The Green Party continues to provide ammunition the Consortium may require to defend its decision against inviting Elizabeth May to the leaders’ debates should the fledgling Party carry-through with threats to institute legal action with the CRTC and/or in court.

Day four of the campaign sees Green Party strategy shifting from day three accusations of sexism toward an alleged violation of the democratic right to know.

But what of that other democratic right, to vote?

The democratic double standard couldn’t be more clear. Elizabeth May selectively attaches more importance to her right to have you listen (to her) than your right to (not) vote for her. Today, the Green Party and its leader would have voters believe the following:

“This isn’t just about Elizabeth and the Green Party any more. This is an all-out assault on one of the pillars of our democracy — the people’s right to know. Therefore, we are instituting legal action to find out, once and for all, whether Canada is the kind of country where a group of television executives meeting in private can agree to let Stephen Harper and his old ally Jack Layton decide which political views are allowed on the public air waves – our air waves … Don’t let the Old Boys’ Club tell you what you are allowed to see, what you are allowed to think.”

So it’s not okay for the so called “Old Boys” to tell you what you are allowed to see and think, however, it’s perfectly okay if the opposite, presumably a “Young Gals’ Club” tell you who you can’t vote for. Are these the pillars of Green Party democracy that are supposed to reverse political cynicism and voter apathy? If so, and in the unlikely event the Consortium reverses its decision, may I write the first debate question?   

What if after hearing Elizabeth May speak in the leaders’ debate, a voter in St-Laurent-Cartierville is wowed and wants to vote for the Green Party? Sorry, he or she isn’t allowed to exercise that democratic right. Similarly, should Stéphane Dion somehow manage to communicate a comprehensible and convincing set of arguments to a voter in Central Nova, the democratic right to vote Liberal is also noticeably absent thanks to the “back-room-deal” negotiated between Stéphane Dion and Elizabeth May.

So far in this campaign only one journalist has come close to asking the right question but he didn’t think to pursue the line of questioning to its full and logical conclusion. On Sunday, a journalist asked Elizabeth May who, outside of Cenral Nova or St-Laurent-Cartierville, are voters supposed to vote for given the May-Dion deal and her previous statements that she wants Stéphane Dion as prime-minister.

Don’t be fooled by the ever-changing response.

First Elizabeth May will tell you her first choice as prime minister is, of course, herself. But between Stephen Harper and Stéphane Dion, she opts for the professor whom she supported and worked with when Dion served as chair of the 2005 U.N. Climate Change summit in Montréal. Fair enough and an understandable, if not a reasonable, response.

But it goes further than that. Elizabeth May is at least realistic enough to accept that the Green Party isn’t going to form the government even if she is not realistic enough to accept she is also not going to defeat Peter MacKay in Central Nova, deal or no deal. Therefore on October 14, Elizabeth May is hoping for and is on record as being in support of a Liberal government, minority or majority. For what prize? Is it impossible to conceive of an after-the-fact floor-crossing to the Environment ministry? Surely that back-room-deal hasn’t been pre-negotiated either.

Rocket science it isn’t, but political science it is to understand why Mr. Harper, Layton, and Duceppe have made the next in a series of chess maneuvers that even a beginner should have anticipated, or learned from back when the lesson was being given.

As for Mr. Dion, I can’t politely explain why he does not get it that the deal with Elizabeth May leads to further vote-splitting among the non-Conservative parties that only serves to facilitate the Conservative candidate to more easily sneak up the middle in a first-past-the-post voting system.    

Second, Elizabeth May responded – with a straight face – to the question on who to vote for in view of the deal with Dion; ‘I don’t presume to tell voters who to vote for … the Green Party isn’t about this … we don’t tell people who to vote or not vote for.’  

Ahem. Unless of course it’s in Central Nova or St-Laurent-Cartierville. In those ridings the pillars of democracy needn’t apply.