NDP-Green accord touted as a way to give B.C. certainty provides Trudeau anything but

When the leaders of British Columbia's NDP and Green Party stood before the microphones in Victoria on Monday to say they'd reached a deal to join forces, the reverberations were felt clear across the country, on Parliament Hill.

While the deal won't be finalized until later today, it could spell an end to Christy Clark's chances of holding on to power before she can even introduce a throne speech that might take into account the priorities of the province's three Green MLAs, on things like political finance reform, more affordable housing and funding for clean technology.

Greens and NDP Agree to End Liberal Era

The BC NDP will form government with Green support under an agreement the leaders of the two parties announced together today.

“I’m very excited about the prospect of delivering the people of British Columbia what they voted for, and that was change,” NDP leader John Horgan told reporters at the legislature.

Horgan said he hasn’t spoken with Liberal leader Christy Clark since election night, and Green leader Andrew Weaver said his party had serious discussions with both the Liberals and NDP about who they would help form government.

Why I Won't Step Down to Stop Harper

I am a candidate in the upcoming federal election and a scientist committed to evidence-based decision-making.

As a scientist, I find myself among the throngs of Canadians who do not want Stephen Harper back in power. Does this mean, as suggested by David Beers last week, that today, Sept. 28, the deadline to remove my name from the ballot, I should step down unless I am positioned to win my seat?

The premise is undemocratic, but the question is rational. The Harper Conservatives leave us burdened with legislation designed to silence dissent, increase inequality, and suppress democracy. The urgency of climate change is denied, scientists are muzzled, and health, safety and environmental protections eviscerated. The recent drop in oil prices exposed the fragility of a petro-state economy. The list goes on. These "accomplishments" are the legacy of an ideology that is out of touch with the realities of our planet and Canadian values.

Federal Green party ‘stunned’ over snubs from election debate organizers

OTTAWA - The federal Green party says leader Elizabeth May is being unfairly excluded from two high-profile election debates, denying Canadian voters a full range of national viewpoints.

May has not been invited to an exchange of views on the economy hosted by the Globe and Mail newspaper and Google Canada, nor one on foreign policy planned by the Munk Debates.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau have been asked to take part in these debates.

Greens do politics differently -- but not in the way that Rex Murphy thinks

In his Saturday National Post column, Rex Murphy claimed that Canada's Green party has no goal other than to get me elected as an MP -- and that this has been the case for "two or three general elections."

In fact, I have led the party into only two general elections. The Green Party, unlike any of the other parties represented in Parliament, is truly grassroots. The leader is not the boss, and electing the leader was not a priority before 2011.

'Green Square' leader renounces tuition hikes, endorses free education

If nothing else, Karo Baillargeon certainly seems to have a knack for getting noticed. The former President of the Mouvement des Étudiants Socialement Responsables du Québec (MÉSRQ), otherwise known as the Green Squares, a Liberal attempt to astroturf support for their tuition increase among students, has had a tumultuous few months.

She was briefly a candidate for the Quebec Green Party, before being fired for refusing to support the party policy of free education, and went on to support Option Nationale before casting a strategic vote for Quebec Solidaire in her riding of Outremont.

"Other Revenue": The Black Hole of Political Party Financial Reporting

There is, it seems, at least one unexpected benefit to the revelations regarding the NDP's sheepish about-face on those now infamous advertising fees that it quietly refunded to unions and other buyers earlier this year.  

Thanks to that internal NDP document posted online by the Toronto Star  as part of its initial report, we now know the source of at least some of the otherwise unexplained "other revenue" that the party reported in its annual financial statements for 2006 and 2009. (They still haven't submitted last year's return after requesting an extension to the original deadline last May.)

But aside from that unprecedented, if not exactly voluntary, peek into the NDP coffers, not even Elections Canada is privy to the details of the hundreds of thousands -- in some cases, millions -- of dollars that political parties take in every year, over and above the income gleaned from donations, membership sales, election expense rebates and per-vote subsidy transfers from the government.

Green Party of Canada convention: 'Cooperate to defeat Harper'

The Green Party of Canada's three-day long convention in Sidney, B.C. has just wrapped up. Here is an account of the major decisions taken, from one of the nearly 300 delegates who were in attendance.

