Green Party -- a future?

The Greens are drifting; a more conservative party than most imagine, the failure to get a seat in the last election, together with the changes in the US, have many wondering if the Green Party has any good reason to exist. Perhaps it would be better to join the other Parties and seek change that way?


HALIFAX — Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Saturday he intends to have candidates in all of the nation's ridings, including one in Nova Scotia where the Liberals did not run in the last election after a deal with the Green Party.

Mr. Ignatieff's predecessor, Stéphane Dion, made the deal with Green Leader Elizabeth May not to run a candidate in the riding, which was won by Tory Defence Minister Peter MacKay by a wide margin.

"I have respect for Elizabeth May but I'm running a national party and in a national party we have candidates in 308 ridings across the country," Mr. Ignatieff said prior to speaking at a dinner being held at the annual meeting of the provincial party.The Green Party, which had only one MP in the Commons before the election, failed to win a single seat in the last federal election.

Liberals in the province were critical of Mr. Dion for making the deal, saying it weakened support among party faithful. The former leader had argued it was important for the country to have at least one Green MP.

During a dinner speech delivered to party faithful, Mr. Ignatieff repeated his message that he will ensure there are candidates in every riding in what he expects will be an impassioned battle to defeat Stephen Harper's Tories.

"We will occupy, we will monopolize the centre ground of Canadian politics. We will push them off to the left, we will push them off to the right and we will hold the dynamic centre ground of Canadian politics," Mr. Ignatieff told the delegates.

He told delegates that he feared the Conservatives were attempting to replace the federal Liberals as a centrist force in Parliament.

James Morton