10.23.2019 09:32 PM

Elizabeth May is against the despicable “old style” politics

I wonder how that worked out for her?

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May was so certain of her party’s victory in a string of Vancouver Island ridings that her campaign team did not make a serious effort to counter attacks mounted by their New Democratic Party rivals.

The Greens are now digesting some of the lessons learned in a similarly overconfident campaign. Like Ms. May, B.C. NDP Leader Adrian Dix didn’t want to “go low” in the provincial election in 2013. As New Democrat organizers prepared their election-night victory party, they didn’t rehearse for the concession speech that Mr. Dix eventually had to offer.

After Monday’s disappointing results, Ms. May and the Greens are reconsidering their own campaign tactics.

Ms. May criticized the NDP at the time for what she termed “misinformation,” but the party did not launch a counteroffensive. Now, she says, she believes the party should have been more forceful.

“We were wrong, we didn’t respond in kind – we didn’t respond at all,” Ms. May told reporters late on Monday night. “We didn’t think that smears and attacks would be sufficient to erode the leads we had.”

25 Comments

  1. Nick M. says:

    It could have been really poor internal polling.

  2. Walter says:

    May lost all credibility when she promoted a terrorist.
    Completely despicable “old-style politics by her”.
    The Green Party (if there actually is a Party behind her), should have turfed her years ago.

  3. Peter says:

    This has the whiff of one of those congratulatory self-criticisms they warn people not to try in interviews. “My problem is I’m just too nice”, etc. Given that we are in the middle of one of our periodic fevers over climate change, the Greens really should have done better against the NDP. That won’t last forever and they are too much a one-trick pony to just assume they have nowhere to go but up.

  4. grayapple says:

    Greetings from Fredericton, where our Green candidate, Jenica Atwin, ran a positive and respectful campaign and is now a newly elected MP, the Green’s one gain Monday night. Not a landslide victory by any means, but a clear one. I know you’re a scrapper Warren, but sometimes voters find a candidate who focuses on the issues and doesn’t resort to attacks and mud slinging appealing. I agree with the article I’ve linked to below, we might be hearing a lot more from Jenica in the years to come.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-jenica-atwin-new-brunswicks-first-green-mp-might-soon-become-a/?fbclid=IwAR30z8WKfqrYX9cJUPuN_6tPmSziBxT6sd0-3jjKTGD1tRuKA0oxcUNQFyA

  5. Ron Benn says:

    The Green Party pulled in about 7% of the votes cast in the most recent election. How many of those votes were “none of the above” votes? In short, why are they perceived as a “national” party?

    IF they want to truly graduate to the big stage, rather than just be invited to the party so that the hosts can pretend that they are inclusive, they need to do a number of things.

    First, the platform has to be wider than “climate change”.

    Their thin platform cannot dismiss jobs in the resource and heavy manufacturing sectors as irrelevant. The platform cannot simply state that the resource and heavy manufacturing labour force will be retrained for “green” jobs.

    The electorate, for the most part, see the Greens for what Elizabeth May presents them as. A one trick pony. And very few people are looking for a one trick pony.

    • The Doctor says:

      Her “policy” for dealing with Alberta’s oil industry was — and this is not hyperbole — positively Maoist. Shut down the industry but . . . wait for it . . . employ all those people you’ve thrown out of work in green retrofitting jobs.

      How the fuck exactly was that going to work? Was every single unemployed Albertan going to be immediately offered a government retrofitting job by Lizzie May on termination of prior employment? On what terms? At the same salary and with the same benefits as the job they just got terminated from? Any cost estimate for this? Any idea how many people we’re actually talking about?

      Absolute fucking madness.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Doc,

        Runs in tandem with the unmitigated bullshit that Alberta will never, ever, have to diversify their economy away from an almost unique focus on oil and gas. That’s also absolute fucking madness but none of those pols have the balls to set people straight. They prefer to limit themselves to an endless oil and gas industry fantasy.

        • The Doctor says:

          Of course the economy will eventually have to diversify, but that’s already starting to happen. Alberta has the largest number of engineers as a percentage of its population of any province in the country. There is all kinds of innovation going on in Alberta, including the marriage of high-tech and energy production (including internet of things, smart technology etc.). I have personally been involved in projects and companies in this space.

          What’s insane is some arbitrary, neo-Stalinist shutdown of an entire industry, when innovation and diversification are already occurring.

          I should say, in case you get me wrong, I’m in favour of carbon taxes. That has nothing to do with nuking entire industries with a stroke of a pen — note the BC Carbon Tax, which has been in force for many years now.

