Capital Read, Inside the Queensway - Written by Kady O'Malley on Thursday, September 4, 2008 22:11 - 31 Comments
Highway Bill Casey: Long may he reign o’er us
The ‘us’ of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley, at least, as far as the Greens are concerned.
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From National Newswatch:
“Bill Casey is a hero. He stood up for Nova Scotia and he stood up for
Canadians,” said Ms. May at a campaign rally in her riding on Thursday night
with Blair Wilson, Canada’s first Green MP.Green Party leader Elizabeth May announced that her party
considers Independent Member of Parliament Bill Casey “an honourary Green”.The Green Party of Canada and its Electoral District Association in
Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley will not be opposing the
re-election of Mr Casey. The nominated candidate for the Green Party in
Casey’s riding, Darryl Whetter, has decided to step aside and is now the
Green candidate in Halifax.Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, and candidate in the adjoining
Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova, praised Bill Casey’s political track
record.
Obligatory full disclosure: I’m a big fan of Bill Casey, who has been consistently and utterly tireless, not to mention tirelessly enthusiastic, in serving his constitutents, as a Progressive Conservative, Conservative and Independent, and as opposition MP, government backbencher and unexpectedly opposition MP once again. I can’t imagine looking down from the Commons gallery and not seeing his Cheshire cat grin.
31 Responses to “Highway Bill Casey: Long may he reign o’er us”
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Kady, since you are into full disclosure, care to tell us your opinion of Blair Wilson, “Canada’s first Green MP”.
You know, in the environmental movement, what Elizabeth May is doing is the equivalent of “greenwashing”. She is using the good name of Bill Casey to try to remove the stench (to some of us) of her opportunistic embrace of Wilson.
I’m surprised you overlooked the obvious.
By opportunism do you mean trying to advance green ideals in Parliament?
Also Kady, as you may not have noticed, the GPC press release on Bill Casey is shown chronologically on their site after another press release also released today.
This story was picked up earlier today by the G&M date stamped 7:02 PM
Green party drops B.C. candidate over allegedly anti-Semitic blog post
The timing looks awfully fishy to me. But I’m no reporter.
Wilson must be bad if even the Liberals won’t take him back.
Who is running against him?
John Weston - Conservative: has pictures of his family on his website. Must be a deviant.
Other folks are here, but this is old
http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/riding/305/
By opportunism do you mean trying to advance green ideals in Parliament?
No, opportunism for Elizabeth May to promote herself, using Wilson as a prop.
Wilson will never enter parliament as a Green Party member “to advance green ideals”. His swan song, nothing more.
Bill Casey is a lock. An old friend of mine is being nominated for one of the other parties in his riding. That friend is about to get much older.
Dot - that is what I meant. She is using Wilson as a prop to promote the GREEN PARTY, not to promote herself. So she accepts him and as a result gets on the debates and gets another 50 000 votes - isn’t that worth it? (in the subsidy alone, let alone the chance at a seat in the BC Kootenays or Gulf Islands)
Chris maybe if she has no ethical boundaries. Are you a GP adviser?
So a pure crass political calculation, is that what you are saying?
Honestly, as far as I can recall, I have absolutely no recollection of interacting with Blair Wilson at all, so I really can’t give you any kind of impression of him. I’m sorry. I can absolutely understand why some Green and/or non-Green voters might be ticked by the way the party handled his — conversion, but as far as my own personal experience goes, I’ve got nothing on Blair Wilson - either positive or negative.
I did, however, notice the de-frocking (mantling?) of the other Green candidate; I’m not quite so cynical as to think the Casey announcement was made solely to bump that statement out of the news, although I guess anything is possible. Honestly, at this point, I tend to give every party one freebie, as far as unfortunate nomination retractions, provided they act fairly swiftly when unforgiveable past indiscretions are revealed.
Ok, well, good to know their freebie has officially now been used up.
