“It’s not my fault.”
It’s becoming a popular refrain. First, Stephane Dion blames the Conservative’s advertising campaign for his loss. Now Elizabeth May is blaming, of all people, Jack Layton and the NDP.
According to the Hill Times, May said:
“Stéphane Dion and I went as far as any two leaders of any federal political parties have ever gone to express some spirit of cooperation in the larger goals of protecting the climate, and Mr. Layton would hear none of it. He was harshly critical of efforts to say those who care about the climate should find ways to get past partisanship. Mr. Layton has made partisanship his god and he’s certainly not willing to do anything to put climate ahead of partisan self-interest, and that’s what he lives with. I have a clear conscience.”
Talk about arrogant. I’m no big fan of Jack Layton, but has he really made partisanship his god? I guess we could ask Olivia Chow if he has a small partisanship shrine secreted away in his closet. Of course, Ms. May conveniently overlooks her own giant shrine – which is surprising considering its strewn with the bodies of Green Party candidates she pushed under the bus when she repeatedly told people to vote anything but green.
According to Ms. May, its not just Jack Layton and his bizarre desire for votes, but the very electoral system that’s at fault:
She said Canada’s first past the post electoral system is outdated, adding that bringing in a proportional representation system would lead to more representative government. She said, however, that none of the major political parties truly support proportional representation. “Ostensibly, the NDP would have you believe that they care about proportional representation as part of their platform, but they’ve done nothing to advance it.”
This isn’t the first time Elizabeth May has tried to explain how the democratic system we’ve had since 1867 is wrong. I’m sure its not the last. Its to be expected as the GPC probably realizes that it will never have enough votes in any one riding to actually elect a candidate.
Surely their inability to win a single riding is no more the Green Party’s fault than the Elizabeth May’s inability to get elected is her own. Frankly, I’m glad we don’t have a proportionate system. Politicians are already significantly beholden to the dogmatic party system, the last thing we need is a pool of completely unaccountable positions that can be doled out to party faithful.
May, like Dion, seems to think that all we need is a do-over:
That’s something that we’re building and we will be ready for the next election, and I think the next election could be a lot sooner than others do. I don’t think that we should assume Mr. Harper will be in power for very much longer.
Certainly this is a theme that the left has had in the news for some time. I guess when you don’t have a chance of ever having the responsibility of running the country its easy to take as many $300+ million rolls of the dice as taxpayers will let you.
- Rafael.
[...] Elizabeth May takes a page from the Dion playbook. [...]
Prepare for chaos: U.S. electoral system warned it ‘can’t cope’ as historic number of voters cast their ballot | G.O.O.D
November 4th, 2008
Ms. May is right on. We need to get rid of an antique voting system where 40% of the votes gets you 60% of the seats and 100% of the power, and a party with almost a million votes gets no seats at all.
She is perhaps a little hard on Jack Layton. The NDP has stood up for proportional representation, although it does tend to slip their mind at key moments.
But Layton is simply responding to the incentives built into our winner-take-all system. As May and Dion demonstrated, any attempt at cooperation is quickly punished.
Elizabeth May won’t be involved in calling the next election, but it will surely come sooner than it needs to, and it will inevitably give us another distorted result.
http://www.FairVote.Ca
Wayne Smith
November 4th, 2008
I couldn’t disagree more.
The last thing we need is a proportional system that hands seats out based on nothing but raw percentages of popular vote. The poor showing for MMP in the Ontario referendum during the last provincial election showed that the majority of people weren’t interested in having what amounts to unelected individuals parachuted into seats by their party.
I’m not even convinced Elizabeth May really cares about ‘democratic reform’. Maybe I’m a cynic, but saying the rules need to be changed in a way that would really only benefit the GPC hardly seems like altruism on Ms. May’s part.
The reason the GPC doesn’t get any seats, even with a million votes, is because its platform is to narrowly focussed to appeal to a significant portion of the population in any one riding.
Perhaps instead of trying to change the rules of the game, the GPC should look at its platform and what changes it needs to make to appeal to a broad section of the population.
I hardly think changing the rules of the game so we end up like Italy, with dozens of small fringe parties having ‘elected’ members, is going to make the system work any better than it does now.
Personally I’d rather see a move towards consensus government like in NWT and Nunavut.
Rafael
November 4th, 2008