Over at RevMod, Don is rightfully poking at Elizabeth May's foibles for running against Peter McKay in Central Nova. However, Don loses this page when he remarks "I'm no friend of the Green Party. I think the last thing the left in this country needs is to split their vote". Although it appears that yesterday's Federal Budget will pass with numbers somewhere around 175 - 132 thanks to the support of Bloc Quebecois, this page feels its important for all like-minded correspondents to be making accurate commentary.
I'm only going to say this once (I hope) so that all of us are on the same page: The Green Party is not a left wing party. A left wing party does not believe that solutions to the problems of the environment will be found in the markets. The leader of a left wing party does not fudge on issues like a woman's right to choose. A left wing party does not have a significant portion of its membership at odds with the Labour movement. A left wing party does not court Garth Turner to represent them in the House of Commons.
If there's going to be any vote-splitting, it's because the corporate media (who are only comfortable backing the Liberals or Conservatives) will repeat the charade of a leftist Green Party. Six years ago, British Columbians were duped into thinking that the Greens were left - leaning and could possibly replaced the wrongly vilified New Democrats. This falsehood perpetuated itself even though the Green's leader, Adrienne Carr, trumpeted her ability to "trust business to do the right thing" and screamed at striking bus drivers and nurses to "get back to work". The subsequent vote-splitting cost the province its Official Opposition in the Legislature, allowing Gordon Campbell to freely swing a tax-cutting axe at valued public institutions and what remained of B.C.'s social safety net.
I can let Don's comments go if he promises to re-read his Marx and stand me a Flying Frog (assuming Brewsters is still open) the next time I'm in Edmonton (sometime this summer). For everyone else, let's be careful out there: the next trip to the polls will be tighter than the hairpiece on Stephie Wonder's head, so read the labels carefully, and be careful when applying them.
2 comments:
You know, I had actually been thinking about this very argument as I wrote my piece, and very carefully did not suggest that the Green Party was actually a left-wing party - only that they would tend to split the votes of the left. Having said that, Adrienne Carr is NOT Elizabeth May, the BC Greens are not the federal Greens, the BC Liberals are only liberal in the classical sense of the term, the NPA is not non-partisan, and generally, politics is different on your side of the mountains. I certainly can't dispute your general theme: read past the label.
Nevertheless, I'll be happy to pick up the first round when you make your way to town.
I don't think politics are that different in BC when Adrienne Carr is one of Elizabeth May's Deputy Leaders and the Green candidate in Vancouver Centre.
As for the Liberals, many of the players in the Basi-Virk/BC Rail scandal (for which the RCMP raided the BC legislature) were influential backers of Stephane Dion's federal leadership campaign.
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