I believe that having Stephane Dion as leader of the Liberal Party is actually good news for the Green Party. How, you might ask, could this be so?
Here’s my logic:
- Environmental issues will be election issues.
- Mr Dion has made it clear in his leadership bid that environmental issues and climate change are at the top of his agenda.
- Canadians are not happy with Stephen Harper and Rona Ambrose handling of the environmental file in 2006.
- Elizabeth May has just shown that the Green Party was the one to beat in London North Centre, and taken votes from all of the party’s to do it, so it is clear that Canadian voters are responding to the message she brings to the table.
- Televised Leaders Debate
- If Kyoto and environmental issues are as prominent in the next election as Mr Dion has promised to make them, is it at all reasonable to exclude Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, from the televised leaders debate?
- The media decide who is in the debate; the media know Elizabeth; the media know that these are the hot button issues; and the media knows good ratings when they see them.
- Potential Voters (as Jim Harris pointed out in his recent blog (see sidebar))
- Recent polls indicate that 35% of voters are now saying that they are considering voting Green. Therefore, our potential voter pool is 35% of voters.
- It used to be, up till 2000, that Greens used to get 100% of the 1% of voters for whom environmental protection was the deciding issue at election time. Now, in London, we actually got 75% of the 35% of voters who would consider voting Green. In any election, 75% x 35% = 26% which is much better than 1%.
Besides all this, of course, is the fact that having the Liberals get in the game of putting the environment first will benefit us all, regardless of election outcomes. That is our first and highest priority.
But having Green Party MP’s in the House of Commons will ensure that, no matter what the Liberals say in their campaign, they are not just empty promises made to be broken.
