Elizabeth May: 'The Greens are in the debates in 2015'

Are Canada’s three major political parties trying to keep the Green Party out of election debates?

Elizabeth May thinks they might be.

The Green Party of Canada leader says that recent speculation over whether or not she’ll be in the upcoming federal leaders’ debates may be coming from the parties themselves in an effort to keep her from participating.

“There’s a lot of speculation,” May told Yahoo Canada News. “I would say that maybe the Liberals, the NDP and the Conservatives are putting up some trial balloons to see whether they can figure out a way to keep me out.”

According to media reports, May and the leaders of the smaller Bloc Québécois and Forces et Démocratie parties could be blocked from joining Prime Minister Stephen Harper, NDP leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau when leaders go head to head during the 2015 federal election campaign. But May doesn’t buy this.

"The criteria were pretty clear in the past. It’s absurd to imagine they could reinvent all the rules."  

“If you look at precedence, the Greens are in the debates in 2015,” she said.

There aren’t clearly-defined rules for how the network consortium — the group of Canadian TV networks that make the final decision on how many debates take place and who participates — works, but May said she’s clued in on what the general criteria has been in the past.

“The confusion is perhaps a bit of an effort, which would be unfortunate, if other parties want to try to keep me out, but I think I’ve met the consortium’s standards.”

May recalled the 1993 leader’s debates that included Reform Party leader Preston Manning, even though he didn’t have a seat in the House of Commons at the time. The only Reform MP — the party’s first — was Deborah Grey, who’d won in a 1989 byelection.

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The Bloc doesn’t run candidates in every riding across the country, and never has, but former leader Gilles Duceppe has participated in nationally-televised leader’s debates.

The Greens do have an elected member in the House, as May was elected in 2011. And now, with Bruce Hyer’s move from the NDP to independence, and then to the Greens, there are two MPs under the Green banner. They will also be running a candidate in every riding in this year’s election and have done so since 2004, May said.

“The criteria were pretty clear in the past,” she said. “It’s absurd to imagine they could reinvent all the rules.”

May added that she brings something to debates that other leaders don’t.

“I don’t rehearse,” she said. “I don’t have a bunch of people telling me how to arch my eyebrow, or when to make a zinger point. I have a strategy for debate...which is I listen to the question that’s being asked, and I do my best to answer it.”

May’s history of participating in leader’s debates has been checkered; she was excluded from the last round, in 2011.

“In 2008, we know that both Stephen Harper and Jack Layton said that if I was included in the debate, they wouldn’t show up,” May said. That year, though — because Liberal MP Blair Wilson had defected to the Greens, and because of public pressure to include the Green leader — she was allowed to participate.

She added that it would be a disservice to the public if she wasn’t present. She said it would communicate to voters that the Greens aren’t an option, even though they will have a candidate in every constituency.

Asked about May’s contentions, Cameron Ahmad, a spokesperson for the Liberal Party, said in an email that the Liberal Party’s focus leading up to the election will be for its leader to meet as many Canadians as possible.

“Mr. Trudeau believes that engaging more Canadians in the political process, including through the debates, is a good thing. We look forward to the eventual discussions on this subject,” he wrote.

The NDP’s Mulcair has said that he will follow whatever the network consortium decides, and that he will participate in any debate where he can face off against Stephen Harper.

“We’re looking forward to Tom debating Stephen Harper and any other leader” the consortium invites to the table, said George Soule, the party’s associate director of media.

Conservative Party director of communications Cory Hann told Yahoo Canada News that the election, and the debates, will be an opportunity for Canadians to see their choice between Harper and Trudeau; Hann didn’t mention the leader of the official opposition.

He added that the CPC isn’t in the position to confirm scheduling decisions for the October 2015 election campaign.

Follow Laura on Twitter: @laurabeaulne