Monday, September 08, 2008

Democratic voice [updated]

During the 2006 election, the Green Party of Canada was a national party, and ran candidates across the entire country in all 308 ridings. During the election campaign, the Green Party leader was refused the opportunity to participate in the official leader debates. Despite this, over 600,000 individual Canadians voted for this party, approximately 4.5% of the popular vote.

How can a party with national representation be refused the right to participate in the federal election debates? How is it that a political voice speaking for more than half a million Canadian citizens is stifled by backroom deals and political machinations? And why is is that we're about to see this happen AGAIN?!?

This FLIF member thinks it's wrong that a major party leader has been blocked from the debates. As a librarian, I support freedom of expression and democratic values. As a citizen, I have the right to hear from someone who could be speaking on my behalf in Parliament.

There is a grassroots push happening to protest for Green Party leader Elizabeth May's participation in the upcoming leader debates. The online petition is available at http://demanddemocraticdebates.ca, and only takes a few seconds to submit.

UPDATE: Those of you who have been following this story know that both the opposing parties and the media committee have reversed their decisions. Green Party leader Elizabeth May has been invited to join the televised leader debates. It's a good day. However, I still wonder why this was an issue at all.

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