local Green party candidate, thanked her team for their efforts against the NDP incumbent Paul Dewar. She quickly finished her remarks to her campaign team, as everyone’s eyes had been drifting to the large sports screens and the in- coming results from the riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands where Elizabeth May, was now predicted to become the first elected MP for the Green Party of Canada.
T
By the time Lois Corbett, National Cam- paign Manager for the Green Party, arrived for a well-deserved pint it was almost midnight, but the victory was in hand. The key campaign goal had been to get their party leader, Elizabeth May elected. Clearly that had been achieved, but it had come at a cost. Green vote numbers across Canada were down. In 2008 the Greens had cap- tured 937,000 votes. This evening only 576,000 votes had been cast for the Greens. “Not getting Elizabeth into the leadership debates hurt our national visibility considerably,” Corbett explained. “It made a huge impact on our national campaign, and that is reflected in our overall voter turnout.” One of Corbett’s tasks had been to get May into the
he mood in Maxwell’s Bistro and Club on Elgin St. in downtown Ottawa was not without some trepidation. Jen Hunter, the
Elizabeth May, First Green Party Candidate Elected to Canadian Parliament.
French and English national leadership debates to drive party awareness and deliver on the goal of increasing overall voter turnout for the Green Party. The National Broadcast- ers Consortium, consisting of executives from the CBC, CTV, Global, Radio-Canada and TVA, solely decide who is invited to the debates. After originally excluding May from the debates in the 2008 election, they had relented to public pressure and permitted May to be involved. This exposure had significantly increased Green Party visibility across Canada. However when the roster of leaders for the debates was released for the 2011 election, May was not included.
What has created a significant amount of confusion and
controversy is that there are no clear criteria for what would lead to an invitation to the debate from the Consortium. In 2008 the Green Party had a member in parliament, who was elected as a Liberal but switched to sit as a Green. How- ever, this time the Green Party had no sitting member of parliament, so Corbett was trying to argue for May’s inclu- sion in the debates on the basis of its previous voter turnout, and the precedent of having been invited to the debates in 2008. Legal challenges for May’s involvement were deferred until after the debates were scheduled, so even with sig- nificant public support for May’s inclusion in the debates, the Consortium ran the debate without May. With that the Green Party lost their best chance to get their platform tele- vised nationally.
The key campaign goal had been to get their party leader, Elizabeth May elected. Clearly that had been achieved, but it had come at a cost. Green vote numbers across Canada were down. In 2008 the Greens had captured 937,000 votes. This evening only 576,000 votes had been cast for the Greens.
However, the task at hand was to get May elected in her
riding, as her presence in parliament alone would provide the necessary national attention the Green Party had been looking for. The task was not an easy one either. She was challenging Gary Lunn, the current Minister of Natural Resources and a formidable opponent who had held the riding since 1997.
Pre-Election Strategy: Choosing the Battle Ground Before the election, some significant effort had gone into choosing a riding May could potentially carry. In 2008, May had run against the popular Minister of Defense, Pe-
June 2011 | Campaigns & Elections 25
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