No Room For Debate

The post of last week laying out reasons why I believed Elizabeth May should be in the leaders' debates received a good supply of positive responses, many believing the health of our democracy depended on all key voices being permitted at the table. While I appreciated these many thoughts of affirmation, I was saddened to learn that Elizabeth herself had acceded to taking part in a one-on-one television debate with minister Gary Lunn. She would have learned earlier that the Liberal and NDP candidates wouldn't be included and yet she chose to press on. Both other candidates were legitimate representatives of their respective parties, with the Liberal choice even being an environmental scientist.I stated last week that, whatever the other reasons, Elizabeth should be present in the national debates because we required every sound voice for the environment at the debate venue because climate change deserved all the advocates it could gather. But the Green Party leader has now taken part in a venue that has excluded others, just as she had complained about being ostracized herself from the national debates.I understand that the Green Party is focusing all of its resources in winning the seat in Saanich-Gulf Islands, sometimes to the detriment of other Green candidates across the country. Fair enough, as leader that's her choice. Yet Elizabeth May made much of the fact that, ethically, as the leader of a party that received some one million votes in the last election, she was worthy of being included in the official verbal contests. In accepting the challenge for the one-on-one debate with Lunn, she left out two other candidates whose parties between them captured far more votes than the Greens over two years ago.Elizabeth has channeled all her resources into winning the seat; sadly, she cast off the very ethical premise of her struggle to be included at the nationally televised contests. I have listened to her and participated with her in democratic reform meetings that decried that lack of inclusion in the broader political debate. In agreeing to participate in a debate that has denied the participation of two of the other major parties she makes a mockery of her own pleas to be part of the larger venues. Pressed on the hypocrisy of it, she responded that it was merely an interview, not a debate. Others hardly agreed and now the damage is done. It is a moment of clear disappointment for me. I still claim she has a right to participate in the coming national debates because it is the ethical thing to undertake. I just wish she could have afforded others that same courtesy and fought for their right to equal access. The damage is not irreversible, but she must ensure that any further venues include all key players, just as she would wish for herself.