G Huxley

The Greens currently have 2 MPs in the house of commons the same number as the Progressive Conservative Party in 1993 antecessors to the current conservative party.

All he has to do is deny science and muzzle scientists. What a whack job. OK Now this is really the saddest election in Canadian history: http://www.thestar.com/news/federal-election/2015/08/26/tory-candidates-told-to-avoid-debates-media-during-campaign.html

http://www.thestar.com/news/federal-election/2015/08/26/tory-candidates-told-to-avoid-debates-media-during-campaign.html We just had an all candidates meeting here in Victoria. The Conservative Candidate had an empty chair with a teddy bear sitting in it and a microphone in front of it. Has this happened in other poster's ridings?

Elizabeth May is a very capable female candidate running for PM, which is why Harper and Mulcair have sought to sideline her from the debates.

"If a parties message is that important they will be able to raise money." No, because monied interests usually come from raping the environment or exploiting workers, so environmental parties and employees will be at a natural disadvantage. The Greens aren't a fringe party. As has already been shown about 80% of Canadians support their presence in the debates. You are the anti-democratic fringe 11% who don't want them there.

No they aren't speech. They are electronic data. "The Ottomans were already starting to disintegrate in the late 18th century." They could have lived a lot longer if they hadn't come into conflict with Britain and France.

Immigrants like our ancestors helped decimate the environment here. Humans are second cousins to rats. If Canada's greatest potenial is as much environmental destruction as possible then yes we need more people. Otherwise I am very happy to be in a sparsely populated country. If you prefer more people go live in India or China.

May was already allowed in the debates. That's why Harper undemocratically left the debates and started new debates. Harper is a fascist hence also Bill C-51. The Middle East is a train wreck due to the Neocons. The only Empire to successfully run the Middle East were the Ottomans.

Ads aren't speech. They are simply mass recordings played to a mass audience for money. Ads allow the mass manipulation of the public in favour of the Plutocratic elite, so they are anti-democratic. They give an unfair advantage to the rich over the rest of the Demos and they are a huge waste of money.

Harper demonizing himself with his actions. All thinking people need is to apply is thought to realize it.

"I'm a great believer of bombing ISIL into oblivion" It won't work. You can't just bomb them into oblivion. Each bomb costs a fortune and each ISIL person you kill with it is easily replaced with another. Same problem in Vietnam.

First Past the post encourages strategic voting, whereas proportional representation means people who vote for who they want get get represented by their votes. That's why Greens hold numerous seats in place like Australia, Germany, Sweden etc.

Of a poll 79% of Canadians said May should be invited to the debates: http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/canadians-want-greens-elizabeth-may-at-future-debates-poll 11% said she should not be invited. The real fringe people are the people here saying she shouldn't be invited.

They do have mainstream support. May has been shown to be the most respected party leader in Canada. The reason the greens pull in less votes is because of the current first past the post electoral system. About 80% of Canadians polled said that May should be included in the debates, which if it was a Democracy would then be a reality. That exposes just how anti-democratic the move is to exclude her. Harper has the support of less than a third of the country so under your criteria then his party is fringe.

I haven't even bothered watching the Debates. The party members have all made their characters more than apparent without the debates and two of them have shown just how low they can go in their anti-democratic tactics in devising the debates.

"But It's not sad if you support Harper." De Sade's ghost will be quite happy if you still support Harper by this point.

No they aren't a fringe party if they have MPs, as MPs represent ridings. You can't just label a riding 'fringe' because they are an entire riding full of people.

Exactly, the current set-up is simply a means of undemocratically coralling the political process to benefit the most established (or far right parties) notice the Reform Party were allowed in the debates with no MPs and the PC party were allowed in with the same number of MPs as the Greens. Both of those parties who were 'fringe' under the same criteria were treated as major parties, were allowed in the debates and now form the current government.

No it isn't at all. It's simply a way of excluding other parties from the process. Again the PC party an antecessor to the current conservative party had the same number of MPs as the Greens in 1993 and they were allowed in the debates in fact Chretien referred to their leader as 'official leader of the opposition.'

You are sidelining them in trying to justify their exclusion from a fair election process. "can understand that some debate organizers won't give her a platform because she hasn't earned that place yet." Again people would still be saying that if she won a Nobel prize. Her exclusion is political, it's an anti-democratic position.

The Official Party Status is completely irrelevant to the debates. It's an internal Commons thing and I would say that it is merely a means of entrenching the established parties and discriminating against other parties. I would consider Strength and Democracy to be a major party too and they should be in the debates as well. Democracy is about choice and voices. The public deserves a diverse choice treated fairly and equally in the election process.

Why not just stop trying to sideline them and call them A Party and give them a fair chance?

"I understand that 500,000 people is a lot less than 10 million people." Irrelevant it's still a sizeable portion of the electorate. In a Democracy they are part of 'the people' and so should not be sidelined. "PRO TIP: What you're doing here doesn't help." Actually it is because it's publicly making apparent just how many anti-democratic people there are in the country and breaks the illusion that things are actually democratic. I will not be slienced like the authoritarians are trying so hard to do to the other parties.

"Nobody called them second-class citizens or sub-human" Calling them fringe is a euphemism for that. And no the Greens are a major party as they are a national party and have MPs in the house. In fact the PC party the antecessor to the current conservative party had the same number of seats in the house in 1993 and were allowed in the debates. This is simply a form of discrimination in order to prevent a fair democratic process.