Some time this morning, national Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion is supposed to announce that the Liberals won’t be running a candidate in Central Nova if/when the next election is called. This should make things easier for Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who chose a high-profile battle by running in Central Nova against Conservative cabinet minister, alleged hunk and known doofus Peter MacKay. I dunno if it’ll help the Liberals’ national profile, or how true to democratic ideals it is, but for this race I’m stoked about Dion’s move.
When I spoke with May in late March about her candidacy (as reported in this column), she said Dion had called to offer his support. “In our phone call he said, ‘Well, this is wonderful that you’re challenging Peter MacKay. What could I do to help?’ And I said, ‘Well there’s a lot you could do to help, actually.’” Clearly there have been further talks since then, resulting in Dion’s serious assistance of keeping the Liberals out of the race.
What I didn’t get into with the column is how May and Dion became so cozy. “We’ve liked each other and known each other since, let’s see, when did I really get to know Stéphane? After Paul Martin became prime minister and didn’t put Stéphane in his first cabinet,” remembered May. “December 2003. So probably early January 2004 Stéphane Dion called me — I was executive director of Sierra Club of Canada at the time. We got to know each other then because he decided to join the environment committee, and he needed briefings.” Now as leader and wannabe prime minister, Dion pushes his environmental credentials, and May publicly endorses him over Conservative PM Stephen Harper.
The Greens and the New Democratic Party are not nearly so tight. In our chat, May said she’s been trying unsuccessfully for a while to sit down with NDP leader Jack Layton to talk about general things. They certainly hadn’t discussed the NDP sitting out the Central Nova race, although May would rather go it alone against MacKay and not risk progressive parties splitting the vote against the Conservative. And she has a persuasive argument that deals with shortcomings in Canada’s electoral system rather than individual party beliefs.
“The majority of Canadians voted for parties that support Kyoto, supported the Kelowna Accord, supported a universal childcare program — and we didn’t get the majority wishes,” she said in March. “We got, thanks to ‘first past the post,’ a dysfunctional result. I would like to pursue with any of the political party leaders who must recognize, we must all recognize, that although our own platforms and our own allegiance to our own party is paramount, perhaps we ought to think about doing politics differently. To avoid a bad result.”
Where does Jack Layton and not running in Central Nova fit into this? “The NDP is the party, along with the Green Party, that supports proportional representation,” May said. “This would be a great way for the NDP to show that they really do support PR by backing off in this riding, and helping reflect the views of the over 650,000 Canadians who voted Green in the last federal election. There’ll clearly be far more in the next.” No word yet if Layton will be among them.
This article appears in Apr 12-18, 2007.