It was not the headline interview on Tom Clark’s West Block show on Sunday but it was by far the most interesting. Tom took time on his show to talk to the woman of the day at the recent parliamentary sleepover. She saw the event as a critical step in showing Canadians what is wrong with parliament as it currently operates.
Bill C-38 will soon be only of historical significance. It will be passed by Parliament, as is, and sent to the Senate for Harper’s marionettes to rubberstamp into law.
Ms. May asked the simple question: What is the purpose of Parliament? She pointed out that Mr. Harper might as well shut it down if this is how he wants to pass laws for Canadians. She sees the top-down party structure of today as not needing more than 300 Members of Parliament with nothing to do but what they are told to do by party leadership. As the only member for the Green Party, she had to do the entire job herself.
But she found she was up to the job. Hell, she revelled in it. We have not seen the statistics on the voting but she was probably the only Member of Parliament who voted on every single amendment. She proved herself a leader. And she has the stamina for it. When this blog suggested her as a possible Liberal Party leadership candidate last week, we were not necessarily thinking of her as winning the contest. It was what she could add to the race was the original thought.
She could also win. She can win because throughout that boring interminable New Democratic leadership race last year, nobody talked honestly about our democracy and its sorry state. Elizabeth May not only talks about it; she wants to do something about it.
One of the reasons given last week for Bob Rae not getting into the Liberal leadership contest was because he did not see the Liberals returning to power until he was 70 years old. Bob Rae always was a pessimist.
Does anyone doubt that Elizabeth May is an optimist? As the only MP for her party, she is more than willing to take on Stephen Harper. She was a breath of fresh air in the 2008 English language federal election leaders’ debate when she was the only leader to keep hammering Stephen Harper on the financial situation that he did not admit existed until after the election. She knew what the problem was that was coming and she was the only party leader who would talk about it.
What do you need Elizabeth, an engraved invitation?
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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