I am incensed!
As if Canadians needed another example of why the electoral system in Canada is biased — and indeed rigged — towards maintaining the status quo of the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system where the Conservatives and Liberals take turn governing, look no further than the Leaders’ Debates Commission’s decision yesterday to rescind their most gracious (pardon my sarcasm) invitation to the Green Party of Canada to participate in the Leaders’ Debates.
Yet, the Bloc Québécois, WHO ONLY RUN CANDIDATES IN ONE PROVINCE, were allowed — and will be tonight — to participate!
This is supposedly based on these three criteria, two of which must be met:
- on the date the general election is called, the party is represented in the House of Commons by a Member of Parliament who was elected as a member of that party.
- 28 days before the date of the general election, the party receives a level of national support of at least 4%, determined by voting intention, and as measured by leading national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations’ most recently publicly-reported results.
- 28 days before the date of the general election, the party has endorsed candidates in at least 90% of federal ridings.
This is a classic case of the difference between pedantry and mastery, as espoused by George Polya, a mathematician who lived between 1887 and 1985:
Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a rule to the letter, rigidly, unquestioningly, in cases where it fits and in cases where it does not fit, is pedantry … To apply a rule with natural ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and without ever letting the words of the rule obscure the purpose of the action or the opportunities of the situation, is mastery.
The Leaders’ Debates Commission are, without question, pedants, not masters.
Let me also remind everyone that Canada is in an unprecedented war situation, with the President of the United States of America declaring a trade war on Canada, and coming within a hair’s breadth (so far) of declaring actual armed conflict.
The Green Party were ejected from both the French and English debates on the morning of the French (first) debate because they had apparently not met the second criterion above, yet there is absolutely no way that the Bloc can come anywhere close to meeting either the second or third criterion because the most candidates they can field are 78! That is 18% of federal ridings! And I, in British Columbia, cannot even vote for their party because they “intentionally” don’t run any candidates here! (The word “intentionally” was pointedly used in the Commission’s justification for barring the Green Party from the debates.)
If that isn’t hypocrisy — and pedantry — then I don’t know what is.
The Commission alleges that because the Green Party is now polling at below 4%, they no longer qualify, despite the fact that on 31 March (28 days before the election) they were indeed polling at or above 4%. Let’s also remember that the polling numbers in this election have changed wildly due to the war being waged against us. But more importantly than whether or not the Greens were polling at or above 4% on 31 March, is the fact that the Green Party of Canada is a national party competing in a national election, while the Bloc represents a very narrow slice of Canadian society, and therefore cannot ever hope to form an actual government, especially as Canadians in 82% of Canada’s ridings cannot vote for them!
It’s not too late, Leaders’ Debates Commission, to change your minds and DO THE RIGHT THING before tonight’s English debate. Show us that you are indeed not pedants, but masters of this undemocratic situation you have created.
