Invited or not, Elizabeth May made herself heard on Twitter during federal debate

May, who was not invited to the debate, gave her two cents despite not being invited.

Thestar.com
Sept. 17, 2015
By Robin Levinson King

Elizabeth May might not have been invited to the leaders debate on the economy, but that didn’t stop the Green Leader from giving her two cents.

The Globe and Mail chose not to invite May to Thursday night’s debate, which was filmed at Calgary’s Stampede Park, arguing that limiting the format to just the leaders of the country’s biggest parties would be more “focused.”

Not one to be silenced, May provided running commentary in a series of videos produced and broadcast via Twitter from a church in Victoria, B.C.

“As I attempt to make sense of those three men arguing over each other incomprehensibly, I wonder if it’s occurred to the Globe and Mail that this wasn’t exactly the focused debate they wanted,” she quipped.

While Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair and Conservative Leader Stephen Harper battled it out over whose economic vision would best lead Canada to prosperity, May provided her own take on economic policy and fact-checked some of her opponents’ claims.

“Mr. Harper wants us to believe he looks after the interests of the auto-sector when conducting trade deals: not so,” she said. “Our trade deficit with Korea is growing, and only the Green Party voted against it.”

May also slammed her opponents for not talking about women’s inequality in the economy, and retweeted an official Green Party tweet calling tonight’s debate a boys club.

“We’re falling behind and we do not have job equity,” she said.

May, along with Trudeau and Mulcair, will be participating in the Up for Debate panel on women’s issues on Monday night, which is co-sponsored by the Star. Although the panel was planned as a live debate, Harper declined to participate, and the format was changed to include pre-taped interviews with candidates.

Without a moderator of her own, May was free to volunteer as much - or as little - information as she chose about the Green Party’s own fiscal plan. May promised to lower taxes on small businesses to 9 per cent, create a skills fund to promote green business development, as well as a plan to reduce student debt and abolish.

“We want to ensure that no Canadian student has more than $10,000 student debt, and that applies to existing students and future students,” she said.

A large portion of the live debate was devoted to each candidate’s tax plans - notably the Mulcair’s plan to hike corporate taxes. May sides with this idea, saying tax cuts to corporations “slosh around” in bank accounts.

But she plans to increase taxes all the way up to 19 per cent, while Mulcair has said he’ll cap them at 17 per cent.