Whenever the Federal Party Leaders TV Debate takes place, Elizabeth May won't be representing the Green Party at it. This page doesn't believe that a cabal of broadcasters should be deciding which political views see the televised light of day and which don't, but in this case excluding May is the right choice. The Greens don't have official party status in the House of Commons (which is why the NDP and the Progressive Conservatives should have been out of the 1997 debate), and in fact are 12 members short of official party status having elected, by my calculations, zero (0) Members of Parliament. Also, claiming that one of your 'opponents' would make a great Prime Minister and not running candidates against his party doesn't exactly look like one's ready to bring it on.
For all of the Greens' histrionics, their anguish at being escorted out of the studio is misplaced. With apologies to Seinfeld fans, TV debates in Canada are the real show about nothing. Since the 1993 election, when the traditional system of national political parties collapsed, These nationally televised podium derbies have been little more than a farcial circus of non-issues, grandstanding journalists, incessant spin, and games of 'gotcha'. Attempts at taking questions from idiot-in-the-street 'ordinary' voters have failed to inject authenticity into the proceedings. The problem lies in the fact that these debates have no real argument because the format of putting four or five people on stage for an hour doesn't allow any of them time to formulate an argument. The Democratic and Republican National Conventions may also have been circuses, but at least they offered American voters the chance to hear Barack Obama and John McCain speak for an hour without interruptions to lay out their parties' platforms and address their critics.
Besides, there are far more entertaining fake arguments to watch....
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