At the same time as making her call for strategic voting, eMay made it abundantly clear that she doesn't want Greens to vote for NDPers. In the Toronto Star, as well as other papers across Canada, we find this snippet:
"I think she's muddying the waters," [Green candidate in the Ontario riding of Simcoe-North] Valerie Powell said. "I think she's the best prime minister, and we have to keep working hard as Greens to make sure we have as many MPs as possible."Lovely. That's really doing politics differently. Not only is that nasty and negative, it is completely false. Jack Layton has been a campaigner on environmental issues for decades. He bikes to work on Parliament Hill. He led the process which completely re-wrote Bill C-30, Harper's regressive environmental legislation to make it a strong, progressive, law to control and reduce carbon emissions (this is a bill, the rewriting process of which eMay called a "pointless exercise", and for which she absurdly claimed credit not two weeks later [source]). NDP policies on the environment under Layton received high marks from the Sierra Club until eMay left that organization to lead the Green Party, at which time the NDP (shockingly) dropped in the ratings, while the Green Party soared.
Asked if she is muddying the waters, May responded, "It's true I am."
"I love Valerie and I read her full quotes and they weren't harsh or unfair. She's right, life would be simpler if I acted like (NDP Leader) Jack Layton and didn't care if Stephen Harper formed government again.
"Life would be simpler if I were a complete hypocrite like Jack Layton and pretended I cared about the climate when all of his strategy makes his own personal success more important than survival of the climate and decent climate policy.
"I'm just not that person."
Elizabeth May has a long-standing history of making ridiculous, and bitterly partisan, attacks on Jack Layton and the NDP. Lets cast our thoughts back to 2007, when eMay struck her deal with Stephane Dion to endorse him for the PM's chair in return for the Libs pulling out of Central Nova (where they had finished third in 2006, with the Greens barely a blip). She then promptly turned around and demanded the same thing from the NDP. Unsurprisingly, the NDP, which finished a close second in Central Nova in 2006, told eMay to take a hike, in about so many words. eMay decided then to unleash a screed against Layton, charging that “there’s something wrong with Jack Layton if he’d rather open up discussions with the Taliban than the Green Party...” Not only is this a blatantly, bitterly, partisan thing to say (never mind being inaccurate), it is also a complete renunciation of the Green Party policy on Afghanistan, which favours a negotiated settlement.
Now, Elizabeth May is lying again. She has now "updated" her position, and claims that she doesn't endorse strategic voting. Get your story straight. I don't understand how anyone can support the Green Party when it is led by Elizabeth May. She is a proven liar and hypocrite, never mind advancing regressive opinions on abortion or comparing lack of action on climate change to Nevile Chamberlain appeasing the Nazis at Munich. She is trying to pull on the Green Party what Hazen Argue pulled on the NDP. And one day she will be as reviled in Green Party circles as Hazen Argue is in NDP circles.
As the last day before the election winds down, I want to remind everyone to vote. Vote for who you want, just get out there and do it. Democracy only functions if the people exercise their franchise and get involved in it.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 98
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Gee that's funny. I am a Green Party member and I receive pretty regular messages directly from Ms. May and her messages have ALWAYS said the same thing: "Vote Green"
ReplyDeleteSo you and the newspapers can keep trying to alert me to what my party leader is telling me. But since I can compare that to what she is ACTUALLY saying I don't need the help thank you.
btw: What the heck happened to the NDP this election? First they side with Harper to keep May out of the debate. And now your attacking the Greens leadership like Harper attacked Dion?
My friends, I hardly recognize you anymore.
I suppose that's your business, but seriously, is the Green Party incapable of putting out a coherent message? I'm not, in point of fact, trying to alert you to what May is saying, you're a Green partisan. I'm trying to inform a more general public.
ReplyDeleteAre you just unable to process the discrepancy between the statement that your "leader" gave to the Star and the one she game to the Globe and Mail? Seriously, read the articles. She says one thing in the Star article, and absolutely another in the Globe and Mail.
Do you seriously think that I represent some kind of official NDP view? I'm not on the Blogging Dippers blogroll, and I have criticized the NDP for drifting too far to the centre of the political spectrum. I'm a socialist who is a pragmatically a New Democrat.