Greens Excluded from Debate Talks

April 02, 2008
Brandon Kidd

Dear Editor - An election was really close this winter. Close enough that the Canadian Broadcasters Consortium sat down -- behind closed doors -- to discuss the next televised leaders' debate with representatives from "the four major political parties": Conservative, Liberal, NDP, and the Bloc Québécois.

The Green party was not invited.

What does this tell us? That these broadcasting executives care more about giving voice to the Bloc -- a party that only runs in Quebec -- than the Greens, who run all across the country and consistently poll ahead of the Bloc.

In some places the Greens are even ahead of the New Democrats.

You may not like the Greens --you may hate them -- but you'd have to be pretty pigheaded to say they shouldn't be heard. We have the right to hear them. They get millions of tax dollars, can't we hear what we're paying for?

What else does this tell us? If you want to hear Green party Leader Elizabeth May in the debates, whether you plan on voting Green or not, you'd better start making noise now. It's too late once an election is called, the consortium will have already made the decision to exclude her.

But don't just write an e-mail --call up the CBC, CTV, Global, the CRTC, and talk to someone. Let them know what they'll lose if you aren't satisfied. Tell them you'll boycott the debates -- tell them you'll boycott all their news programming if you feel that strongly.

Surveys consistently show that the vast majority of Canadians want to hear from Elizabeth May, but apparently that's not good enough for these broadcasting execs.

Enough is enough! It's time to remind this old boys' club that they don't own the airwaves -- we do.

-- Brandon Kidd, Guelph