This year's convention saw discussion of 27 policy motions, six constitutional motions, eight directive motions and three emergency motions.

All of the policy, constitutional and directive motions were subjected to an online vote prior to the convention. Emergency motions were first presented at the convention itself and thus had not previously been voted on. All resolutions will be subjected to a final and conclusive vote by the membership after the convention.

Groups call for offshore drilling moratoriam

An ear-splitting recording of a seismic blast, and a disturbing image of a whale bleeding from its eyes.

These audio-visual tools became part of the opposition war chest Wednesday, as yet another call was heard for an exploration and drilling moratorium in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Jill Stein Arrested: Green Party Nominee Faces Charges After Bank Protest

PHILADELPHIA -- Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein and her running mate have been arrested at a sit-in at a Philadelphia bank over housing foreclosures.

The arrests came after about 50 party supporters staged a protest Wednesday against Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored mortgage lender.

May wants more Green MPs before 2015, not interested in party merger with Grits

OTTAWA—The Green Party of Canada will hold its convention next month in British Columbia, and leader Elizabeth May says her party’s focus is on winning more seats, not merging with another centre-left party.

“We think in different terms,” Ms. May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) observed of her party after one year in Parliament. “We’re focused on electing more members of Parliament and looking at the issues we want to discuss before the next election.”

Gar Alperovitz’s Green Party Keynote: We Are Laying Groundwork for the "Next Great Revolution"

At the Green Party’s 2012 National Convention in Baltimore over the weekend, Massachusetts physician Jill Stein and anti-poverty campaigner Cheri Honkala were nominated the party’s presidential and vice-presidential contenders. We air the convention’s keynote address delivered by Gar Alperovitz, a professor of political economy at the University of Maryland and co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative. Alperovitz is the author of, "America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy." In his remarks, Alperovitz stressed the importance of third-party politics to challenge a corporate-run society. "Systems in history are defined above all by who controls the wealth," Alperovitz says. "The top 400 people own more wealth now than the bottom 185 million Americans taken together. That is a medieval structure."

Video
Source: Democracy Now!
Author: --

Elizabeth May makes her mark in Parliament

OTTAWA — Elizabeth May is holding the last staff meeting of a parliamentary session that is ending this week with the Green Party leader getting widespread accolades for her impressive, though predictably unsuccessful, battle to stop the Harper majority government’s controversial omnibus budget legislation.

Surrounding May as she tosses out questions and offers suggestions to her mostly youthful staffers, volunteers and interns are a half-dozen actual and honourary university degrees, two framed handwritten notes from “family friend” Bill Clinton, and photos of her with celebrities such as Clinton, Sting and Gordon Lightfoot.

NDP, Libs, Green table more than 1,200 amendments to feds’ omnibus budget bill

The Liberals, NDP, and Greens have tabled more than 1,200 amendments to the government’s omnibus Budget Implementation Bill, but when the Finance Committee’s report on Bill C-38 comes up for debate this week, the opposition parties won’t have a united front to kill the bill.

“We agree on the same goal, but it’s very clear that I work very closely right now with the Liberal Party and the Liberal Party is working with the Greens. I also work with the Bloc,” Green Leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) told The Hill Times last week. “Having met with [NDP House Leader] Nathan Cullen, I’d say we’re heading in the same direction, but they’re not sharing their strategies to the same extent.”

The Case Against an NDP, Liberal, Green Coalition

"War without allies is bad enough -- with allies it is hell." -- British World War II air marshal Sir John Slessor

There are only two problems facing those who want an "electoral coalition" to defeat the Stephen Harper Conservatives in the next election. It's undemocratic. And it won't work.

Despite that, social media group Leadnow.ca is promoting efforts for the New Democratic, Liberal and Green parties to "cooperate" to field a single alternative candidate to defeat the federal Conservatives in key ridings and end the Harper government.

And Internet activist group Avaaz.org goes one step farther, even advocating in an email that its supporters consider joining the Conservative Party to oppose Harper policies from the inside, as well as join the other parties to push to "make democracy work."

Both groups support NDP leadership candidate Nathan Cullen's idea that the NDP hold joint nominating meetings with the Liberals and Green Party in Conservative-held ridings for the 2015 election.