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Opposition to Green Party Through Debate Exclusion

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The Green Party of Canada has a filed a complaint with the Canada Revenue Agency over its exclusion from the upcoming Munk Debate on Sept. 28, 2015.

The party claims that by not allowing them to participate in the debate, the Aurea Foundation, the registered charity organizing the event, is in violation of the Income Tax Act. The party meets the definition of a political party under s. 149.1(6.1)(c) of the Act.

In a news release earlier this year, the Munk Debate organizers stated,

There are two ways in which someone is a leader of a party in Canada. The first is by Elections Canada which formally registers political parties under the Elections Canada Act. The second is by the Parliament of Canada Act where a party is recognized if 12 or more MPs identify as such in the House of Commons.

In a statement to the CRA the party said,

The Green Party of Canada is a political party within the meaning of 149.1(6.1)(c) of the ITA, and it should be afforded the same opportunity to participate in the Debate as is being given to the political parties whose leaders are allowed to participate.

Except there are a lot of parties who meet that definition. The registered parties with Elections Canada include a list far too long and unwieldy to provide a productive debate:

 

Not all of these parties are created equally. The Rhino Party, for those who are not familiar, is a parody party with positions such as this:

Since 1963, the Rhino Party is promising to repeal the Law of Gravity and to move the Rockies into the Great Lakes to create jobs and make Canada an equal country. We believe children should be allowed to vote, as long as they can make an ‘X’ !

There is obviously a distinction between “registration” and “recognition.”

The Parliament of Canada Act provided recognition for recognized parties starting in 1963. Recognition provides these parties additional resources under the “internal economy” of Parliament, and provides them time to speak during Question Period.

In other words, the debates in Parliament are largely reserved for parties that have recognition.

Common debating practice in Parliament may not end the debate on recognition for external debates however. In a 2008 paper by Michel Bédard James R. Robertson of The Parliamentary Information and Research Service of the Library of Parliament, the authors note a number of unique features of recognition.

Canadian Parliament prior to 1963 had smaller parties recognized, and the number “12” was chosen in 1963 without consultation of these smaller parties. The authors state,

The requirement for 12 members was originally introduced solely in the context of allowances for party leaders; it does not appear to have been intended for any other purposes. According to John C. Courtney, technically the 12-member threshold in the 1963 statute and parliamentary procedure had nothing to do with one another “…yet the timing of the event was virtually certain to produce a combination that would lead to the injection of the phrase ‘recognized membership of 12 or more persons in the House of Commons’ into future debates over regulations and statutes dealing with political parties. The term, indeed more specifically the number, would gradually assume an authenticity of its own.”
[emphasis added]

There are exceptions where smaller parties have briefly been provided time during Question Period, but not necessarily as a leader of opposition. In 1979, a six-member Créditiste Party introduced an amendment to a motion, but its leader was treated as any other private member. The Speaker referred to the customary traditions of the House to justify his decision.

The problem the Green Party has here is,

…our complaint is that, in the context of the current election and in the specific circumstance of the sole public debate for party leaders that is devoted exclusively to foreign policy issues, the effect of not including Ms. May is to diminish the standing of the Green Party of Canada in the mind of the electorate, which amounts to an indirect opposition to the Green Party.

The Munk Debate is not only excluding the Green Party of Canada, but also a large number of other political parties, most of whom do not even hold a seat in Parliament. The Green Party of Canada at least has the advantage of currently holding two seats.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved Elizabeth May in the Maclean’s debate on Aug. 6, 2015. But if the Munk Debate was truly following Parliamentary form, it would allocate speaking time of the political leaders in its debate based on the number of seats the party currently holds. And that wouldn’t be much of a debate at all.

Given the way the Globe & Mail debate on Sept. 17 without May turned out, the legal debate over the status of The Green Party for the Munk Debate may prove more attractive than the main show itself.

 

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