The Greens decide not to run against Casey, and Kady sees it as an, aw shucks, isn’t that nice, scenario..forgetting (ignoring?) that it further weakens their case to be included in the debates as a serious national party.
Hello?
Looking forward to the free pass you give to the CPC…ha, as-if!
Bill Casey’s riding is pure hard-rock conservative.I mean conservative in the old PC sense,not the ya-ya bitterboys that dominate these blogs. There has been the occasional Liberal
elected in a provincial riding within the federal riding but only when the provincial Tories have done something particularly egregious and the Liberal was a suitably conservative one.Casey as a PC was not invincible but as a Harper victim he is a lock.
Hi Sisyphus,
Should your statement “Casey as a PC was not invincible but as a Harper victim he is a lock.” be interpreted to mean that the area locals are less then enthralled with Mr Harper generally or just Mr Harper’s handling of the situation of the Bill Casey, or something else entirely?
I’ve never understood why the grren party should be avoiding a political advantage ’cause it looks calculated. With so much at stake calculated political moves seem easily justified. The idea that a party with no seats should hesitate to grab one seems needlessly idealistic. Every vote counts for money. More money more power more results. Politics is ultimatly about getting results. The truism that power corrupts is no excuse for avoiding the risk.
Darren - Have you seen the vetting process that prospective Conservative candidates have to go through before even being allowed to run for a nomination? I’m doubting they’ll need it.
As for the contention that this weakens the Greens’ position as far as being included in the leaders’ debates, I’m not sure if it helps *or* hurts, really. The strongest argument against allowing May to take part seems to be that she isn’t *really* running for the PM’s job, although if you extend that logic, Gilles Duceppe would be out as well. I’m not sure if it should come down to whether or not the party chooses to field a candidate in one riding — or, in the case of the Greens, two ridings, I guess.
… and what is wrong with crass political maneuvering anyways? If the motive is to further Green Party goals and it requires a bit of playing within the system, go for it.
And, yeah, like Kady said, if you have to run 308 (312 now?) candidates, then obviously the BQ wouldn’t be there, and neither would Reform have been, back in the day.
Ok, Chris B. Let’s agree for argument’s sake that it was indeed a crass political maneuver for the reasons you have outlined.
Let me give you an alternate hypothetical scenario. See if you think it is any less acceptable to you.
The consortium, it is rumoured is deadlocked at three votes for inclusion of the Greens in the debate, three votes against. A neighbour of one of the principals against inclusion knows that this married individual has a certain fondness for younger women. This is communicated back to the party’s HQ.
A young co-ed, strongly idealistic on green principles, hears of his pecadillos, and decides to “take one for the party” , and in doing so, swing his vote to the side that has voted for inclusion of the Green Party in the national debates.
How do you feel about this scenario, and how is it any different than the Wilson affair?
The short-term benefits of the GP associating themselves with someone like Wilson might not be worth it, but I guess they’ve made their bed.
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=7f221cb3-cc92-445c-9b93-9bd333569087
Here are the results from 2006:
Blair Wilson Liberal 37.5%
John Weston Conservative 36.0%
Judith Wilson NDP 20.1%
Silvaine Zimmermann Green 6.2%
Anne Jamieson Marxist-Leninist 0.2%
I think it’s unlikely he’ll keep his seat given the negative stories about this guy, but it’s possible that people will vote along party lines.
First, I hope Bill Casey is a “lock”. He has a heck of a lot more backbone (read scruples) than Keddy or MacKay.
Second, Coyne, Hebert and Greigg (sp?) were on the panel with Peter Mansbridge last evening and all seemed to thing that E. May should be on the “leaders’ debate”.
I agree with you Mike Horn. She is doing what any emerging political leader should do; everything possible to maximise herself/himself and the party on the national level. Do the means justify the gains? If she is in the leaders debate, maybe. If they elect an MP, probably…
I don’t care much for May or the Greens, but am hoping they get into the debates and elect at least one MP.
