Green Party Co-Leaders Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault attend their election campaign launch in Montreal, on March 23.Evan Buhler/Reuters
It’s not often that we find ourselves in agreement with the Bloc Québécois, but Leader Yves-François Blanchet is correct on this much: the Green Party should not have a spot in this week’s leaders’ debates.
Over the weekend, Mr. Blanchet pointed out that the Greens have formally nominated just 232 candidates, far short of the threshold that the Leaders Debate Commission has set for participation in the debates.
All participating parties must meet two of three criteria: having an elected MP; support of at least 4 per cent in national polls 28 days before the vote; or endorsing candidates in at least 90 per cent of ridings, 28 days before the vote. The Greens did not hit the threshold for polling support, so their inclusion in the debates depended on the criterion of endorsed candidates.
Now, it is true that the Greens have technically qualified and were issued an invitation letter on April 1 – but that was only because the party sent a list of candidates, accounting for at least 90 per cent of the 343 federal ridings, that it intended to nominate. Green Party Co-leader Elizabeth May said the party had intended to nominate a full slate of 343 candidates.
So, as of March 31, the Greens say they were of the belief that they would have 343 candidates, but by the April 7 Elections Canada cutoff, they managed to cement just 232 nominations, accounting for just over two-thirds of ridings. Ms. May says that shortfall is because of the tight timelines of a short campaign and fussiness on the part of some Elections Canada returning officers.
Her explanations are hard to swallow. Yes, this campaign is short, but the idea that an election campaign was somehow unexpected is laughable. Perhaps a returning officer or two was overly nitpicky – but in 111 ridings? Either the Greens had an incredible run of bad luck, or the party never had a viable plan to reach the 90-per-cent threshold. This is the second election in a row that the party has fallen far short of a full slate (having just 252 nominated candidates in 2021), further undermining Ms. May’s rationales.
She also told The Globe in an interview that it’s a long-standing tradition to include parties with sitting MPs. That statement brushes aside the entire reason for the existence of the debates commission.
The only reason that the Greens were not excluded is that the commission’s deadline was set a week earlier than the formal Elections Canada nomination cutoff so it would have time to organize “high-quality” debates, according to a statement from the commission. This allowed the Greens to say, without having to prove it, that they would nominate a sufficient number of candidates.
Clearly, that should change. The Greens have demonstrated that actions, not promises, should be the basis for the commission’s decisions. And if that means that the production values of the debate suffer – well, democracy is arguably a little more important.
As for this week’s debates, the commission says it cannot retroactively revoke change criteria. Fine – but the commission does still exercise final approval of the format and production of the debate. It should use that power to ensure that the Greens’ allotted time is commensurate with the size of their slate.