Monday, September 09, 2019

Are Elizabeth May and Her Greens Just Cons On Bicycles?



I was recently reminded of what an NDP friend of mine used to be fond of saying: "The Greens are just Cons on bicycles."

At the time I didn't give it much thought, I just thought the whole idea was hilarious.

But I'm not laughing anymore. Now I wondering where Elizabeth May is taking her Green Party, and what she might do in the event of a minority government.

And in that regard I didn't find this video clip very reassuring.

For like Alan Freeman does, I can't help wondering whether the thought of sharing power in a minority government, after so many years in the political wilderness, has caused May to lose her grip on reality. 

There are signs that Elizabeth May, the party’s longtime leader, has got way ahead of reality, portraying herself as kingmaker for a minority government and even musing that she could support a support a minority Conservative government under Andrew Scheer.

Or at least appear dangerously naive.

In July, May suggested that her huge influence in a hung Parliament could make the Tories drop their opposition to carbon taxes and turn it into a party of tree-huggers.


Or worse.

The other problem with this approach is that it equates the Liberals with the Tories when it comes to climate change policy.

True, the Liberals have disappointed environmentalists with their two-sided policy of buying and building a bitumen pipeline on the one hand while at the same time insisting on putting a price on carbon. But that’s quite different from the Scheer policy that’s foursquare in favour of pipelines and the Alberta oil industry and takes no meaningful action on climate.

So like Karl Nerenberg I think May needs to be asked some very hard questions.



Those who are considering voting Green in this fall's election should be asking May exactly what her price might be for propping up a Scheer government. Would it be sufficient for Scheer to maintain the Trudeau government's carbon tax as is? Is that all it would take for the Conservatives to win Green support?

And what about other Conservative policies, such as imposing tougher restrictions on asylum seekers, or killing the Liberals' fund for local news while radically cutting funding for the CBC? Those are not climate-change related. Would the Greens be comfortable supporting them?

What would be the price for her support, and does she even understand how our system works?

An experienced leader such as Elizabeth May should know that what constitutes a government, in our system, is a lot more than the legislative agenda it submits to Parliament.

If she and her party were to vote confidence in a Scheer government, they would be giving that government, and that prime minister, carte blanche to take all kinds of crucial decisions over which Parliament would have no say.

But what I find even more disturbing is that some of her candidates, like Mark de Bruijn in the North Island-Powell River riding, seem to think that the Greens and the Cons were made to play together. 

“It may be a bit of a challenge to get there because of pretty entrenched ideological beliefs,” explained de Bruijn, “but Conservatives have some very good ideas. They are fiscally conservative, as are Greens. We have a lot in common with conservatives at their ideological core.”

And that, along with her flirtation with Warren Kinsella, should save as a flashing red light for anyone naive enough to vote for the Greens.



For they are not what they appear, they are not a truly progressive party.

And where once May had to be supported by a Con like Lisa Raitt...



Nobody should be surprised if next time May and her Greens could end up supporting Raitt and her ghastly Cons beyond the call of decency.

For once they have tasted power does anyone think they would give it up easily? 

Progressives who can't bring themselves to vote for the Trudeau Liberals, should support the NDP in the few ridings where they have a chance of winning.



For Jagmeet Singh has at least vowed never to work with the Cons.

But those who want to make sure the monstrous Cons are kept out of power, should vote for the Liberals to ensure that they have enough seats to also keep the Bloc Quebecois from propping up Andrew Scheer.

The stakes are just too high to gamble with our future.

So nobody in their right minds should vote for the Greens, lest they get a very unpleasant surprise...



16 comments:

Jackie Blue said...

She is and has always been a green snake. So much so that Mulroney tried to have her thrown out. Canada's Jill Stein being aided and abetted by its own version of Roger Stone. The goddamned media is so obsessed with their hate-on for Trudeau that they won't ask her tough questions. This is a blue-green coup in the making. What the actual fuck happened here?

rumleyfips said...

The seat projection shows that the reformatories would need support from both the NDP and the Bloc . Greens could put the Liberals over the top but could not be of use to the Cons .

May has abandoned her integrity in a frenzied power trip. Her behaviour with SNCL was frightening. Then she hired Kinsellout to sling even more mud. Then she lied about the NDP in NB. Now she wants to get into bed with a Sheer-disappointment.

How the high and mighty have fallen.

Jackie Blue said...

OH MY GOD SIMON YOU NEED TO SEE THIS!

Green Party won't ban members from trying to reopen abortion debate, says May

https://twitter.com/CBCKatie/status/1171098868261511168

Please send this out ASAP! I don't have Twitter but you do, tag @RobSilver and @telfordk and @chantalhbert and @AlthiaRaj and @theJagmeetSingh and EVERYONE YOU KNOW who can get the word out!

Elizabeth Mayhem must be STOPPED! Women's rights depend on it!

rumleyfips said...

More Lizzie fan mail : https://frankmag.ca/2019/09/literary-review-tom-mcmillan-and-the-curse-of-elizabeth-may/.

