Re: ‘Green Party at crossroads as winds of change blow’ (Editorial, PQB News, Feb. 4)
Your editorial on the state of the Green Party was informative and timely, but it raised two relative and vital issues.
First of course is the decades-long refusal by elected governments to introduce a fair voting system, and the last election proves the point.
Representation of votes cast for Green Party candidates was shredded, as they ended up with three MPs when votes cast for their candidates should have returned about 20.
The NDP also ended up with just over half the MPs due from votes cast for them – 29 instead of 53. Multiple thousands of voters have been casually disenfranchised, and there is no stated intention by the winners to rectify this shambles; we must assume their previous (carefully abandoned) promise to introduce PR has been classified “Do Not Discuss” and written off.
But where is the outrage, the mass walk-out from Parliament, the shouted demands by the losers for rapid introduction of an already debated, published, and un-biased PR system? Quiet acceptance is a sort of death wish.
The other, less obvious issue also remains quietly unaddressed, namely the way that all parties are funded by private donation, a dark hole indeed.
To a considerable extent parties – and therefore policies – are bought by great wealth, the Greens clearly suffering the most.
I suggest that since parties are a national necessity just as are their derived governments, they should be funded from the tax base in the same way. The purchase of political influence through parties must be utterly outlawed.
Russ Vinden
Errington