Good Sunday Morning and first day of fall!
The celestial bodies moving around the sun, notably our lovely planet, cross the equator. Looking this up online to verify if it was September 21, as I had always thought, or today, I found all manner of references that seems to suggest the sun moved around the earth and not vice versa. This bit from Wikipedia is clear but it is amusing how easily we are mislead into pre-Copernican understanding. Humans have no trouble acting as though the earth is flat and we are the centre of it all. Intellectually we know that is not the case, but when you look at how we act, I wonder how much we really “get” our insignificance. The September equinox (or southward equinox) is the moment when the Sun appears to cross the celestial equator, heading southward. Because of differences between the calendar year and the tropical year, the September equinox may occur from September 21 to 24. This year it is today, so happy Fall!
On Monday, September 16, Parliament opened and Mike and I held a morning press conference to outline the Green Party’s priorities for the fall session. Watch it in full here.
We also had an unscheduled emergency debate on the recent killings of Indigenous people by RCMP and other police forces. My friend Lori Idlout, MP for Nunavut, brought the motion forward to the Speaker to allow for an emergency debate. Such debates do not involve a vote but do open up significant opportunities to get the facts out. Neither Lori nor I thought the Speaker would find that the recent horrific killings rose to the level of an emergency, so normalized has police brutality toward racialized and Indigenous people become. It was great that he did. I have been railing against RCMP and police abuse for years, calling for massive reforms. Mike also got in a speech and mine is here.
No doubt our first day in Parliament was eventful. On Friday, I defended my amendments to Bill C-33 to get freighters out of anchorages on the Salish Sea and ban the export of thermal coal.
Meanwhile, this week has seen the launch of the two October provincial elections across Canada where Greens have the best opportunity to inject debates and solutions that could make a major shift. New Brunswick Green leader David Coon leads a caucus of three elected NB Green MLAs and was granted “recognized party” status years ago, A strong team is running across the province. Having campaigned with them in May, I feel confident NB Greens are going to do very well. If you are a francophone, please consider volunteering to phone into Acadian communities! Even better if you have an Acadian accent!
And of course, here in BC, Greens are off to the races. BC Greens also have recognized party status and have consistently punched well above their weight in the Legislature. Like David Coon’s media coverage in NB, the BC media is finally coming to realize BC voters are not stuck with a horrible binary choice–choosing between worse or worser. Sonia Furstenau has been making fantastic points in her press work, calling out David Eby for supporting punitive forced confinement for people struggling with mental health issues. She asked if Eby had to follow Rustad off “every reactionary cliff.”
NB voters have never supported the NDP at all, so there is no NDP MLA in the NB Legislature. And here in BC with the bizarre self-immolation of what used to be called BC “Liberals” voters are increasingly drawn to Greens.
Meanwhile the theatrical tensions in Parliament are getting plenty of media attention. On Wednesday, Poilevre will get his chance to hold a vote of “no confidence” in Trudeau and his government. Both the Bloc Quebecois and the NDP have already said they will vote for and with the current government, so the vote will not trigger an election.
Honestly, Mike and I are still thinking about how we vote. Ever since Trudeau bought the Kinder Morgan pipeline, we have not voted confidence in the government, voting against every budget. But this is a stunt. And it is a stunt just as these provincial elections are underway. We are inclined to vote with the other opposition parties to underscore that this is a Poilievre stunt and not a normal confidence vote. Still, I am not sure. Please send me your thoughts!
Poilievere’s attacks on Singh have gotten increasingly nasty and personal. CBC asked me to comment on what I thought of Poilievre claiming Jagmeet Singh would not want an election until his personal pension is “locked in.” I am very critical of Jagmeet Singh for his lack of climate action, but I really think it borders on slander to say personal financial gain drives his decision on when we should go to the polls. CBC interviewed me about pensions. I gave them all my personal information, of course. But they did notice that the defined benefit plan MPs get requires us to pay in large amounts while we are working. Not that I would complain. I think we should lower MP salaries, but I do not get a vote on that.
There have been protesters outside parliament this week, accosting MPs as we walk by. Jagmeet Singh went back and confronted some men who had been yelling at him. Not a good idea, but it is his choice. By Thursday, Parliament had descended into school yard taunts with Jagmeet Singh–quite wrongly under our rules–taunting Poilievre to come down to his seat. It appeared Jagmeet was spoiling for a physical fight! But it is also the case that all the questions from Poilievre to Singh and Blanchet also broke our rules. Question period is only for questions to Government members; there is no scope for the leader of the Conservative Party to attack the leaders of the Bloc Quebecois and NDP. I sympathized with the Speaker’s predicament, but I would have cut off Poilievre and not recognized him again. We cannot allow Parliament to become a spectacle of threats and taunts.
Wish me luck. I will do my best to get things done and raise the level of discourse and lowering the temperature. Oh my!
Talk to you next Sunday!
Much love,
Elizabeth
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