Canadian Green Party Leader Banned from Televised Debates
Canada’s Green Party leader, Elizabeth May, is taking Canadian broadcasters to court over their decision to exclude her from the party leader debates ahead of Canada’s federal elections on October 14th. Canada’s media consortium decided to exclude her from the televised leader debates after the other participants supposedly threatened to boycott the debates if she was included.Canada’s Green Party is running candidates in 307 of Canada’s 308 ridings, has one sitting member of parliament, and in a recent poll, has a national support level of 7%. For sharp-eyed readers, note that the Bloc Quebecois only has a national support level of 8%, runs candidates only in Quebec (75 out of 308 ridings), and its party leader will be participating in the October 1st and 2nd televised debates (both the English and the French).
In the last federal election, Canadian broadcasters barred the Green Party from participating in the televised debates because it did not have an elected member of parliament. However, independent MP Blair Wilson joined the Green Party, giving it its first ever member of parliament, as well negating the position of the consortium of CBC, Radio-Canada, TVA, Global and CTV.
Sound off in the comments: do you think it should be up to party leaders to decide who gets to participate in the televised debates? Is being prevented from participating in the debates truly an
“… anti-democratic, closed-door, back-room decision making by four national party leaders who are all men, and five television executives who are all men, to keep out the one woman leader of a federal political party …” ?
Source: Toronto Star
Photo Credit: ItzaFineDay via Flickr’s Creative Commons
I think most would agree that it is not p to party leaders to decide who gets to participate in the televised debates. It is, however, up to party leaders whether they themselves wish to participate. Here, Messrs. Harper and Layton have threatened to boycott the debates if Ms. May is included. The networks then have to decide whether to hold a debate without May, one without Harper and Layton, or a combination of the two. If the consortium had guts and/or thought there would be sufficient public interest to warrant the expense (remember TVA, Global and CTV exist to make $$), they’d go for option #3 by holding a second series of debates with May, Dion and Duceppe.
Hi J,
You make some good points. I would argue though, that if the television networks told the party leaders that she was participating, they would still show up. I mean, at heart, no political party leader has missed a televised debate (even back when there was Reform and Progressive Conservative on the right side… somewhat making Stephen Harper’s comments on the Green Party being an ally of the Liberals disingenuous).
As well, what political leader is going to pass up free air time to further promote their platform, and attack their competitors?
To allow the other leaders to decide whether or not to have an able competitor is a clear conflict of interests. Of course they don’t want her alongside them at the debates - she’d blow them out of the water.
I agree with you Jonna - I think the other party leaders are scared of her as they will have to deal with environmental issues and pressure that otherwise would not come up! Can’t wait for the debates!
what is the problem? Why can she not be in the debates? Is she not running for PM? Is this not a democratic country? What’s going on here? What are they afraid of? They know that she will sway votes because she wants to bring up hard subjects, which they have no good policies for! I for one want to hear what she has to say and she has every right to say whatever she wants!
She is. See post: Canadian Green Party Leader in the Debates; http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/09/10/canadian-green-party-leader-in-the-debates/
[...] that raising a fuss, and threatening to go to court can pay results. As recounted earlier in this post, Elizabeth May, leader of the Canadian Green Party was being prevented from participating in the [...]