Elizabeth May is a Liberal dressed in a Green's clothing.
She is now a member of the Liberal Party.
Not officially, of course. But what are the Liberals saying when they agree to not run a candidate against her. They're saying, "We're fine with May winning that riding. We have no opposition to someone from another political party winning."
This is rather novel. And it begs the question, if the Liberals are all right with May winning out in Nova Scotia, why wouldn't they be all right with other Green candidates winning in other ridings. It's not like May's a low-level Green member. She's the leader. She has the final say on the direction of the party. So, why not split up the ridings. The Liberals will take the ridings they think they can win (I'm sure there's one somewhere!), and the Greens can take the rest, hoping for a miracle breakthrough, no longer hindered by the vote-gobbling Liberals.
In fact, why don't the Liberals and the Greens form a single party?
Of course, this is probably what they're heading towards. Fold the Greens in. This would, of course, upset a great number of Green Party members, but many of them, like many NDP members, are fringe thinkers politically. Let that dead weight join the NDP, put together a Liberal Green Team, and win an election.
What the Liberals really should have done is just ignore the Green Party and wait for it to fade away. One more election without winning a seat will hurt the fledgling party considerably.
On top of that, now that every party is a green party, what use is the Green Party?
They were becoming obsolete, until Stephane Dion made them relevant by signing Elizabeth May as a Liberal in a Green suit.
Not that any of this really matters. Elizabeth May isn't expected to win, and probably won't win. And we'll see where the Green-Liberals go from there.
***
In other moves of political brilliance this week, the Nova Scotia legislature passed a resolution saying they were really rather angry at the NHL for scheduling the Ottawa Senators-Pittsburgh Penguins game four hours earlier than Hockey Night in Canada usually begins.
Sid the Kid and his Pittsburgh Penguins will be on the television at 4 p.m. Atlantic Time (that's 3 p.m. our time), instead of 8 p.m. (7 p.m. our time).
The NHL decided to schedule the game in the afternoon in the hopes of roping in bored Saturday afternoon sports fans in the U.S.
This was offensive to Progressive Conservative backbencher Pat Dunn, who appears to have a lot of time on his hands.
He drafted the resolution.
It said that Canadians "want to see Sidney Crosby and the Penguins Saturday night on national television, and in the process, prevent the loss of nearly half a million viewers or more for the CBC."
Playing the Penguins game in the afternoon is stupid, I will grant Dunn that, but introducing and passing a resolution to say so is also stupid.