Submit an email to TV/media people who need to hear that you’re tired of significant political parties from being excluded from televised debates on public airwaves.
Here’s my custom short message:
Please, do not hurt Canadian democracy by excluding the Green Party from the televised debate. Canadian airwaves are public property, and it’s in the public interest that all registered parties have national TV time, even smaller parties like CAP and the PCs. Redo your format so it works for our democracy, don’t expect parties to fit into your neat little packaging.
The Green Party is virtually tied with the Bloc in popular support from Canadian voters, so why is a separatist party allowed to debate, but not the Greens? Any way you slice it, for the Broadcast Consortium to exclude the Greens, is absurd.
More bloggers are joining the calls for improved Canadian democracy.
@hotmail.com
![[EFC Blue Ribbon - Free Speech Online]](http://www.efc.ca/images/efcfreet.gif)
Devon Rowcliffe | 15-Dec-06 at 1:34 pm | Permalink
Hear, hear.
Saskboy | 15-Dec-06 at 2:03 pm | Permalink
I tried to post on your blog, but Blogger won’t let me login until I upgrade to beta I think. I was going to tell Tony that his theory is laughable.
Radical Centrist | 15-Dec-06 at 2:04 pm | Permalink
Since we taxpayers now fund the Green party, i think it’s only right that we should be able to hear from them during debates. Also, it annoys me when the BQ is included in national polls. They aren’t a national party and shouldn’t figure in Canada-wide polling numbers. List them when looking at Quebec only, fine, but not nationally. They don’t have national support.
Saskboy | 15-Dec-06 at 2:16 pm | Permalink
Good points RadicalC.
People afraid of the Green Party are going to try the old excuses like “there’s no MP” and “the debate will be too crowded”. Neither is a valid argument because the first presupposes the result of the election the debate is to decide, and the latter is a lie because 1993 had 5 debaters, and the Broadcast gurus could just have more debates with a round robin style. There’s no reason CPAC and CBC wouldn’t cover that - they’d have to and every Canadian could tune in.
Adrian MacNair | 15-Dec-06 at 5:37 pm | Permalink
The Bloc should be illegal AFAIC. Since it isn’t, we could at least allow the Greens to participate since they aren’t actually interested in breaking apart the country. Problem is the Greens don’t have any seats. So they technically don’t have much to stand on, but then again, neither did Mulroney’s Tories after he bungled Canada up in 1988.
Saskboy | 15-Dec-06 at 5:40 pm | Permalink
The Greens not having seats is a red herring though, that we’ve allowed the bigwigs to talk the average person into. Think about it this way:
The debate is to decide who is best to win and run the country. But they are selecting the debate participants, based mostly on who they perceive to be most likely to win the coming election. It’s a circular game of non-logic for them to speculate that way. That’s not democracy, that’s TV producers picking who they want publicized and on equal televised footing.
Kyle Olsen | 15-Dec-06 at 6:02 pm | Permalink
Until they have official party status in the House they should not be allowed in the debates.
Saskboy | 15-Dec-06 at 6:05 pm | Permalink
So the Tories and NDP shouldn’t have been in the debate after 1993 Kyle? Come on, get with the program called democracy already…
Adrian MacNair | 15-Dec-06 at 7:23 pm | Permalink
All Federal parties that have not committed acts of corruption in the past 10 years step forward… not so fast Liberals…
And they get to debate on morality and values in Canada? It is to laugh.
Fiumara | 15-Dec-06 at 8:49 pm | Permalink
If we are a supposedly bilingual country why do we have a French and English debate? Is it because we really have a Canada/Quebec debate? If so then the bocheads should be excluded from the Canada debate.
As for the Green Party: until they get a seat in the Commons they are a fringe party - like the Marxist-Lenanist and the Communist and the Heritage, etc.
Saskboy | 15-Dec-06 at 8:57 pm | Permalink
Fiumara, you’ll have to answer these two points before you could hope to convince me or any other thoughtful people in Canada:
1. Exceptions have been made for other “fringe” parties like the Reform and Bloc in the past, why not the Greens now?
2. How does including the Green Party present an undesirable situation you want to avoid? What’s the downside of putting the Greens in the debate like they should be?
I too think the french debate is silly in an over-accommodating sense, but then again we are officially bilingual and there are many francophones all over Canada, not just in Quebec. However, more debates, not fewer should be the goal for a democratic nation. Keep that in the forefront of your mind.
Tanya | 16-Dec-06 at 11:02 am | Permalink
I agree with you whole heartedly. All political parties should be allowed to appear in debates. We want to get as far away from two party politics as we possibly can. I will probably be voting Green in the next election. They most closely adhere to my values although it is impossible for me to give 100% support to any political party other than the Marijuana party. :)
Pilot | 18-Dec-06 at 2:10 pm | Permalink
Well ok, I disagree with you SaskBoy, but mostly to be an ass ;).
Here is how it SHOULD be. Cancel the debate outright and replace it with a Battle Royale, take all whatever 1500 odd people running for a seat, put them in a soccer stadium together, the last 308 people standing get a seat.
Now THAT would be democracy!
Failing that, yes absolutely the Green Party should have had a voice since I’d say at least the mid 90’s and for sure the 2004 and 2006 elections. i’ve posted my support on Pilot’s World.
Here’s to a Green PM in 2010!
Saskboy | 18-Dec-06 at 3:15 pm | Permalink
Thank you for agreeing and spreading the word about how it’s an affront to democracy to block he Green Party from debating.