        • lyn says:

          R.O’D: Why should AB hand over it’s oil & gas for green…when oil & gas give many spin off jobs. The third-largest proven oil reserves in the world. Just because you nose is out of joint. Would you also like them also shut down mining, quarrying, transportation, warehousing, construction, agriculture and forestry because of fake CLIMATE CHANGE!! There are the ELITES making money off of this climate change industry!!

          • Ronald O'Dowd says:

            lyn,

            I’m not arguing for a shutdown — I don’t know where you get that. As for climate science, it’s not fake but it’s not totally rocket science either — what with the alleged recent manipulation of the numbers. I seriously doubt that climate-change will be 100% on target but that doesn’t by any wild stretch of the imagination make it completely phoney.

        • Chris says:

          Funny how no one is urging Ontario to shut down it’s entire automobile (carbon-emitting) manufacturing sector, it’s entire auto-parts supply sector, or Quebec’s entire aircraft (carbon-emitting) and passenger-rail (carbon-emitting) manufacturing industries. I guess a half-million Albertans have to be driven into destitude and homelessness while Central Canadians just have to pay a few extra cents per-litre for gasoline.

          • doconnor says:

            They are urging the Ontario automobile manufacturing sector to switch over to electric vehicles.

            Passenger rail is less carbon emitting then alternatives and a lot of the cars made in Quebec are for subway systems.

            Aircraft is one of the most difficult to switch away from fossil fuels. Switch to more passenger rail will help a lot, but biofuels might be best option for that industry.

          • Ronald O'Dowd says:

            Chris,

            Our hydro-electricity emits carbon. But will demand go down and fall off a cliff? Not likely. People keep telling me that world oil and gas heavy demand is there right into the next century. Colour me skeptical on that one. But maybe Alberta will prove us wrong. Who the hell really knows.

          • The Doctor says:

            There are huge problems with passenger rail as some sort of climate change, low-carbon panacea in Canada. In a word, population density. Compared to Europe and even the US we lack population critical mass and density, which is key to being able to do passenger rail on any kind of economically sane basis.

            Even in Europe, in far more densely populated countries than ours, rail is significantly subsidized.

            I’m personally familiar with the studies that have been done on a rail corridor from Calgary to Edmonton, and the economics are not enticing.

  6. William R Morrison says:

    The Greens are so vague…someone asked May what people would have to give up to bring about a Green Canada. She said “nothing, we will all drive green cars.” The Greens say nothing specific–we will transition to green jobs, etc. etc. What about the tourism industry, which no one mentions? How many tens of millions of people, entire countries such as Bermuda, depend entirely on planes and cruise ships? Battery operated 727s? But no word from the Greens. Friday Husky Oil shuts down, Monday you go to work for the solar panel industry. I won’t respect them till they get way more specific…

    • The Doctor says:

      The Greens have this luxury, which non-Tory and non-Liberal parties have, of not having their platforms scrutinized very critically by media or voters. That has always pissed me off. I really think it’s a failure among our journalists and media to bring some of this idiocy to light.

  7. Gloriosus et Libre says:

    It’s time for the Liberals to give Liz her dream job of Liberal Senator and for the Greens to find a leader who will turn their party away from being the Let’s Make Elizabeth May a Liberal Senator Party.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      GEL,

      She apparently was ready to walk away as leader before the election but no one wanted the job…

      • Gloriosus et Libre says:

        It’s because she turned it into a personality cult. Can anyone name any other federal Green politician without using Google?

  8. Chris says:

    So we are supposed to re-train 500,000 Albertans for some sort of Green job? All in the next ten years? You’ll need about a dozen University of Toronto-sized institutions, or about 30 Northern-Alberta-Institute-of-Technology-sized community colleges. In a decade. Good luck with that.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Chris,

      Oil and gas will still have a large enough fingerprint for at least thirty years but how many more earth-shaking busts are ahead?

    • The Doctor says:

      Gee I thought Lizzie May said no training was required for these Green jobs that she was going to manufacture out of thin air. I don’t remember her mentioning training. I thought she just said she’d find them jobs in green retrofitting. Pursuant to her first Five Year Plan.

      • Peter says:

        I doubt she believes those jobs will be manufactured out of thin air. She’s counting on the magical interventions of the Green Energy Fairy.

  9. PJH says:

    I had considered voting for the “star” Green candidate(Elizabeth May’s husband) in my riding. I changed my mind when I didn’t get any response to two simple questions I asked of the candidate by email. No response, no acknowledgement, nothing. I even would have been content with a FOAD letter. I suppose it was a portent of things to come when said candidate spent election night with his spouse, rather than in his own electoral district. Perhaps he already knew that despite his “star” status, he was going down to a sad defeat. The Federal Green Party have always suffered from being a one person band, a cult of personality if you will, with no ground game to speak of, and consequently, its time to give Lizzie May the heave.

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