Voters in the German state of Baden-Württemburg this week threw almost a quarter of their votes behind candidates representing the state's Green Party in a vote that will make the party's leader, Winfried Kretschmann, the first Green premier of a state government in world history. Kretschmann will lead a coalition government that includes the Greens and the state's Social Democrats, who finished a close second in the election.
Not surprisingly, the leader of Canada's federal Green Party, Elizabeth May, hailed the result as evidence of a desire for a shake-up of the political status quo worldwide. "Greens have been in government for a long time in Germany and but are now becoming leaders as the German people realize that the Green message resonates strongly with their values."
May, however, faces an uphill battle to win even one seat in the May 2 federal election - a battle made even more challenging by the dubious decision on the part of a highly questionable "broadcast consortium" to exclude her from the upcoming leaders' debates, this time on the grounds that her party doesn't currently have a seat in the House of Commons. The consortium couldn't use that excuse the last time - our own riding's Blair Wilson was running for the Greens, though he did so only after having been tossed out of caucus by the Liberals. The result is that approximately 10 per cent of Canadian voters will not have a voice in the April 12 and 14 debates.
To one degree or another, every other party leader has come out in support of having May take part in the debates. To us, the solution is straightforward: Take the "broadcast consortium" out of the equation by mandating that the leader of every party that receives more than a certain percentage of the vote in the last election will be included in the debates.
Problems with Canada's democratic system run much deeper than that, however. The fact that voter turnout has been dropping steadily for the past several elections seems to be in direct proportion to the increasing toxicity of the political discourse in the country as a whole. The "us-versus-them" mentality that seems to prevail in Ottawa -especially since the Conservatives first won a minority government in 2006 - is causing more and more would-be voters to disengage from the process.
The problem is partly the result of politicians and their advisers "dumbing down" the debate through U.S.-style attack ads, and partly the result of voters making the conscious choice to turn away from any sort of political discourse. We think the long-term answer could be a system of proportional representation that allocates at least some legislative seats based on a percentage vote - but that's a discussion for another day.
Even with our system's shortcomings, though, this election presents Canadians with clear choices about our country's future. We urge readers - especially those who have chosen not to vote in the past - to engage themselves in the electoral process, ask tough questions and vote their conscience on May 2.
- David Burke
