Hilarious… so the req is to have someone in the house (or 4% vote share nationally), and run candidates in most ridings. They’re getting cut because the elections folks think they are in violation of the latter there.
While still allowing the Bloc to participate. A party that’s never run a candidate outside of Quebec. A party where every second of time they’re givin on a national stage, only speaks to one province’s interests, in a ‘national’ debate. Who’s been in pretty well every national debate for decades now.
I certainly agree that it’s very questionably to have an explicitly regional party in the federal debates, but for clarity’s sake, the criteria are 2/3 of the following:
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having at least one sitting MP who’s been elected as a member of that party
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having at least four per cent national support in opinion polls
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running candidates in at least 90 per cent of all ridings
After pulling the candidates, the Green Party only meets one of these criteria (the first).
Those requirements are designed to allow Quebec’s provincial party a seat at the table, while impeding access for parties such as the Greens and Peoples. They’re basically an example of institutional discrimination that came in fairly recently, with a pretty explicit target/goal.
I have much less interest in sitting through a debate between 4 people, when 1/4 of the time will be dedicated to a guy talking about one province’s interests, and where that party doesn’t even run outside of that province. Guess I’ll just wait for my media bubbles to give me the highlights and hope that it’s not too biased.
I have much less interest in sitting through a debate between 4 people, when 1/4 of the time will be dedicated to a guy talking about one province’s interests, and where that party doesn’t even run outside of that province.
I know you might not interest in listening, but at the time the writ was drawn up, he had 33 seats, which was over 10% of the total. If a party can muster 10% of the seats, they almost certainly should be included in the debate!
That’s nice, but I don’t really care. They aren’t a national party, nor are they interested in being a “Canadian” national party. Giving them a platform to debate on the national level is in part why they’re able to maintain their seat count – it’s the same sort of pageantry that drives dictators to covet meetings with democratic leaders, to trick people into thinking “Oh, they’re basically the same”, when they’re very much not.
The peoples party, and the greens, even if they’re super fringe in nature, have more merit for being included in the debates in my view. I’d watch (well, listen to) those debates. I won’t bother watching the bloc get up and do its stupid bloc crap. There’s talk in the media again about western alienation / succession, and Quebec / Canada’s approach to Quebec compared to its handling of Western interests is a big part of what fuels that sort of resentment. The bloc is basically Quebec just giving the entire country a giant middle finger, which is a wonderful way to show support for the country as a whole…
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Greens. I voted for Mike Morrice twice and would have voted Aislinn Clancy if I hadn’t already moved. I would love to see the Greens on the debate stage, but they knew the rules and chose to fall out of line with them.
I’m also not sure why you think if a party isn’t national, that they don’t count. At the time the election was called, the BQ represented 10% of Canadians. Do you think those voices shouldn’t count? Do you think nationalism and patriotism should be a prereq to get into the debate? I’m really trying to figure out your argument lands because it sounds like you are against dictators, but also want to dictate specifically who can and can’t be on the debate stage which would be the actions of a …
Yawn. I think national parties should be highlighted on the national stage: I don’t think the metrics provided by the TV consortium for who gets to participate properly captures what a national party is. I think rules/requirements that specifically carve out a ‘system’ that enables one niche interest from one part of the country, to masquerade as a ‘national’ party, is disingenuous and insulting to everyone outside of that niche – especially as the ‘rules’ were clearly structured to preference/enable the blocs participation. That % threshold of the voting public is a lot easier for a separatist movement to hit in Quebec, than it is in the West due to population density – its basically tailor made for them, and provides a ‘structure’ to block other regions doing the same / getting the same preferential treatment for their ‘niche’ interest parties. At least the PPC and GPC are interested in the country as a national body, and in governing/contributing to the national interests.
They should just change the format. Do an hour long unedited interview with each candidate, with pre defined topics / identical questions, to allow leaders to get their talking points out in a more ‘user friendly’ conversational way. Allow as many leaders as they want to sit for an interview, post them all on third party news sites to allow them to generate some ad revenue for providing the interview services/hosting (with requirements to host all qualifying candidates to mitigate news agency bias). Let voters watch whichever clips they want. Hell, have local news agencies do similar with the local candidates, so that you can see your person speak on topics of import, and how they would represent your region on those fronts.
They all just try to say their sound bites anyway. And few voters are realistically going to suddenly support a different party based on a one night zinger.
It’s not because you don’t like the party that it should not get visibility. You can’t be for democracy and against giving visibility to a party that represent a non negligeable percentage of the population. If that party is gaining such popularity, maybe there is an underlying issue that drive it, like why one province did not get to sign the constitution 🫣
Those requirements are designed to allow Quebec’s provincial party a seat at the table
Certainly, and I’ve already expressed how I feel about that. But I get it - they’re able to leverage the electoral system to their advantage, and have in fact been the Official Opposition at times.
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