Baby steps at being Inconvenient

Two days ago Elizabeth May wrote a blog post on political cooperation. She begins it with the following:

Greens favour a cooperative strategy in the next federal election.  We need to move away from First Past the Post (FPTP), to a voting system that will ensure every vote counts and that the popular vote will be reflected in the proportion of seats held by each party in the House of Commons.  And while we are discussing the impact of FPTP, it is clear we need some form of cooperation between the New Democrats, Liberals and Greens to avoid another term of Stephen Harper’s agenda.

While she continues on in the post on to say that she will not endorse a candidate for the Liberal Leadership election, after all, how can she as the leader of a different party, she acknowledges her respect and regard for candidates who are colleagues in the House, specifically Justin Trudeau, Marc Garneau and Joyce Murray. And then, much to my delight and surprise she points out that Joyce Murray’s success, whether a win or not, would “advance the shared goals and objectives shared by the Greens, by NDPers who supported Nathan and by many across a political, progressive spectrum.” She commends Murray’s “political courage and integrity”. In that spirit, she all but endorses Murray’s run for leadership.

Three days ago following a discussion with other “Inconvenient Citizens” about my own dilemma of wanting to both support the only Liberal Party leadership candidate who is running on a platform of working towards a coalition type government, but still support, without reservation, the work that Elizabeth May and the Green Party are doing, I decided I needed to take action. In this frame of mind I responded with the following message to an email from the Green Party reminding me to vote on the Resolution Ratifications from the last summer’s convention :

Thanks for this email. While I did/do want  vote on the Resolution Ratifications, I’ve decided that for now I need to not be a member of the Green Party and so need to refrain from renewing my Green Party membership and/or renounce it should it happen to still be current. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from other Green Party members as well with this same issue, but for now please know that in spirit I am fully behind the Green Party and I’ll be back to pay my dues. However, I feel very strongly that we need to fix and change some of what is wrong with the democratic process in this country and to do that we need to first get Harper out. To that end I am going to sign up as a Liberal Party Supporter so as to be able to vote for Joyce Murray as leader of the Liberal Party. I’m not entirely sure that Joyce Murray is the best candidate but I am 100% sure that it would be a good idea to have a leader of the Liberal Party who is willing to plan and work towards a coalition government. Just as an aside, I’d like that coalition government to be headed by Elizabeth May as Prime Minister!  But, one step at a time. For now I’ll just read the information on your website and after the Liberal Leadership vote, I’ll be back to join the Green Party once again with more $$ support.

Let’s be clear, I have enormous respect for Elizabeth May. She is an excellent speaker. She is smart. She is committed and passionate. We couldn’t ask for a better representative for Canadians in the House. And, I am under no illusion that her blog post was at all as a result of my email. However, that said, it felt really, really good to have my first act as an Inconvenient Citizen be met with such a positive outcome as to have my political guru, Elizabeth May, write a post that is so in line with my own thinking. I know my letter alone was not responsible for Elizabeth May’s position, but I felt great all the same with the way that the timing worked out. It was a great first step for me as an Inconvenient Citizen.

I received the following response back from the Green Party about the same time that Ms. May’s blog post went up. The email read as follows:

Dear Betty,

No problem at all.

I have cancelled your membership, as per your request.  We’ve set up a reminder for after the Liberal leadership race, so you can come back at your convenience.

Have a good evening.

So I am now a Liberal Supporter. Today I signed up to vote in the Liberal Leadership race and so far I’m planning  to support Joyce Murray. I’ll continue to watch the debates and inform myself as best I can as to how each candidate plans to work together with other political parties. I hope everyone who reads this will also do something “inconvenient” and get involved in the Liberal Leadership Election, irregardless of how you stand on the leadership race and on the need for political cooperation. That’s what democracy is about.

Resources to follow up:

The Green Party website at on the background of the resolutions, like all of their website, is impeccable. It is well organized, articulate and informative.  And just as an aside, did you know that in Margaret Atwood’s 2009 book, The Year of the Flood, the world has a new saint, Saint Elizabeth May?

If you don’t currently belong to any other political party you can sign on as Liberal Party Supporter through the Liberal Party Website Supporter form. You need to have registered by March 3, 2013 to be eligible to cast a ballot. Once you are registered as a supporter, my understanding is that you will be contacted by Matt Certosimo, the National Membership Secretary, with instructions for registertering to vote. You need to have registered before March 14, 2013.

Here’s how the voting works:

And, for those who like all the details here is some background information on the current Liberal leadership election and a list of who’s who on the election ballot.

If you miss any of the Liberal Party Leadership debates, they are being uploaded to YouTube by the Liberal Party. For your convenience I’ve linked the first two below. The next one will be this Saturday, February 16, 2013.

Video of the Vancouver Liberal Party Leadership Debate from January 20, 2013:

Video of the Winnipeg Liberal Party Leadership Debate from February 2, 2013: