This morning the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) narrowly voted against letting the Leader of the Green Party of BC speak at their convention being held this week in Vancouver. The vote was 174 in favour, 216 opposed. Ironically, the title of this year's conference is Climates of Change: Gauging Temperatures and Forecasting Opportunities — Local Government in a Climate of Change.
It’s rather sad to say that a majority of the elected municipal representatives at the meeting this morning failed both to forecast a good opportunity and to embrace change.
The motion to include the Greens was put forward by Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan. It simply asked the UBCM members to give the BC Green Party leader 5 minutes to speak to them during their meeting, a reasonable resolution given the theme of the conference.
There were passionate and articulate speakers in favour, including the mayor of Whistler, Ken Melamud, and the mayor of West Vancouver, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones. They reminded people of the importance of including new voices and the BC Green Party's strong performance in elections and record on issues like climate change.
Those who spoke against hung their argument on a rule that the UBCM only recognizes parties with elected MLAs and official standing in the legislature. Funny how the UBCM relaxed that rule several years ago when members voted to let the NDP's Joy MacPhail speak when the NDP only had two seats in the BC legislature and had no official party standing. I thought it was a good decision given the highly undemocratic election results (the NDP may have won only 2 seats but they got 22% of the vote. At the time, I publicly voiced my support for the two NDP members in the Legislature being given Official Opposition status, which the BC Liberals denied them.)
The defeat of today’s motion, however, was a setback for democracy. But I'm hopeful. Why? Because the vote was fairly close, because the Green Party never gives up and because one young woman councillor alerted me afterwards to the fact that most of the people who voted against the Greens were old and male!
After the vote, CBC TV reporter Philippe Murat asked me about the campaign to get our Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May included in the federal leaders' debates.
“Was it difficult,” he asked, “for you to get on the televised debates when you were BC's Green Party Leader?”
“No,” I replied, “it actually wasn't a struggle. I presented the BC Green Party's election platform to a full media scrum on the steps of the BC Legislature a few days before the election call. The media posed hard questions on every topic, but we had platform positions and answers to every one of them. Later on the same day as our platform release, I got a call from Keith Baldry, BCTV (now Global) Legislature Bureau Chief, informing me that I would be in the debates.”
It seems to me that the media decision-makers can easily decide to let Elizabeth in the debates, too. Elizabeth is a fabulous debater: quick, witty, engaging, knowledgeable on every issue and bilingual. Our party has a practical platform that covers every issue. More than three-quarters of Canadians are saying they want the Green Party in the debates. We continue to climb in the opinion polls. Just last week, in fact, a Decima poll put the Green Party of Canada at an all-time high: 14% support across Canada and 19% support in BC.
If the media decides in some secret meeting to exclude Elizabeth, there is something drastically wrong with our democracy. If some of the other major parties are against the Green Party being included, I leave it to the public to judge their openness to challenge and change. The media should shoulder their obligation to provide full and balanced reporting of the issues to the Canadian voters. To do that they have to include the Green Party, which now has more supporters nationwide than the Bloc Quebecois. Just because Green Party support is spread across the whole country is no reason to exclude us!
Everyone who has not yet let the media know that you want to see Elizabeth included in the national leaders’ debates should sign the on-line petition at http://letelizabethspeak.ca
For more on Adriane Carr and her campaign, visit http://votecarr.ca