After being unable to woo former Conservative now Liberal MP Garth Turner to join the Green Party fold earlier this year, May said Tuesday she's a big fan of the Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley MP and his stance against his former party.
Let me just recycle something I wrote last year about Garth Turner, but with the name "Bill Casey" subbed in for Garth:
Casey's joining The Green Party would constitute a historical moment in Canadian politics. Polling at about 10%, the Greens still do not have a seat in parliament and, given the de-centralized nature of their support, will be hard pressed to win one in the next Federal election, especially since Elizabeth May will probably not have a place on stage during the leadership debates. However, if Mr. Casey joins up, his seat comes along with him, and when an election is called Elizabeth gets her crack at addressing a national audience with the other contenders.
If you doubt how much influence a single good debate performance can have, remember the B.C. Liberals of the early 1990s'. Gorden Wilson's performance in the 1991 CBC debate propelled the Libs from zero seats in the legislature to Official Opposition status. Elizabeth May has been quite impressive in her televised appearances, and giving a good account of herself in the debates could be the shot that realigns Canadian politics.
And realigns it in God knows what manner? Many Tories would apparently pick the Green Party as their second choice in an election. Surely the NDP could lose support to the Greens. And I would not be surprised if a good portion of Liberal supporters would be happy to embrace a Left-wing party not so enamored with the Working Class Hero bullshit of the New Democrats.
In short, Bill Casey has a chance to to something of historic significance. I hope he takes it.
9 comments:
"Many Tories would apparently pick the Green Party as their second choice in an election."
WTF?! Somebody just made that one up.
No, that was from a poll done last year. Can't currently find the link.
Toronto Star, August 2006, SES Research
Greens 2nd choice for Some Tories [PDF]
A full 36 per cent of Conservative voters identified Greens as their second choice this year - up from 23 per cent who said the same in 2004.
Thank you Jim.
The GPC is the second choice of many CPC voters.
I wouldn't get all excited about the prospect of Bill Casey sitting as a Green. Casey has repeated many times that if it were not for Harper's position on the Atlantic Accord he would still be sitting in the government.
Between Turner and Casey, Turner is (or would have been) the more likely of the two to move over to the GPC.
May cannot even keep "Green Tory" David Chernushenko around, how on earth is she going to court a fiscal-conservative like Bill Casey?
Just a thought, could this be a play by Ms May to get a member into the house so she can make it on to the debates in the next election. We all know she is not going to get the approval of the NDP,CPC or the Bloq to be included. I heard this was a serious factor in the courting of Mr. Turner.
I guess that's possible, given the fact that nobody really knows where the GPC stands on any issue other than the 'greenies'. I'd be curious to find out her thoughts on Middle East policy, how to deal with the Arctic sovereignty issue, gun control, enshrining property rights in the Constitution, and how to deal with the aboriginies.
"Aboriginies?"
"nobody really knows where the GPC stands on any issue other than the 'greenies'."
Anybody with an ounce of internet savvy has only to go to www.greenparty.ca to find out that the GPC has fully fleshed-out policies and platform positions on a wide variety of topics, including environmental issues, international relations, the economy, healthcare, electoral reform, trade, resource revenues, fiscal and taxation issues and much, much more.
The GPC has made its policies very public and accessible. Many Conservatives who've taken the time to learn about those policies have concluded that the GPC is fiscally more akin to toryism than to liberalism. Red tories lost their voice in the Reform takeover of the PC. Some of those red tories will hold their noses and vote for Harper; some will vote Liberal; hardly any will vote NDP; some will vote Green.
If Lizzie's able to recruit Casey, it'll be a shrewd move. Yes, even Greens can be shrewd and politically astute.
JB
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