'Sad spectacle:' May on leaders' debate
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, excluded from Tuesday's leaders debate by the broadcast consortium, blasted the event as a "sad spectacle of a partial leaders' debate."
In a press conference following the event, May called the event staged and insincere.
"I thought that was a spectacularly non-engaging, flat, predictable set of exchanges," she said.
"I think it's a pretty safe bet that by the next federal election campaign, the media consortium will have packed it in and no one will trust them to ever run a debate again because this was a travesty."
May blasted the choice of topics and viewer questions.
"I profoundly believe that what we need in Canadian politics is to get away from the scripted, away from the partisan, away from political party leaders and media deciding what Canadians want to hear," she said.
"[We need to] re-open and re-engage democracy so that Canadians can ask the questions directly … the whole event can become more spontaneous and less scripted, and … the issues that are orphaned by the political elites can get back in the forefront."
May said the list of issues left out of the debate is long, including First Nations issues, Canada's position in Libya, food policy, homelessness, energy policy, arts funding and the environment.
"This will be, I think, remembered by history books as a dark day for Canadian democracy," she said.
"That we can have a debate with four out of five federal party leaders of substantive, serious political parties — that that debate could concentrate on a pre-selected handful of issues, without spontaneity — and I think, for most Canadian voters, that that debate will not encourage them to get involved in Canadian democracy."
In a live online chat with CBC News during the debate, May was highly critical of the Conservative Party, criticizing their tough-on-crime approach and urging the government to take steps to tackle white-collar crime and organized crime.
May also advocated working towards a restorative justice system in order to defend victims, and "redirect law enforcement resources from a failed cannabis prohibition strategy to where we need resources to deal with threats of crimes of violence."
In addition, May weighed in on immigration during the the live chat, saying "backlogs in the immigration system grew under the Harper government because they have failed to re-appoint people to the Immigration Appeal Boards."
She added the Harper government has "tampered with the immigration system" by moving from a fair approach to "cherry-picking certain potential immigrants offering certain job skills."
She also blasted Harper for saying there were no corporate tax cuts in the Conservative budget.
"This government has cut them steadily and plans to do so again from 16.5 per cent this year to 15 per cent next year."
May also advocated for a new approach to the long-gun registry, "so rural Canadians and First Nations do not feel criminalized by owning a long gun. Greens believe we need to listen to those who find the system onerous to make it work better for them."
