Federal NDP and Greens trade barbs on Vancouver Island
Credit to Author: Rob Shaw| Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 23:59:41 +0000
VICTORIA — B.C.’s Green and New Democrat parties may be power-sharing friends at the provincial legislature, but their federal counterparts are fighting an increasingly nasty war of words in the final days of the election campaign as they jockey to win key Vancouver Island ridings.
The Greens have complained that the NDP have been “dishonest” and “disgraceful” by blanketing the southern part of the Island with flyers that question whether the Greens will defend a woman’s right to access safe abortions, and whether the party will oppose budget cuts to services proposed by the federal Conservatives.
“Does the Green party really share your values?” read the pamphlet, which includes quotes suggesting the Greens would prop up a minority Tory government.
“I think many voters find it dispiriting that the NDP feels so threatened that they’ve resorted to smears and throwing mud,” May said Thursday. “It’s not something Canadians want.”
She said it’s clear the NDP are worried about losing some of the five seats that party holds on the Island.
“If they weren’t running scared, why else would they be spending so much money? I had two full-colour brochures awaiting me in my mailbox with quotes around words I’ve never said. This is disappointing. I thought more of Mr. Singh,” May said.
The NDP is simply “drawing a contrast” by quoting May’s words while comparing those positions with how the NDP is unwilling to support a minority Conservative government or allow any MPs to vote against abortion rights, said B.C. NDP campaign director Glen Sanford.
“What’s happened here is we’ve quoted the Greens to remind people where they stand, and that’s part of any election campaign,” he said. “That doesn’t normally make people go ballistic. But in this case, the Green party is going ballistic because we are using their own quotes. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that kind of response in a political campaign. But the Greens have never experienced this kind of scrutiny.”
May has said protecting women’s rights is a core value all Greens are expected to uphold, and that she’ll participate in talks after an election with any elected politicians.
Vancouver Island’s seven ridings could be crucial for the NDP and Greens in deciding the balance of power should the Liberals or Conservatives win a minority government Monday.
The NDP won six of the seven Island ridings in the 2015 election. May is expected to easily hold her Saanich-Gulf Island riding. The NDP is facing pressure from Tory voters in what has previously been the Conservative-held regions of Courtenay-Alberni and North Island-Powell River.
The Green-NDP feud centres around the South Island ridings of Cowichan-Malahat-Langford, Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke and Victoria, which are considered tight, three-or-four-way races. Nanaimo-Ladysmith is also hotly contested, after the Green party’s Paul Manley beat the NDP in a byelection earlier this year.
May spent Thursday touring from Campbell River to Ladysmith. Singh is set to visit Port Alberni on Friday.
The NDP-Green feud may be surprising to some voters because, provincially, the B.C. Greens are in a friendly co-operative power-sharing deal with the B.C. NDP.
Although the federal and provincial parties sometimes share staff and volunteers (and provincial MLAs help canvass for federal candidates), the B.C. parties have also distanced themselves from their federal counterparts to some extent this election.
The Greens are separate parties federally and provincially, where as the NDP is supposed to be a unified party at both levels.
The divide is particularly evident in the NDP, where the federal campaign has struggled in its opposition of the B.C. NDP government’s liquified natural gas projects.
Premier John Horgan.
The provincial NDP and Greens also clashed in the 2017 provincial election. New Democrats and union leaders (particularly the B.C. Teachers Federation) attacked B.C. Green Leader Andrew Weaver as being a closet Liberal and online bully who was unfit for office. Weaver called NDP Leader John Horgan a career politician with an outrageous temper whose stale party didn’t deserve voter support.
May said B.C. Greens should look at how the NDP is attacking her now and be reminded of a basic lesson: The NDP isn’t the Green party’s friend when the chips are down in a campaign for votes.
“Remember what the NDP in B.C. said about Andrew Weaver — they smeared him like they are trying to smear me now,” she said.
The mudslinging isn’t surprising because of the potential for a minority outcome Monday, the value of Island ridings and the pressure on the Green party to show it’s a legitimate contender by picking up new seats, said Kimberly Speers, a University of Victoria professor who studies Canadian politics.
“We have a lot of toss-up ridings right now where it’s those two-, three-, four-way races, so if the numbers are close we’re going to be waiting for the results on if it’s a majority or minority, or which party holds power,” she said. “B.C. is really going to matter.”
Horgan said Thursday that he learned about the consequences of rhetoric in the 2017 B.C. election, after a minority government outcome required co-operation with former opponents.
“Don’t close any doors,” Horgan said, when asked to give advice to federal parties. “My mom told me a long time ago once you burn a bridge you can’t use it again. The people you are condemning today may well be your colleagues next week.”