Magpie brule if just as unimpressed.

I guess Kermit was right ' it' not easy being green '.

Jackie Blue said...

The seat projection was updated last night and P.J. Fournier says the lead is "tenuous" for the Liberals. Éric Grenier reported this morning that the BQ is the real dark horse in this campaign and why Pierre Trudeau's son has no choice but to risk the TVA debate in skeptical nationalist territory. Other than that, this is a two-party race regardless of what the "competing narratives" might think. Simon is 100% correct. Outside a handful of ridings a vote for the Blue Greens (or as I call them, the Bloc Turquoise) is a vote for Scheer. Her stance on the abortion debate as she admitted on P&P should be the nail in her professional coffin. The only thing she has going for her over Lee Harvey Two-Face Scheer is that she admitted she'd let party members open the Pandora's box. Vote AB(G)C and avoid at all costs.

Jackie Blue said...

She's immortalized in Wikipedia now as a wishy-washy handmaid. Does she not get that being "open" to anti-choicers is directly incompatible with environmental policies? Reproductive choice is essential to population sustainability! Sorry, but no. Sister Elizabeth of the Order of the Moonbats needs to retire to an ecologically sustainable convent.

rumleyfips said...

Wornout is an anti-abortion fanatic. Maybe he got to Liz ( he does specialize in bad advice ). If so, her judgement is even more questionable than I thought.

Jackie Blue said...

#ScheerWasSoPoorThat his abortion policy is Warren Kinsella's hand-me-downs.

Anonymous said...

In a province where provincial Liberals are Cons and Cons are Cons its not surprising that some would believe in a political Sasquatch such as a Enviro-Con. May is only concerned with doing what it takes to maintain her tenuous hold on her power base. As a reformed Scottish street fighter once said "He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day", such is politics.
Although a bit of a stretch, an alliance between the Reformacons and the Bloc is not out of the question. Both are separatist parties with no illusion or interest in controlling all of Canada. Although the march to the exit door might last for some time, Ontario would be squeezed in the middle and loose all of its political influence. Wonder if the Ontario Tories are starting to catch on. Kenney a staunch Conservative federalist defects to a provincial party with "its my way or the highway motto"and the federal leader of the opposition openly embraces his agenda as gospel without even bothering to point out some obvious flaws. Really strange for an aspiring federal leader but not for a Reformacon in Tory clothing. Victim to a wolf (weasel) in sheep's clothing, such is the fate of the innocent and those that refuse to see!

RT

Jackie Blue said...

OT, but what the hell is going on with the polls? Campaign Research was bad and now Innovative Research. Nanos continues to be a wild card. Mainstreet is out tomorrow and I hope theirs is better. But the rest are shit? Why are they slipping??? I may not even look at Poll Tracker or 338 until the writ drop, it's so upsetting. Do they tend to change more quickly when the campaign gets into high gear?

Simon said...

Hi Jackie....I'm not surprised, Elizabeth May is a very religious person who once studied to be an Anglican minister. But coming at this it will hurt the Greens.

Simon said...

Hi rumleyfips....Yes, all that talk about the Green successes in Europe gave her delusions of grandeur, and she seems to have decided that she is going to play the Kinsella game. I think it's a mistake but who knows? The Greens will never have a better chance to become a major party, but whether they can do it that's another question. The Bloc on the other hand could cause problems, because the bigot Bill 21 is capable of fuelling major growth...

Simon said...

Hi RT....I believe that the Cons wouldn't hesitate to form an alliance with the Bloc. Both are desperate to get back to power, and both have new leaders who need a win badly. Unless the Liberals can get a majority, election night could end up resembling a camel bazaar. How anyone can vote for the Cons after seeing what kenney and Ford are doing is beyond me. But we will use that against them..

Simon said...

Hi Jackie....I don't think we will get a really good fix on what's happening until the third week of the campaign. But right now the trends look favourable, and the Cons are on the defensive. So at this point after all we've been through, I'm not complaining....

Jackie Blue said...

I just saw a new Léger out this morning and it shows a smaller Liberal lead in Ontario. The trend emerging seems to be that the level of bullishness on the Liberals varies with the method used for the poll. Mainstreet, Nanos and Ekos all use IVR, and show double digit Ontario leads, while Léger, Abacus and others are Internet panels and show smaller Ontario leads or a tie. Not sure which is more accurate, but apparently the IVR ones had a better track record going into 2015. In any event, the fact that they're leading at all in the most important provinces is good. I really, really hope it holds.

Jackie Blue said...

Polling update. Forum use IVR but it's crap. A new release from them today literally had the Bloc registering votes in Ontario (!!!) and the NDP (terminal as they are) trailing Max (!) in the Atlantic and Quebec. They also way oversampled flyover country relative to its population and underrepresented Quebec and Ontario. I don't know why they're still taken seriously. Their numbers are basically flinging shit at the wall and seeing what sticks.