Elizabeth May

0:04Turific tour through British Columbia and in Alberta. And that's how my voice is setting so rough on the western stuff. No, what happened was between on one of the likes of the trip last week between Toronto and Montreal, the sound system didn't show up. So I had really great large crowds on the train platforms. Nine stops between Toronto and Montreal with really good crowds. And I was yelling to be heard over the background noise of the train and the crowd and the cheering. And so I kind of wore my voice out. But it's been a very, very exciting tour. Are you noticing things getting more green? I mean obviously, 06 was I think it was 4.3% and 08.5.8 now. 08 was just below 7%.

0:50Right, 6.8, I'm sorry. Yeah, just below 7%. So you noticing more and more? Yeah, we had just about 1 million votes in 2000, which a lot of Canadians say that's really impressive when you consider that the block Quebecois has 1.3 million votes in 49 seats. It's a very good learning tool for Canadians to say what's wrong with our voting system? That seems a little odd. But in any case, things are growing. The enthusiasm for greens and the youth engagement in this election. That's one thing I'm noticing. Youth are doing flash mobs for voting. I've heard about those, yeah. You're using tweets, doing things differently to try to engage other youth in a commitment to vote. And this is a nonpartisan effort, but I'm very excited about it because the 2008 election results in terms of youth participation was really worrying. Only 38% of youth eligible to vote actually voted.

1:39So that's one place where I've seen improvement over the 2008 election, where I've seen a real concerning behavior. It's been from the National Media Consortium who have decided not only not to invite me into the debates, but have basically shut out green coverage during this election. So last year, not last year, but in the last federal election in 2008, when we boarded the train in Vancouver, we had on board several major television networks and several major print media journalists. So we had about 13 journalists on the train with us. And on this trip, we had two journalists get on in Vancouver from a U.S. newspaper. And no Canadian juris. So there's something that shifted in terms of how corporate media wants to treat the Green Party.

2:27And I am relieved that we have so much going on with our social media and our website and our YouTube's, so that Canadians can find out what we're saying. Because the mainstream media executives seem to have taken the view that the less Canadians know about the Green Party, the less of a threat will be. Ooh. What I want to ask you, I voted NDP two times ago, Green last time, can't really decide this time. So I think the problem with a lot of people on the left are where do we fit in? Why should we vote Green? It's funny because people are taking that voter compass thing. Yeah. And one of the most prominent NDP economists, Andrew Jackson, posted on his blog that he'd taken voter compass and said, I may have to do a rethink because he came out Green.

3:13It was a bit surprised. We have a very strong program for social justice grounded in fiscal responsibility and, of course, environmental sustainability. But the main reason, I mean, and we'd be honest about this, obviously, is I'm not going to be a Prime Minister at the end of the next election. Well, for that matter, I need to just jack Layton. But what difference can a vote make in a political culture that's being overtaken by cynicism and spin doctors and really the most negative and aggressive of the tactics of the US Republican Party? And those tactics include voter suppression, the use of attack ads specifically to discourage people from voting. So in terms of an analysis of the crisis in Canadian democracy in which we find ourselves, a vote for any of the other parties doesn't send a very clear message.

4:02Votes for the Greens tell all the other parties to cut it out, to stop the negativity, to stop the nonstop partisanship that exceeds sense, to find ways to work together, make parliament work, and restore respect and civility to behavior on Parliament Hill. Only a vote for Greens would send that message. And that's why I think people should vote Green. To play devil's advocate a little bit, what do you say to people that say the left is split into three parties, so the votes are getting split up everywhere, and that's why the Conservatives keep getting this minority government? No, the problem isn't split, the problem is vote abandoning. That's the biggest crisis we face. 41% of Canadians chose not to vote in 2008. That's huge. That's a larger voting bloc than the people who actually voted conservative. So if we wanted, we have this analysis, so I said, oh, if there was a discussion, if Michael Igmanadea for Jack Layton had ever shown the slightest willingness to talk to Greens about how we might cooperate, we would have talked about it.

4:58We would have tried to find some way through it. But this excessive, mindless partisanship creates these dividing lines, and it means that whenever I've tried to talk to Jack Layton about any kind of cooperation, he says, I won't talk to you, it's anti-democratic. Yeah, I don't think that people like you would feel that way about some form of conversation about what we do to fix the system, but meanwhile while voters are obsessing about vote splitting, the real issue is voter abandoning of the system. So when people ask us if we want to merge with another party, they'll say, yeah, I'd love to merge with the 41% of Canadians who didn't vote last time. How do we get them out? We have to explain to people who feel disgusted by the political behavior they see that turns them off politics, that guess what?

5:44The behavior you see is designed to turn you off politics. So you are not punishing a political culture you hate by saying, I don't like these guys. I'm not going to encourage them, so I'm not going to vote. A lot of people feel that way. They think that somehow it's an effective protest against despicable political behavior to choose to stay home. Guess what? That's what they want you to do. So if you want to get the message out there for people to vote, we've got to get the word out that voting is precisely what the established party is particularly the conservative. They don't want you voting. They don't want people voting who didn't vote in a way. In fact, they hope that fewer people will vote in 2011 than voted in a way. We've got to get the word out that voting is the single most powerful way that any Canadian has to change the things they can't stand about politics.

6:32That's a great way to end it. I don't know. I get a big line of people. But we do some call five questions. Five quick questions. One more answer. My favorite band. Oh gosh, I'm so boring. I think it's still the Beatles. Next question is London and McCartney. I got to my Paul McCartney. I love, I love, imagine, I love John. I actually got to meet Paul McCartney when my daughter was three months old, highlight of my life. Did you scream like a girl? No, he made a beeline for me because I was holding the baby. Do you want to hold her? He said, no, like it's all broody. I said, get all broody. It's still in my mind. It's one of those highlight moments. Ignatia for Layton. In what sense? Who do you prefer? I can't say, actually. I really can't say. I think I would prefer either one of them unscripted and released from their handlers.

7:19Nice. Why should people vote in one word? Democracy. And in one word, Elizabeth May. Fun. Nice. Thank you.