May vs Consortium: “Verges on Sabotage”

Elizabeth May isn’t taking no for an answer. And she shouldn’t either. She knows how to fight injustice, and win, and I expect her to make the Broadcast Consortium back down. The CBC Ombudsman told the Consortium today they are behaving anti-democratically too. I may still decide to picket CBC Regina with a group, if the broadcaster doesn’t offer a debate with at least May in it.

This sums up why the Consortium is being anti-democratic:
“It distorts the electoral process to allow the Consortium to decide on an arbitrary basis who will participate in leaders’ debates. To ensure the fairness in elections that is required by democracy, it is essential that such decisions be made on a principled basis;”
And

(v)
Section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires an equitable allocation of broadcast time;
(w) The effect of participation in leaders’ debates is so significant that it would be extremely difficult to give equitable coverage to a political party whose leader did not participate;

And that’s also why it’s unjust and anti-democratic, and even anti-Canadian to restrict leaders of other political parties like the Marijuana Party and Pirate Party of Canada from also debating on national TV.

CBC got the headline of their story wrong. It was May who is named on the challenge, not the Green Party itself. I reported their typo to them.

The Green Party sent out this message to supporters, and here is a portion:

As National Campaign Manager, I know I can count on you to go the extra mile. I’d like to thank you and the more than 100,000 other Canadians who signed our petition to include Elizabeth May in the leaders’ debates.

But the media consortium is still throwing up ridiculous reasons to keep her out.

Running neck-and-neck against Conservative Gary Lunn in her riding of Saanich–Gulf Islands, Elizabeth also spends time supporting candidates across the country. As if that wasn’t enough, she must now fight to be included in the debates–taking valuable time away from engaging voters and discussing the values dear to our hearts.

As Elizabeth said at our press conference this afternoon, it “verges on sabotage.”

Demand Democratic Debates. I LOVE the Oda style “NOT” drawn into the page.

Linda Keen, fired by Lunn, now endorses Elizabeth May.