My friend across the aisle in the newsroom, the indomitable veteran of everything Mississauga, John Stewart, writes a brilliant blog for mississauga.com.
I'm always fascinated by the stories he finds, and impressed by the opinions he keeps.
I do, however, have to disagree with him on his April 27 blog, which states, "You have to think that The Green Party will get a lot more consideration from voters this time around, especially if the voluble (Elizabeth) May gets an opportunity to debate the other leaders on the national stage."
I hope he's right, but I don't think he is.
I think in the next election, the Green Party will do roughly the same, if not worse, than they did in January 2006.
That means staying with zero seats in Ottawa.
And that means the Green Party will have to do something radical, or slowly descend into irrelevance, in time for the election that follows the next one.
That is, if they haven't already descended into irrelevance.
Here's the problem: If every party becomes a green party, what role does the Green Party have to play?
Granted, it's hard to say the new Conservative plan to save the environment is adequate, but anyone who would want to vote Green, if they want a real plan to come out of the House of Commons, will vote Liberal instead of Conservative.
If the Green Party gets one or two seats, it doesn't really mean anything.
Only the Liberals, which say their environment plan will be better, will actually be able to produce something and pass it through the House.
The Green Party in Canada has always said it hopes people steal their ideas.
Their hopes have been answered, and simultaneously made them disposable.
They now work as a watchdog party, and, personally, I'm fine with that. When it comes to the environment, we can't have enough watchdogs in Ottawa.
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Also, I'd like to wish Prime Minister Stephen Harper a happy birthday.
Our twenty-second prime minister turns 48 today.