My mail-in ballot arrived last week. It's still sitting uncompleted on my coffee table.
For several years I've been a committed Green Party member. After leaving the Liberals, Elizabeth May and the Greens were a good fit for me. Then this dilemma surfaced. I became a lot greener than the Green Party, federal or provincial. They became mired in conventional politics, taking positions that would have been commendable, even inspirational, in 1970 or 1980 but have lost the plot in 2020. The Green Party has pursued a marginalized relevance.
We are in a climate emergency. The world is in a climate emergency. Major change is imperative and time is fast running out. We are on a time table, an hour glass, that the Green Party's politics doesn't recognize. Canada doesn't need a scold in our legislatures. Canada needs a core of dedicated insurgents. People who will obstruct and derail. What the Extinction Rebellion is doing in the streets, what the Wetsueten are doing to defend their sovereign territory, Green Party MPs and MLAs should be doing in their respective legislatures. Otherwise, what is the point?
Life on Earth hangs in the balance. Act like it. Stand up. Speak out of turn. Get thrown out. Make them carry you out. Force their hand and drag them into the spotlight. You've only got a few people. How else are you going to effect change?
With that frame of mind, here are the options for voters in Parksville-Qualicum Beach. Michelle Stil well, the incumbent Liberal, whose claim to fame is/was a successful 16-year career as a wheelchair athlete winning a bag full of gold medals in paralympic games. A favourite of Christy Clark, Stilwell took 45% of the vote in 2017.
The NDP candidate is a town councillor from Qualicum Beach. Seems a nice enough guy but I can't abide his party's support for the Site C dam or every LNG venture that comes along.
So what about the Greens? Like Erin O'Toole, the Greens have a career military officer, a retired RCN weapons systems controller. He seemed okay until I came to the line where he described himself as a life-long "staunch Conservative." He hints that he might have had an epiphany but stops well short of saying as much.
So, the Green candidate doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell and he's is or until last week was a "staunch Conservative." No, I don't think so. The NDP candidate is a nice enough guy but I can't get past Horgan's Site C and LNG policies. And the Liberals? I could write pages why I would sooner have a nail torn out than vote for those bastards.
So there it is. I can't vote for any of them. I'll mail in my ballot, suitably voided.
Please don't spoil your ballot.
ReplyDeleteAbraham Lincoln, a Republican, said " ... government of the people, by the people, for the people, ..." For this goal to be attainable each one of us needs to exercise both our brain to be aware of who is asking for our vote and to exercise our right to vote and vote.
A lifelong staunch Conservative, eh? That really gives the game away. Had he called himself a disillusioned Conservative who wanted to build on Mulroney's environmental record, he might have some credibility. But "staunch Conservative?" Nope. That's a Liberal with no hope of unseating the incumbent putting on a green suit to get elected. Selecting him as their candidate sure doesn't look good on the Greens.
ReplyDeleteCap
Steve, a spoiled ballot is a vote. It is a vote expressing the inadequacy of the contending parties and their candidates.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness, Cap, the Greens were caught off guard. Even in B.C. a distant third party, they've languished over the past couple of years. I wonder if this guy might have gone Liberal if the riding wasn't held by the incumbent. Either we are facing a climate emergency or we're not. If we're not then "business as usual" politics suffice. If we are in a climate emergency then it's the responsibility of the Greens to behave as the other parties won't.
ReplyDeleteAre there any Ecosocialists you could write in?
ReplyDeleteThe Greens have become totally useless. A GTA lawyer with international experience as national leader, well yeah, sure -- now its a guaranteed annual income party. I read a MacLeans interview with Paul and the environment was not even mentioned. So the Greens have gone off on a tangent to nowhere. Kind of annoyed I voted for them in the last federal election now - none of that stuff was mentioned then. Can't even channel Greta Thunberg as a minimum, but instead have become a pale imitation of the NDP, itself a completely useless outfit under Singh.
ReplyDeleteSo far as the Greens in BC are concerned, I could never work out how they reconciled the LNG pipeline and Site C and propping up Horgan, with the core notion of environmentalism.
The Wetsuweten are pissed off again with the CGL construction people, so Horgan and whoever that Liberal IDIOT is talking about cutting PST for a year, can now stamp on First Nations rights and show who's the biggest white man in BC by calling on the RCMP to trash a territory that they have no jurisdiction over.
https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/10/breaking-wetsuweten-women-occupy-pipeline-drillsite-to-stop-cgl-from-drilling-beneath-their-sacred-headwaters/#more-109976
Dissident Voice: This seems to be the main site for announcing Wetsuweten displeasure publicly. That's where I first found out about them late last fall.
BM
None that I know of, PLG. This election fiasco might stir me to get involved with the local riding association if only to check for a pulse. I wouldn't wager a ham sandwich that I'll find one.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, BM, how much we miss the NDP while the rightwing holds sway but only until the NDP returns to power. They're so much more appealing when they're irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Greens, "business as usual" politics in the onset of a climate emergency is a betrayal of the people of Canada. Times change. A different type of voice is needed today, one that makes the powerful, rightwing or left, uncomfortable, insecure. If they keep ticking along as the current government is under Horgan or, worse, as the Liberals would govern, we know where that road ends. Someone needs to kick over the traces, derail that train.
The time we've lost is gone. We're not getting it back and all the options that time once afforded have been lost. We have fewer options now but also far less time to effect meaningful change. Andrew Weaver is highly knowledgeable about climate science but he's a product of his environment in tony Oak Bay. He was never a firebrand when that was precisely what was needed. Sometimes working for change isn't enough. Sometimes you must fight for change. Wisdom is grasping the distinction.
The choices are almost as bad as if you were faced with the same problem south of here. You'd think society would be able to draught something a little better, given the size of the pool.
ReplyDeleteMe, I'm going green, because she's better looking than the other two. I swear I never used that criteria when Chrispy was running though!
As for the Greens, "business as usual" politics in the onset of a climate emergency is a betrayal of the people of Canada
ReplyDeleteAnd perhaps NO.
Had the Greens been hard nosed about issues then we would have had an election way before now.
I am surprised the coalition lasted this long.
The upcoming election will result in a very different Government that will perhaps, be devoid of any Green influence!
We do not want the divided politics of the USA.
WE need to go beyond First past the post.
TB
"he's is or until last week was a "staunch Conservative." "
ReplyDeleteThis is why I joined the fed Greens and voted for Dmitri.
I am sick of 'conservatives who recycle' and join all the other parties who can't be fair on mid-east policy.
Alas May's pick won, but Dmitri was on the last ballot and gave May and her goons a bit of heart attacks.
I will 'strategically waste' my Vcr vote on a Green candidate in this election... unless the Rhino's or the Pot Party show up.