Greens see red over RCMP - are the other parties just yellow?

Does anyone else find it odd that of all the political parties, it's only the Greens who are crying foul over whether the RCMP meddled in the last election campaign?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper used to be quite vocal about his suspicions of political interference in the RCMP. For instance, here's what he said in November, 2005, weeks before the election, about how the RCMP had handled the investigation into the Liberal sponsorship affair.

"The police and the authorities have to do their job but I have a sneaking suspicion that this job would be done much more effectively and much more quickly if the Liberal party were not in power...  I'm perplexed, I'm disturbed and I think most Canadians are, that quite frankly the prosecutions have not proceeded farther along and have not been more successful."

These days, however, neither the Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats or Bloc Quebecois seem very interested in pursuing the fact that Guiliano Zaccardelli refused to assist in the probe into what happened in the 2005-06 election campaign - when he apparently specifically instructed staff to mention the name of Ralph Goodale in the bombshell news release.

May-MacKay faceoff off

Update to a previous post...

Turns out that Canadians are just going to have to wait a little longer to see Greens Leader Elizabeth May face off against Defence Minister Peter MacKay on a public stage.

MacKay, it seems, never confirmed his appearance at the American Bar Association event in New York and next week he's going to be a little preoccupied with the NATO meeting in Bucharest. So he's a no-show. May is still going, however. It's a panel discussion on global warming and Arctic sovereignty.

By-elections giving Layton pause?

We here at the Star aren't sure what to make of the fact that NDP leader Jack Layton turned down Richard Brennan's request for an interview yesterday. We were even more perplexed when Layton did manage to turn up, via broadcast feed from Washington, on Don Newman's Politics broadcast.

Newman tried several times to pull Layton off his message track, which seemed to be that the NDP was far more interested in talking about its September, 2007, win in Outremont, rather than this week's slump in the by-elections.

Here's one statistic from that evening that may be the source of some internal strategic discussions at NDP headquarters right now, even if Layton is a bit shy about talking to the Star right now.

In the three urban ridings where by-elections were held on Monday night, the Greens and NDP collected roughly the SAME number of votes.

The NDP won 3,299 votes in Toronto Centre, 1,084 votes in Willowdale and 4,064 votes in Vancouver Quadra. Grand total: 8,447 votes.

The Greens won 3,263 votes in Toronto Centre, 1,325 in Willowdale and 3,792 votes in Vancouver Quadra. Grand total: 8,380 votes.

That's a difference of less than 100 votes.

May, MacKay faceoff ... in New York?

Many believed that Green Party leader Elizabeth May made a strange strategic decision when she opted to run in Nova Scotia in the next election campaign - up against Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

Well here's another strange twist in the tale. May and MacKay are finally going to be on a public stage together in two weeks - in New York, at an American Bar Association gathering. Perhaps they're both thinking, in the words of the old song, if they can make it there, they can make it anywhere.

The two have been booked as panelists in a "showcase program" on Thursday, April 3 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan, not far from Times Square.

The subject of the discussion is Arctic sovereignty.

Here's the blurb on the ABA website: Global warming can make the Northwest Passage the shortest route between the Atlantic and the Pacific and has accelerated claims to the Arctic’s potentially vast mineral resources. The U.S. considers the straits international waters. Canada has reaffirmed its claim of internal waters and is reinforcing its military presence there. Senior officials from both countries will debate this environmentally and strategically sensitive issue.

Greens may have NDP shedding tears in their beers

It seems kind of a lame pun - which means it'll probably be everywhere - but when the results start pouring out tonight in the St. Patrick's Day by-elections, watch for the Greens.

Specifically, watch for any ridings where the Greens come in ahead of the New Democrats, notably in Ontario.

Late last year and early this year, Decima was tracking significant strength for the Greens in a perhaps surprising place - the so-called 905 suburban belt around Toronto.

It's also worth remembering that the Greens culled 8 per cent of the popular vote in the recent Ontario election and that Elizabeth May, the federal Greens leader, placed second in the London North Centre by-election in 2006.

If they do well in Ontario again tonight, what we have here is a trend, and given that the Greens tend to take support from every party, it makes them a bit of a wild card in any future general election. And the NDP should be worried.

The Green Party has been conducting its own polling in a few of the ridings holding by-elections tonight. These polls, conducted by phone from March 8-10, show that voters may be thinking of doing a little wearing of the Greens on St. Patrick's Day.

Here are the results of the Willowdale phone poll (761 voters):

36.8% Liberal Party
15.6% Conservative Party
12.0% Green Party
6.6% New Democratic Party
29.0% Undecided

And here are the results of the phone poll in Quadra (648 voters):

24.5% Liberal Party
18.8% Green Party
17.1% Conservative Party
13.3% New Democratic Party
26.2% undecided