36 Replies to “Green-Lib Merger?”

  1. Ha. I left the Liberals because there was no indication that they could deal with their corruption, or take environmental concerns to heart. The “merger” would be no more than a coalition, with each party remaining intact, but cooperating on issues where both parties see eye to eye.
    May and Dion’s cooperation pact was a brilliant move. It has the NDP buzzing about it ever since, and apparently the buzz is extending into the Conservative fold too.

  2. I think Dion’s a dead duck. He’s only leader because neither Bob Rae nor Michael Ignatieff could carry the convention and he was a well liked guy who could come up the middle, rather like Joe Clark did in 1976. But nice, likable guys do not necessarily make great leaders, and they don’t command the respect they’ll need when things go wrong. For the Liberals, I think it comes down to this: can Dion be quietly persuaded to leave, or does there have to be an ugly fight over it?

  3. I think Dion’s a dead duck. He’s only leader because neither Bob Rae nor Michael Ignatieff could carry the convention and he was a well liked guy who could come up the middle, rather like Joe Clark did in 1976. But nice, likable guys do not necessarily make great leaders, and they don’t command the respect they’ll need when things go wrong. For the Liberals, I think it comes down to this: can Dion be quietly persuaded to leave, or does there have to be an ugly fight over it?

  4. Would the committed greens all vote Liberal? Would all the Liberals vote Green in the places were there are set asides?
    If this is what is planned I dont think Dion will survive to do it, unless he does it without wide permission. The Blue grits will leave, or at worst sit on their hands the next election.
    Should the conservatives fear it….nope they should just let it happen, neither helping nor stopping. They get to watch as the Liberals fall apart….the NDP turns its guns on the Green/Lib coalition. There are some smart politicos in the NDP, they will not take this lying down.
    Greens, well….they may end up the winners in all of this, they come across as players, helping their brand, they infect a larger org and may become the more natural heir of the Liberal party as it disintegrates.
    May is a former PC so she will seek to recreate that party…not like Mulroney but more like DIefenbaker. This would be Orchards pre disposition as well.
    I think we are down to about 80 days of DIon left. As long as there isnt an election. DIon has all the incentive in the world to force an election, and it will be on the environment. Whether the election stays on that issue is another matter all together.

  6. I agree it looks like its in Dion’s interest to force an election and hope for the best with these Hail Mary’s.
    But Duceppe knows his party will be bled dry. I suspect he has a few of his MP’s shy of their lifetime pension who are telling him to avoid an election at all costs.
    Harper has an effective majority right now. The only way there will be an election is if Harper wants one.

  8. In that article by Taber, you have one anonymous Dion insider who is proud to have cemented Dion as a one-trick pony on the environment. He thinks this deal with May is brilliant.
    As I stated on my own blog, it’s funny how Harper’s people told Craig Oliver that 100% there will be no election only after Dion made his deal with May.
    Both Dion and May are stuck with the environment issue. If Harper gets something meaningful done on the file, and avoids an election, where does that leave Team Red Green?
    Taber’s article says a lot about the absolute chaos in Team Dion’s leadership circle.
    They have all kinds of titles for people. No one knows who’s doing what. Dion isn’t consulting anybody in caucus.
    I suspect that Harper has cooled off on election talk because he sees the Dion Liberals and knows that things can only get worse for that gang, not better.
    IF they’re seriously talking about merger, then that assessment would be bang on. Harper would be laughing all the way to an easy majority.

  9. Toronto Red Star has bashed MayDion; called Goodale a coward, etc.
    The Red Star has endorsed Conservative Flaherty, thereby endorsing PM Harper and the Conservatives.
    The Star is (was?) the Fortress of left-liberal socialism in the MSM. When this newspaper’s editorial board decides to throttle the Liberals, bash MayDion and Goodale, the game is over for MayDion.
    Say goodnight to MayDion.
    …-
    EDITORIAL
    TheStar.com – opinion – Dion wrong on trusts
    […]
    Former Liberal finance minister Ralph Goodale reached the same conclusion in 2005 as the shift to income trusts was accelerating. But on the eve of the election, he backed away from acting.
    What Dion should do is rethink his stand on this issue, and make the tough choice that Flaherty did and that Goodale was afraid to make.
    Defending tax unfairness will not win him the next election. …-
    http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/205638

