Equal Access

The Green Party of Canada has an online petition that I have decided to promote. I'm not endorsing the party, nor associating myself with them, but I think the issue they are raising is fair and I have long agreed with them.

The issue? The fact that their party is consistently banned from all televised election debates. While I'm not sure that every registered party should have the right to be on the big CBC stage during election seasons, I do think that The Man has been excluding the Green Party without reasonable cause.

The online petition can be found on this site, and I found that the fact sheet was particularly eye opening. Even though I already supported this particular cause I learned that the party exclusion was more hypocritical than I had originally thought.

Some highlights...

"In the 1988 federal election the Bloc Quebecois did not exist. Gilles Duceppe was elected in a by-election two years later as an independent, not as a Bloc candidate. Despite having no seats in Parliament, no official recognition from the Speaker and only 75 candidates out of 295 ridings, the Bloc Quebecois was included in both the French and English debates. The Bloc has never fielded a candidate outside Quebec but continues to participate in debates in both official languages.


In the 1988 general election, the Reform Party ran 72 candidates, received 276,000 votes and won no seats. By the time of the 1993 election, the Reform Party’s only sitting member was Deborah Grey following her win in a 1989 by-election. Reform did not have Official Party status and did not win a seat in the 1988 election but Preston Manning participated in the 1993 leaders’ debate, based on the 11,154 votes Deborah Grey received in a 1989 by-election with a 47 per cent turnout. In 1993, the party ran only 207 candidates.


In 2004 and 2006, the Green Party ran a full slate of 308 candidates and won 583,000 and 664,000 votes respectively, over double the Reform Party’s performance in 1988.


In 1979, the Social Credit Party was excluded from the debate despite the fact that it had 11 seats in Parliament at the time of dissolution. And in 1997, both the NDP and Progressive Conservatives were included in the debate despite not having Official Party status.


In 1993, 1997 and 2000 five leaders participated in the televised debates. This was reduced to four following the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives in 2003. Fair play, democratic equity and precedent demands that a fifth spot now be opened for a new national leader to join the debate. Five parties received over 2 per cent of the vote in 2004 and 2006 and all five should appear in the next leaders’ debate."