A blog to give a voice to our concern about the continued erosion of our democratic processes not only within the House of Commons and within our electoral system but also throughout our society. Here you will find articles about the current problems within our parliamentary democracy, about actions both good and bad by our elected representatives, about possible solutions, opinions and debate about the state of democracy in Canada, and about our roles/responsibilities as democratic citizens. We invite your thoughtful and polite comments upon our posts and ask those who wish to post longer articles or share ideas on this subject to submit them for inclusion as a guest post.
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Saturday, February 9, 2019

A Green Revolution?

In a recent interview on CTV Question Period Elizabeth May, the Green Party federal leader said that they had been getting an increased interest, and donations, in the party. Hardly a surprise as the choices otherwise are becoming increasingly hard to endorse, the Cons are IMHO so far off the wall both federally and provincially (when Doug Frord is reinforcing their unsuitability to rule anything) that its no contest. The NDP seem to be stumbling around in the dark both leadership wise and policy wise but the big hit for me in these days of folks struggling to make a living is there insistence of supporting (mostly government) unionized employees in their ever cry for more, more, more. We know that such position is based upon the need for money, money, money from said unions but that does not make it right!

That leads us to the Liberals whom I had great respect for and have refrained from criticizing because I thought that they were in fact trying to do the right thing, I can even forgive their inability to bring electoral reform to it final conclusion for as we have seen time and time again the various players will NEVER find a middle ground that satisfies even close to a majority of the electorate. What really turned me off was (as seems to be an increasing point of view) the support and eventual purchase of the old 'oil' pipeline from Alberta to the west coast and the ongoing support of the expansion of shipment of mixed tar and toxic thinners to be shipped via tanker from the waters of BC.

In short I see little alternatives despite my feeling that a vote for other than the Libs may spin the roulette wheel called electoral democracy towards the very scary and previously power hungry Conservative authoritarian regime. My reluctance to go all out and endorse all Green candidates is colored by my involvement with the local Green movement here in Grey Bruce, not that this was in any way a bad experience, they were in fact all good and caring people and their cause well worth supporting. I, along with a number of caring and concerned local folks spent considerable volunteer time updating the web presence of the GBOS Greens EDA web site in order that both members and the public could see where things stood locally as regards to to said organization. Unfortunately local supporters failed to make use of said resource and both it and the local organization seem to have faded into obscurity.

As the federal election approaches perhaps the (now largely defunct) local executive will make use of said resource (still available online) to promote and resurrect the local green movement which has seen no new content in many, many months (years in fact) but to expect a viable candidate who can do anything other than split the vote after being dormant for so long in this district is dreaming in technicolor. That all said I do hope that Greens across our nation vote in a sufficient number of MPs to shake up the status quo and perhaps even have the balance of power in what may well be a minority government. Wouldn't that be much needed a shake up!


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4 comments:

Lorne said...

Having read The Mound's recent post about voting Green in the next election, Rural, I am giving very consideration to his suggestion. Like you, I am completely disaffected from the Liberals; their descent into their old ways took place faster than I could have anticipated.

Traditionally, the argument against voting for the Greens is that it is a throwing away of one's vote. But if now is not the time to stand on principle and send a message, when is?

Rural said...

We are going to be faced with some very difficult choices this fall Lorne, it will not be helped by the BS issuing from many of the participants and amplified by the unregulated 'social media'!

Owen Gray said...

I, too, am considering voting Green, Rural. But because we live in a very Blue Area, my vote would not accomplish anything. However, you never know. My riding went Liberal in the last federal election.

Rural said...

With the current long standing 'blue' MP in this riding 'retiring' it hard to know what is going to happen here Owen, as you say 'you never know'!