  10. MayDion is Martin Dithers: Stuck on FirstStupid.
    It’s Team MayDion: Who’s on first?
    Jane Taber and the Glob asks the same question as Abbott and Costello: Who’s on first?
    Who?
    Costello: When you pay off the first baseman every month, who gets the money? … Costello: All I’m trying to find out is the fellow’s name on first base.
    …-
    MPs complain of a lack of consultation in wake of controversial deal with Elizabeth May.
    As Mr. Dion continues to struggle in the public opinion polls, there are also concerns that his closest advisers are all members of the Paul Martin team that reduced the Liberal Party to minority status in 2004 and then lost everything in 2006. …-
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070423.wxliberals23/BNStory/National/home
    It’s AdScam Dithers’ Team: Marrisen, Scott Reid, etc. Pass the beer and popcorn.

  11. Dion is not a ‘nice guy’; he’s egoistic, vindictive and controlling.
    Don’t forget that his first statements on becoming leader were to bad-mouth Harper with comments such as ‘control-freak’, ‘far-right’, mean-spirited’.
    He’s also, frankly, stupid. Yes, he’s an academic but that doesn’t mean he’s not stupid. He can talk, Academic Talk, which is amorphous, general, utopian and ungrounded. Academic Talk, which never moves outside of the safety of the seminar room, is never ‘put to the test’ of hard daily reality, of real financial costs, of a requirement for specific results. Dion is unable to move outside of the utopian vagueness of this type of perspective.
    He’s controlling and non-collaborative; that’s the Professor, who sees all his MPs as his students, and himself as, – as he reminds us all – as The Leader or Professor.
    His agenda? Winning Power. He is not interested in Canada. Indeed, he knows nothing about Canada. He is a francophone – and in particular, one who is isolated within the closure of Quebec and Quebec’s ties with the francophone world (France).
    His agenda? Winning Power. So, his strategies and his Motions in the House have one agenda only. Winning power. His insistence that the House pass the Kyoto bill, despite the FACT that fulfilling Kyoto in a few years would economically destroy the country – was to garner votes. Not to fulfill Kyoto. IF, IF he won, he’d quickly drop Kyoto and blame that act on the CPC.
    His alliance with May? More vote-buying tactics. He’s not interested in the environment; he knows nothing about the environment. He’s interested in votes. That means that he’s trying to get voters from the NDP. The NDP has always made the environment ‘theirs’; the Liberals, after all, did nothing for 13 years except oversee a rise in CO2 emissions and have never done anything about pollution. The Conservatives just put through a Clean Up the Great Lakes act; not the Liberals.
    But Dion is after the NDP voters; that’s why he’s aligning with May.
    May, on her side, is using Dion to move herself into prominence; she’ll eat him alive; she’d like to move into the NDP and Liberal territory and quite probably, sees a merger with herself as Queen Bee.
    Dion will try to get May into the leader’s debates during an election; that will be to cover his lack of English. May will use Dion to get her on those debates – so that she can promote herself, and destroy Dion. Fun.
    The only party interested in Canada and Canadians, – is the Conservative party.

  12. Dion this morning considering electoral reform with May, representation by vote percentage rather than seats.
    there is nothing that a Liberal wont stoop to. now making deals outside the constitution.

  13. It is now very easy to tell which media “pundits” are truly partisan Lieberal hacks. They are the ones who are calling for May to be included in the leadership debates. Unfortunately, May brings nothing new to the debate. She has openly supported Dion for his record – even though he did nothing as environment minister. And when asked what we need to do, her only answer is that we need to meet our Kyoto commitments.(but let’s not muddy the waters with how)
    But if Miss Piggy isn’t allowed into the debates, then who is going to translate for Kermit?