Hundreds-of-thousands of people vote for the party and they have no voice. Another reason why I support election reform…
Dije,
In other words, politics as usual?
Unfortunately true, Dot.
It’s the same thing most businesses, other levels of politics, countries, NGOs, activists, etc., all do.
I’d call it more society as usual. Politics just takes a higher refinement for shaping, eating and force-feeding the BS. Everyone has their own agenda to push and unfortauntely it usually isn’t in a selfless-to-help-others fashion.
And some say i’m cynical.
So, if the Green Party were to run on platform of reform - where “they would do things differently than the mainstream parties”, and the leader made claims that they she “was not a politician”, this would, in your view, be hypocritical or even dishonest, based solely on this example?
Well one way to look at it would be the last party to run on ‘we will do things differently’ has done everything essentially the same, so I would be cynical.
If May were to express she “was not a politician,” examples like this, Christian Crusaders and other unfortunate comments from her would also leave me reflecting cynically.
I try and not base my opinion on people/parties based on one example (depending on the example, of course). If I were a Green supporter, this wouldn’t shake my support and I would actually think it a good idea to take advantage of this opportunity.
What would you answer to your question?
Neither would I base my opinions on one example - there would have to be a number of similar circumstances, viewed objectively, for one to reach such a conclusion.
This is but one of many examples, for me. I used up my “feebies” a long, long time ago, it seems.
So Dot what’s your point? That the Green Party is a *gasp* POLITICAL party?
There’s already an extra-parliamentary movement working from the outside, staying in front of issues, popular or otherwise, mostly staying out of party politics (lots of greens aren’t Greens).
It isn’t a one size fits all movement, some activists are pursuing change through civil disobedience, others through social marketing, or diplomacy or academic reasoning, through green businesses or through adminstrative and legal processes. And, yes, some are pursuing their goals electorally.
I just don’t understand why it’s a surprise to anyone when they behave like a political party.
So Dot what’s your point?
If they act no differently than other mainstream political parties, and their main policy has been adopted by one of said mainstream parties, then they offer nothing different to voters, and should cease to exist.
I agree - change can be brought about also through external pressures - The GPC has become, in my view, simply the Sierra Club of Canada Party - the only difference being the manner of funding. Same policies, same personnel, same types of internal politics, same rhetoric…It’s an NGO masquerading as a GO.
Dot, there’s adopting and there’s adoption. Tommy Douglas didn’t resign or become a Liberal once there was Medicare, and there seems to have been some residual need to defend that policy vigourously.
A Liberal Government signed Kyoto Accord but didn’t do what was needed to meet the commitment. They talked about it incessantly in government and now they are talking about it in opposition. Not exactly case closed on the climate change file.
The Liberal Party agreed with the Conservatives on Afghanistan, and either voted with them or abstained on every important vote in the last year. Shouldn’t it, by your standard, also cease to exist?
Good question. Should a party fold simply because its leader is narcissistic, and has and continues to regularly compromise principles that appeared to be core to the party (up to this time).
In other words, can you win the battle, but lose the war? Will your distinct brand, built on principles that made you relatively successful up to this point, be permanently damaged by dropping those core principles at the first opportunity?
I’d argue, yes, in this specific case.
Within the context of my hypothetical example given earlier to Chris B, George Bernard Shaw’s words come to mind: “We’ve already established what you are, ma’am. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”
I was wondering how long it would take before she uttered this whopper. Was it a full hour?
OTTAWA — Green party leader Elizabeth May is urging Canadians dissatisfied with politics to vote for her party in the coming election.
“We are the voice not of a political party solely but of a movement that wants change,” May told supporters Sunday as she launched the party’s campaign. “And we’ll be that voice without making those rather petty calculations of, `If we say this today, it might hurt us tomorrow’.”
“We will always tell the truth and we will never allow power to overcome principle,” she said.
She forgot to add “Starting today! All those other times don’t count”