I am happy to vote for you as long as you stay humble and continue to learn.

Our dear Elizabeth May is surely becoming the conscience of Canada, following in the steps of Tommy Douglas and Ed Broadbent. She speaks truth to power.

I notice a mistake in what you just posted, one that many politicians make, including many avid Greens. Here is the key question.

Is your beloved party an extension of the genuine need that I and the Canadian polity have for your party’s purpose, or is the party an extension of your desire to be the one who leads the party to victory?

Quoting you
The reasons why we need Green MPs are obvious, and failing to send Greens to Parliament in the next election will not only damage our party’s future relevance, it will also deprive our voters of the representation they deserve. There’s also the not-so-minor consideration of our planet’s future, and having Greens in the House will vastly improve the odds that we’ll extricate ourselves from the mess we’re in. Electing our leader and other candidates is absolutely achievable …
End of quote

The good part in the quote is “There’s also the not-so-minor consideration of our planet’s future”: yes, said tongue-in-cheek but still poignant. The bad parts are what the good part is sandwiched between: “failing to send Greens to Parliament in the next election will not only damage our party’s future relevance” and “Electing our leader and other candidates is absolutely achievable”, for these are partisan issues, and so naturally disingenuous.

Two aspects of political life are “sustaining the party” and “promoting what the party represents to the electorate”. The former purpose is always invalid, though often well-intended, the latter always valid when genuine. In Elizabeth’s book, we read that “parties” are not part of the definition of Parliament and unnecessary to its serious business.

In the quote, the reason that a good and intelligent person should support you is slipped in between two aspects that are fundamentally disingenuous in that “political” way, you know, the way that causes common folk to despise everything “political”.

Comparing Elizabeth May to the leaders of the two parties that traditionally rule Canada, Elizabeth is always focussed on what the Green Party will do for the people of Canada, while Harper and Ignatieff are characters in a political play in which all the world’s a stage and no one is real. [“I am the Walrus! Goo-goo-ka-joob”: Beatle’s white album.]

So my point is that I hope that you will learn to stay real and shuck the human instinct to be tribal and partisan. [It was Lewis Carrol’s Walrus who ate all the young oysters he had befriended “through the looking glass”.] And then I will continue to support your campaign because I will trust that all the children of all my friends will benefit from your activity, so also my country and planet.

What I ask of you is very difficult. I wish you well. If not you, then I must continue to shop for a good place to park my vote.

Bob Halstead
Green Party,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Earth