  14. In another Globe and Mail article, Dion says that he’s not like Harper because he has integrity and has always “told the truth” during his years in politics.
    To me, this is just another example of why Dion has no clue.
    a) He’s over-promising in order to get elected. He’s a politician, not a priest.
    b) By unveiling attack ads, and suggesting he’ll do so in an election campaign, he’s already broken a promise not to go negative.
    So, he’s clueless and phony. Pass the beer and popcorn. lol

  15. Not quite on topic but following up on ET’s earlier comment; I find it odd that Dion’s parents did not see any value in ensuring that their child was more fluent in English. The father is a Quebec intellectual and obviously an educated man. The parents did make sure that their child benefited from dual citizenship with France yet do not seem to have exposed him to much English. He sounds as though he has come to English late into his adult years.

  16. Dion has integrity? Is that what he calls bad-mouthing the PM and calling him ‘a control-freak’, a ‘far-right’, etc? Name-calling is not a sign of integrity but of childishness.
    Integrity to say that one is deeply committed to the environment – and yet, accept Kyotoism? Kyotoism won’t do anything for the environment; it’s a money transference scheme, whereby industrial nations purchase the ‘right to emit’ and give those ‘fines’ to 3rd world countries, who will build cheap polluting factories.
    Integrity to insist that the 1990 Kyoto limits be met within five years, when under the Liberals and Dion, the 1990 amounts increased by 24%?
    Dion has only one agenda – winning power. That’s why he’s teaming up with May – and she’s just as exploitative as Dion, if not more so. As I said, she’ll eat him alive.
    As for Dion’s inability to speak English, he is part of the old francophone community in Quebec, which sees Quebec as a nation aligned and affiliated with all the other francophone nations in the world. The ROC, the ‘English’ are simply not part of this francophone world. There is no need to interact with or communicate with the ROC. It is viewed by many Quebec academics and intellectuals as uncultured, uncivilized and primarily focused on greed and money.
    The fact that Quebec is ‘trapped’ within this ROC, is viewed as deeply unfortunate. The hard-core separatistes consider that this entrapment is due to the ROC’s theft of Quebec’s money. Some, however, realize that Quebec has moved itself, economically, all by itself, into a socialist welfare lifestyle that it cannot, on its own, sustain. This view is becoming, finally, more prevalent, and Quebec is reconsidering its welfare ideology – thus – Dumont.
    But Dion is part of the old phase that saw Quebec as aligned with the international francophone world – not with ‘Canada’. And, at that time, children weren’t allowed to start English in Quebec until around 12 years; it’s too late then.
    Harper started French late too, but, there’s no comparison in his ability to speak. He speaks with a typical English accent but, he is grammatical, with a comprehensive vocabulary and clear communication.

  17. Welcome to the first ever:
    Nice Party!
    The merger of the Red-Green MayDion Show is now completed.
    It’s the Nice Party.
    Red + Green = Yellow.
    The Nice Party’s colour is Yellow.
    NatPost has the announcement up on its front page.
    It’s slogan: Have a Nice Day.
    It’s true, nuanced, sophisticated, balanced, and proportionate. It’s a winner.
    More about the Nice Party’s platfowm here:
    Be kind, make a killing
    Being nice, a mundane virtue now bordering on platitude, is being remade as a worthy and even profitable…-
    http://media.canada.com/597ad362-5cf6-4bb7-8991-4f0cecb023b8/0423_NiceParty_75.jpg?size=l

  18. I think I see Harper’s advantage in letting Parliament run for a while.
    If it becomes more and more obvious that Dion is marching to the beat of May’s drum the liberals will make no secret that their greatest fear is the end of their party or the take over by an outside party (the greens). At some point when this reaches a critical mass, it forces individuals to act out in defiance, much like the Bloc did many years ago.
    When that moment arrives Harper will table his confidence motion.
    Somebody said 80 days, that should take us into the fall right on the heels of a Ontario provincial election.

  19. Bourque may be on to something here. Dion is trying to build his own team without the old guard that tried desperately to get the Iggy-Rae team installed. Lizzie May is part of his team now, as is the radioactive Gartho. A merger? Maybe. But I’m certain Dion and his new inner circle are as self-deluded and out-of-touch as Bourque imagines them to be.

