Alright, just to keep this in mind this is a Canadian based question.... so i'll try to quickly sum it up for people who don't know how our government works.

Basically... I'm extremly confused and would appriciate it if someone would help explain this to me.

Wikipedia
On September 8, 2008, the consortium announced that they would once again exclude the Greens from the French and English debates for the 2008 election, to be held on October 1 and 2 respectively. The party had secured a seat in the House at this point (Blair Wilson), satisfying the necessary criteria used in all previous debates dating to at least 1993. (Wilson was not elected as a Green MP; however, the situation parallels that of the Bloc Quebecois in 1993 - to that point, all its members had been elected as either Conservatives or Liberals or, in Gilles Duceppe's case, as an independent, before the group formally registered as a political party. The Bloc was nevertheless included in the 1993 debates.)

Basically in Canada we have 4 main parties, Conservative, Liberal, NDP(New Democratic Party) and the Bloc Quebecois. The Green Party which is headed by Elizabeth May was excluded from joining in the debates for the 2008 election, EVEN THOUGH THEY MET THE NECESSARY CRITERIA TO PARTICIPATE. All but the Liberals threatened to boycott the debate if May attended.

The main reasons I could think of was that the Conservatives thought the Green Party would simply back the Liberals up hindering them in the election. (We have a Conservative government, Our Prime Minister Stephen Harper is looking for a majority government.)

Mkay, so anyways recently me and my friend were asking why The Green Party was not included in the debate. Our reasoning was the Green Party was still not being treated as a serious party, dispite getting around 4% of the vote last election. which is pretty good for them. The Green Party is Strongly pro enviorment,(no duh :3) and is about the only party in Canada to support legalizing Marijuana. (Controlling it though, treating it like Ciggarettes and Beer)

Well we reasoned that the Green Party is not trying to get elected, more likely there trying to push these messages of eco-friendly energy to the other parties, the liberals and the conservatives hoping to get them to change there views.

But thats what we don't get. The Green Party is trying to be eco friendly and get that kinda stuff out there. But they must realise they're never gonna get any air time beacuse of what they're doing to try and get it out. :\ They're slogans are "Vote Green or DIE" "Stop raping our mother" and "Bongs not bombs" I mean seriously, if this was a major party they'd be eaten alive by the media. Infact if you asked alot of the people living around in my city about them and what they stand for you'd most likely get the notion that there all a bunch of pot smoking hippies who still think its the sixties.

If the Green Party wants to get support to win the election or at least bring there issues to the press WHY do they insist on acting like that? They'd get alot more press if they seperated themselves from the ideas of legalizing marijuana, but they don't.


So uhhh.... can anyone try to explain this to to a simple minded 10th grader?

Well, I can give you the United Statesian view.

Radical movement leaders can occasionally do more harm than good. Shock slogans or odd events sometimes scare people away. The theory is, I think, to plant a seed in the heads of the more open minded in hopes that change will occur.

I don't know if it works.

Given the thumbnail sketch you've given us of the Green Party's policies and previous tactics, my guess would be that they've been excluded from the debate on language because the major parties do not believe they will take it seriously.

It could be argued that, as essentially a single-issue party, they have nothing to contribute to the debate anyway. But, given their previous tactics, I suspect the real fear is that they will use the debate as a platform to push their green agenda, disrupting serious debate on the language issue with grandstanding publicity stunts.

I think Signz is making it sound like the marijuana thing is a bigger part of the Green Party than it really is. We actually have a Marijuana Party here in Canada to deal with that. The Green Party's primary focus is environmental issues, obviously, but I am pretty sure they would take the debate deriously.

Ha, I love the "bongs not bombs" thing, though.

Hippie Van
I think Signz is making it sound like the marijuana thing is a bigger part of the Green Party than it really is.

nonononono. It's not one of there primary goals at all. What there suggesting is actually a pretty good plan, legalizing it but selling it like Beer and Ciggarrettes. But the problem is they do support it and the first thing many people think of when they hear they do, is there pot smoking hippies yah know? And.. there not really doing anything to help everyone else understand there not.

A lot of old people were hippies once- so maybe they're calling out to the inner hippies? =P Or maybe they're targeting young voters with their outrageous slogans. Who knows. They're just trying to get noticed and I don't mind their tactic at all actually. If they want to stand out, they'll have to be different, right? Compromising would weaken their party's identity.

I'm not too into political affairs nor that knowledgeable about them... so I don't understand why they weren't included either. Maybe they just didn't have a proper opinion on the subject matter so the consortium left them out to save trouble?

i don't know about Canada but here in the US we have dozens of third parties but they also get very little air time as far as debates. but I think that stems mostly from the debate holders trying to keep it from being a 4 day affair with so many people speaking it confuses the watchers. so they have to draw the line somewhere i have always disliked our 2 party system here (republican, democrat,) i always thought that anyone should be able to get their shot at president if they had enough followers. but I admit that if everyone who wanted to be president was put on the ballot electing a president would become a 3 ring circus.

(so I say next year we all use the American idol system to elect the president..hehe JK)
(do you guys have "Canadian idol"??)

statikpunk
(do you guys have "Canadian idol"??)

Of course there's Canadian Idol... there's even an Indian Idol, lol, but I like watching American Idol more because they have Simon. Plus, I find the Canadian judges are sort of awkward- like they're cheap copycats of the American judges and they all kind of have the same vague answers.

Canada's entire government is corrupt. Seriously, we have no good candidates... Stephen Harper is just some asshole from the west who won the elections by chance, Stephan Dion is a complete richard when it comes to freedom, no one cares about NDP, and the Bloc guy is just a damn whiner.

I'm not at all suprised that the Green party isn't getting taken seriously. They want to HELP druggies. They don't want to help save the planet either. I've seen barely any evidence of that last election. They have crappy slogans. I actually laughed when someone told me they were dead serious in voting for those guys.

That's my view anyway.