and Ed Broadbent before him.

And as with Trudeau/Clark and Diefenbaker/Pearson, the next 20 years of Canadian history may be charted by the outcome of this election.

One way or another, this federal election will be one for Canadians to remember. Canadians may remember the outcome -- and, no matter how one slices it, the potential consequences -- for longer still.