  20. Apparently, the Conservatives are going to abandon their Clean Air Act – the Act that was drastically overhauled and rewritten by the Liberals, NDP and Bloc; it has essentially become a Lib-NDP-Green-Bloc document and has little to do with the original Conservative Clean Air Act.
    There is a deep difference between governing with integrity and promoting realistic programs – and governing with utopian idealism and political rhetoric. This is the difference between the Conservatives and the Liberal-NDP.
    The first mode acknowledges what is possible – possible within the economy and its adaptive capacities, possible within the society and its adaptive capacities. The second makes no such acknowledgment and instead, lives in the realm purely of ideals and clouds.
    To put the former into operation, takes careful planning, long term financial allocations, incremental regulations and commitment. But it acknowledges the reality of what we can and are willing to do as a society.
    We cannot, yet, give up our automobiles, our industries fueled by oil and gas, our transportation systems fueld by oil, our requirement for heat, air conditioning, etc. We do not have the technology to do so- and enable us to continue to live in a reasonable lifestyle.
    We cannot reduce our population’s economic sustenance and throw thousands our of work – we can’t afford to sustain a nation of unemployed.
    The latter ignores reality and insists that ‘anything can be done’ if the government wills it to be done. This requires authoritarian regulations – and an intrusive governance into our industries, our way of life. This is the mode of Dion and the Liberals. Dion is talking about a ‘carbon tax’, about penalties on industries – costs that will be directly passed on to the consumer.
    Dion and May are insisting on the Kyoto accord – ignoring that it is a money transference scheme. And ignoring that to implement it would move Canada into a deep recession. And – ignoring that it cannot, operationally, be done in the time span left after 13 years of inaction by Dion and the Liberals.
    Dion seems to be moving more and more into the realm of the Cloud Dwellers, more and more into a realm occupied primarily by rhetoric and threats. Rhetoric of purity and the future, threats of what he will do if we don’t obey. That’s a disturbing scenario.
    Dion seems to becoming more of a cult leader than a genuine leader of a political party. In fact, I’m suggesting that he’s abandoning the party. That’s right – he’s abandoning the Liberal party. He’s aligned himself with an evangelistic and cynical group, the Greens and May in particular, to gain power.
    He’s behaving in reprehensible ways, with his rejection of due process in Central Nova, his notion of changing the voting tactics (he’s being used by May; she’s the one who wants PR to increase her power in the House).
    His ads, for example, about him ‘gathering the world leaders together for the UN climate conference’ were a fraud. Dion didn’t gather them or initiate the conference; it was a regularly scheduled UN conference, hosted by Paul Martin as PM – and with Dion as Env’t Minister, he was the Chair. Nothing to do with Dion’s intentions. And it failed – the US refused to become involved in Kyoto.
    Dion is moving further away from the political realm and most certainly away from integrity and into the emotional fanaticism of the cultist.

  21. It also seems apparent to me that Dion now absolutely needs an election on the environment, and preferably sooner rather than later. He has gone for broke as a one-trick pony on this file.
    Apparently, the Tories are threatening to simply pass regulations without new legislation or the Clean Air Act.
    I have to think that Dion will not let that pass. He will force a vote on Kyoto implementation before moving on to other things.
    Therefore, as I see it, the only way we avoid an election on the environment is if either the Bloc or the NDP vote with the government on some kind of compromise.
    Given that, as I showed on my blog with video evidence, Baird is bad mouthing everyone but the NDP, look for a deal with them at some point in this saga.
    Yes, there will be huffing and puffing until then. However, it’s the only way Layton differentiates himself on the environment, and it’s also the only way I see there being no election on this issue.
    I really don’t see merger factoring in this at all. It’s probably more talk over drinks than substantive planning. But with Team Dion, I guess you never really know, do you?

  22. I wonder when taliban jack will launch the attack on the liberals. seems the far reds, the infrareds old NDP are the greens. he has lost his left wing to the libs and they are giving him the squeeze play.

  23. cal2, it’s why I think Layton absolutely needs to “get something done” on the environment. That’s where I think he will launch his attack, and put the squeeze play on Dion and May. Take the issue off the table, avoid an election, and leave them twisting in the wind.

  24. dennis- second thoughts, do you really think that Dion wants an election now? Surely he must realize he wouldn’t do very well. I think the real question, is whether May wants an election. I’m beginning to think that Dion is heavily influenced by May.
    She might very well want an election, because she wants to move into the House, even if it’s only herself, to promote more of her agenda. That’s Kyotoism, that’s PR voting, and even, a collaborative type of governance that goes into an election having pre-announced who they will work with – As A Government. That is, that May and Dion will go into an election, stating that they will work together, as a government.
    It has been pointed out, by Ted (Cerberus), a Liberal, with whom I often disagree because of that – but, he’s pointed out on his blog (cited at National Newswatch) that the Liberal Constitution requires each EDA to hold a candidate selection meeting for a forthcoming election. Dion’s actions in Central Nova have already violated that constitution because he has overridden the EDA’s due process by his order that they must not put forward a Liberal candidate in Central Nova.
    There’s nobody more vulnerable to the platitudes and rhetorical connivance of a scam artist (Elizabeth May) than a reclusive nerd – aka Dion.
    So, the question is, does May want an election now?
    Notice how Chantal Hebert (who’s she working for?) in the Toronto Star has today declared that May ought to be in on the leadership TV debates. Heck – there are about 25 national parties in Canada. Why not have the communist party leader, the Marxist-Leninist Party leader, the animal alliance environment voters, the whatever..

  25. “Unfortunately, May brings nothing new to the debate.”
    You’ve never looked at the Green Plan Squared (Green Party platform then, have you?) So long as the requirement to exclude parties from the debate rests on them having “nothing new”, I guess only the Green Party and some other new parties will be on the televised leaders debate this time?
    Check out demanddemocraticdebates.ca for some facts about why the Green Party is being excluded improperly, and possibly illegally.

  26. How many lefties do you want on stage at once, against one centrist (Harper)? It’s already a clown’s show of socialist demagoguery as it is. Keep Green out – the Dippers, Separatists, and Glibs can handle any of May’s issues just fine.

  27. saskboy – I checked out the site; I didn’t find any convincing arguments about why the Green Party should be in the leadership debates.
    I have long argued against the Bloc presence in the debates.
    I’m also against Proportional Representation; in a large population and with our vast geographic nature, it would reduce our ability to govern coherently and end up setting up a parliament akin to the UN – made up of backroom deals rather than electoral responsibility. May seems to operate heavily via the backroom deal mode – and that’s irresponsible.
    I also dislike manipulation and fraud; the Green Party site says that 77% of Canadians say that May should be in the debates. When was this referendum held? Without the data base, which would include the specific questions and the polling method, the conclusion is invalid – and you cannot extrapolate to claim that 77% of Canadians want May in the debates.
    Why not ask the leaders of the other 15 odd registered national parties as well?
    In my view, May has nothing to add, old or new; her policies are old hat socialism and in addition, she is a top-down authoritarian type, and a backroom dealer – and most definately, not a democratic individual.

  28. ET we should be asking the other registered party leaders to join in the televised debates, yes. This is part of the reason CBC exists, to behave as the public broadcaster, so broadcasting the leaders of our country debating issues of concern to Canadians is precisely what they ought to be doing. They shouldn’t be involved in backroom deals with unelected TV producers deciding who gets free political TV advertisements in prime time, and who doesn’t.
    ==
    NCF, 1993 showed that 5 on stage at a time is workable. In fact Manning was allowed without even having a seat. The more debates, and the more debaters, the better informed Canadians will be, and it’s hard to argue against that logic (unless you’re for keeping Canadians in the dark about your party’s policies, and leader’s ability in a debate).
    It’s a farce to allow separatists in the debate but not a leader of a national party who could mathematically form government.
    http://section15.blogspot.com/2007/04/chantal-hebert-calls-for-greens-to-be.html

  29. ET, I’ll assume you just don’t have Acrobat, and not that you’re incapable of reading links that cite sources.
    “Media Release
    For Immediate Release
    January 22, 2007
    Canadians want Green Party leader in debates, poll shows
    OTTAWA – More than three-quarters of Canadians (77.2%) want to see Green Party leader Elizabeth May in the televised leaders’ debates during the next federal election campaign, according to a new poll released today.
    The survey asked 1,500 Canadians how they would vote if it was their decision whether to include the Green Party leader. The results: 27.3% were strongly in favour, 49.9% in favour, 13.2% neither in favour nor against, 6.4% against and 3.2% strongly against.”
    Not surprisingly, you’re in the vast minority of people.

  30. saskboy – I saw the quote you provide. It is inadequate as a data base.
    I repeat, you cannot extrapolate a poll like that to claim that it is valid for all Canadians. Your quote doesn’t include the questions asked in the survey – and that would have to be the whole survey. As well, it doesn’t include how the respondents were chosen. Without that important data, the conclusions are not reliable. Providing this data to the reader was, in my methods and critical thinking classes, always a basic requirement. Furthermore, the topic is too narrow to be representative of the whole population of Canada.
    There are approximately 15 registered parties, everything from the Animal Alliance Environment Voters of Canada, to the Communist, the Marxist Leninist, etc. I maintain my opposition to the Bloc.
    There is no valid reason for Ms May to participate in the leader’s debate – unless ALL 15 parties are included, and that then becomes ridiculous. It has nothing to do with the CBC and your comment is a red herring.
    No, Ms May could not ‘mathematically form a government’. Answering one question in a dubious questionnaire, that she be allowed to debate, does not mean that the electorate would vote the Green party into governance.
    I read Ms Hebert’s column; I think it’s unsound.
    And again, I don’t see any reason why Ms May should be in the debates – just as I see no reason why the Bloc should be there. The debates should be between leaders of parties that have the capacity to form the legitimate gov’t – and a single issue utopian agenda doesn’t have such legitimacy.

  31. The only parties that should be allowed to have seats are those with sitting MPs. Unless Ms. May can win a byelection somewhere before the election, the Greens should not be in the debates.
    The Bloc should be permitted in the debates because they meet this principle even though they are not a national party.

  32. I am not convinced that the environment looms as large in people’s minds as the press and some pundits think it does. A couple of weeks ago my husband and I (both of whom follow politics very closely) asked each other what we thought the number one political issue was — and there was this odd silence(although environment would have been an easy answer). What we realized was that there is nothing really prominent at the moment . . . we both think Harper is doing o.k. The real point is, if someone had phoned with a poll we each might have said “the environment” — but only because it’s an easy one to think of since it has been in the news almost constantly. I think that a certain amount of Kyoto rhetoric comes from people who just don’t like having the Conservatives in power — hard core Liberals, or radical left for the most part. The issue might be the cost of Kyoto (and there I think Harper has the upper hand) but most likely an election will boil down to leadership and Harper now has a solid track record and I think Dion has some serious weaknesses.

  33. They got the kids into beilving all this SAVE THE RAINFOREST BULL KAKA or this GLOBAL WARMING LIE its been written in their text books i mean it started with green commie propeganda like CAPTIAN PLANET and gose on RED TED TURNER is a soclialists scum

  34. ET, whose fault is it that you can’t do math? It’s not impossible for the Green Party to form government until the deciding ballots are counted on election night, and they end up with fewer seats than the other parties contending for power. It’s a pretty simple concept in democracy.
    In one breath you’re condemning a poll as being inherently unrepresentative of public opinion, and the next you want to use opinion polls to guide unelected broadcasters in deciding which parties they will favour for 4+ hours of free televised advertising for their party. You’re outrageous!

  35. Can you believe it, the cbc, from Calgary, just had a report on gores visit to Canada. Then they did a report on the other video out there, re The Swindle, and had a clip of Tim Bell. Seems Micheal Cherkof (sp) is using his own money to distribute the Swindle to all cdn schools. Seems gores visit to calgary was not without protest.
    The cbc did mention that gore avoids the media.
    Is the worm turning, have goresuzuki gone too far. DS’s rants are not helping the cause. As I asked my granddaughter when she saw the movie AIT, when did it come out, how long did it take to make it. So, all the info in the movie is at least 5 years old, and much of it has been debunked since then. Also, things have been done to improve things since it come out. Gore is using this as a ticket to the white house in 2008. God help us if he and dion both win. Find your cave and move in. With dion bringing the taliban prisoners to canada, there should be some empty caves in afgan.

  36. I just have to laugh at all of the wonks who cite Tim Ball as an expert, and simultaneously complain about Gore, Suzuki, Dion, and the CBC. If I didn’t laugh, I guess I’d have to let out the disappointment in our education system another way.

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