JCT: After pro-LETS Jim Harris failed to put the LETS
software into practice for Canada's Green Party members,
despite his having had the funding to easily do so, we now
have pro-LETS Elizabeth May just elected who will be urged
to do so. Surely, whoever is handling their database can
operate a LETS for Green members. I did for Abolitionist
members, the first political party in history to practice
the LETS we preached.

August 30, 2006
May's election might be breakthrough Greens need
By SHEILA COPPS
Sun Media

SC: Without even a voice in the televised debates, the Green
Party garnered 664,000 votes in the last federal election.

JCT: Without even a voice in the televised debates of a
"democratic" electoral process.. and nobody noticed the
contradiction.

SC: With the choice of media magnet Elizabeth May as leader
this past weekend, the party now has the potential for a
real breakthrough. May has government experience, having
served as an assistant to Conservative environment minister
Tom McMillan in the heady days leading to the Tories' 1980s-
era "green plan." She helped build a world consensus in Rio
on biodiversity, which lead to one of the most celebrated
United Nations conventions. She has credentials as the
longstanding president of Canada's Sierra Club, an
environmental organization with a solid reputation. May can
be a tough critic. She was difficult to please when I served
as environment minister in Jean Chretien's Liberal
government. But she has the unique gift of being able to cut
across political boundaries in search of environmental
soulmates. That capacity will be put to the ultimate test in
the next election.
May's immediate challenge is to secure a place in the
televised leaders' debates.

JCT: Most "equitable time" challenges have been filed by me
in the unrecorded 1980s when I demanded the chance to hear
the Greens and all other party leaders too. See:
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel/fedcases.htm

SC: With 4.5 per cent of the popular vote, it would be
unthinkable to exclude the Greens again.

JCT: But so far, it's not been unthinkable to exclude them
and all other well-known minor parties like Libertarians or
Communists or Marxist-Leninists whose dreams of fairness
are vaguely similar.

SC: May's impeccable media connections will certainly
influence the broadcast consortium that sets the rules of
engagement for this pivotal campaign event. May has always
had a keen political and media nose. It was at her
insistence that former prime minister Brian Mulroney was
feted last spring in the nation's capital as Canada's
"greenest" PM. Mulroney was too ill to attend the original
recognition luncheon in Toronto, so May helped organize an
Ottawa gala. The star-studded event included corporate
sponsors and a great crowd, from PM Stephen Harper and
Quebec Liberal Premier Jean Charest to Canadian Idol host
Ben Mulroney and comedian Rick Mercer (and yours truly).

JCT: Feting "Lying Brian." Sad. I picketed Brian's first
few years every Thursday on Parliament Hill after my weekly
protest at the Bank of Canada.

SC: May managed to recruit politicians and media types in
the celebration of Mulroney's green agenda, which was even
broadcast live - in prime time. It was also a smart way to
engage Harper on environmental issues.

JCT: I guess flattery can be a political tool.

KYOTO FUMBLE
After fumbling Kyoto, the prime minister reportedly plans to
go green this fall in search of votes.

JCT: Harper's going to have a change of heart. Har, har,
har, har.

SC: This time, he will face significant opposition from a
knowledgeable Green leader.

JCT: Significant opposition? From the sidelines if Big
Brother won't let her on the debate?

SC: May walks the talk. She neither owns a car nor a
cellphone. That may not sell on Bay Street, but it certainly
has appeal with soccer moms who care about their children's
drinking water. An officer of the Order of Canada, May has
the national profile her predecessor Jim Harris lacked.

JCT: And hopefully the financial acumen Jim lacked. I pity
him going down in Green history as having been first to have
the million dollar resource to implement the LETS rocket
engine. The Greens could have been optimizing funding with
tax credits via LETS distribution of goodies software for
years and didn't because of Jim.
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel/txcrdts.htm
If Ms. May starts up a Green Party LETS in promotion of the
Canada LETS program on their platform and party membership
takes off, won't Jim look like the loser I told him he'd be
if he didn't use the party's new million dollars to set
themselves up a LETS.

SC: She is also a bright, articulate woman in a sea of men's
suits. Unless something radical happens with the Liberals in
December, she will be the only woman leading a party in the
next federal election. May provides a potent contrast to the
power elites who gravitate to the political status quo. That
is why she is already being trashed - for opposing the
current North American Free Trade Agreement. (Many may have
forgotten that such a position almost vaulted
Saskatchewanian David Orchard to the head of the old Tory
party.)

Many reasonable Canadians wonder why a trade agreement
should take precedence over an international environmental
treaty. May hopes to reach out to a broader public. Smart
growth, rural living and Canadians' health depend on a
balance between the business of business and the business of
the people. By breaking out of the narrow Green box, May
predicts the kind of electoral breakthrough that Greens have
already enjoyed in Europe. Unlike Europe, though, Canadian
leaders need to win their own seat in the House of Commons.
By setting her sights on her home riding in Cape Breton, May
is gambling on her own star power to make a breakthrough.
Nova Scotians love their politics and, judging from NDPer
Alexa McDonough's success there, they like women in
leadership. Cape Breton is a gamble that May cannot afford
to lose. But politics is one place where a little gamble can
take you a long way.
Sheila Copps is a Sun Media federal politics columnist
---

Meagan Fitzpatrick, CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, August 28, 2006
OTTAWA -- From a campground in Alberta to a convention
centre in Ottawa, the Green party has turned over a new leaf
since it gathered two years ago.
The weekend convention in Ottawa was the largest Green
gathering in the party's history, with 400 participants.
New leader Elizabeth May called it a "watershed."
"This is the moment when we come of age, when the media is
interested in our choice of leader; this is a moment that is
going to carry us through to the next federal election where
we will win seats," May said.
The longtime environmental activist was elected leader of
the Green party on Saturday over challengers David
Chernushenko and Jim Fannon.
The man May is replacing, Jim Harris, agreed with his
successor.
"This conference has been an absolutely incredible
experience for everybody who has been present," he said.
"We've come a long way," added Harris, who led the party for
nearly four years and now takes the title of senior party
strategist.
The party has nearly doubled its membership to 9,000 people
since January, and many attribute the boost to the
excitement over the leadership contest.

JCT: In the 21 years since I was ejected from the party by
the Ontario Branch for promoting LETS without party fuhrer
Trevor Hancock's permission, they've grown to just over
9000 members, about 30 members per riding. At that rate,
they could match the other major parties in a few millennia
though it doubled due to the new members joining to vote at
the convention. When I tried to run in Ottawa in 1984, my getting
members to join and vote for me was criticized by Party
Fuhrer Trevor Hancock for as "competitive stacking," the
reason he called off the Ottawa Center convention and
appointed John Dodson without an election, thus making sure
I couldn't win the nomination due to my "competitive
stacking" if there was no election.

The ChronicleHerald.ca
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA | Wednesday August 30, 2006

Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada, is all
smiles after winning the leadership Saturday. Ms. May, a
former Sierra Club executive director, says it shouldn't
take voters long to recognize that her shoot-from-the-lip
political style is a little bit different from that of
traditional politicians.
(FRED CHARTRAND / CP) It's May's day Green party's new
national leader promises to be a breath of fresh air

JCT: Heck of a build-up of expectations for the girl.

By STEPHEN MAHER Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA - You don't have to spend much time with Elizabeth
May to see she's serious in saying she doesn't plan to be a
traditional politician. The newly elected leader of the
Green Party of Canada says things that most politicians
would never, ever say. For example, she admits she might not
win a seat in Cape Breton-Canso in the next election. She
doesn't really agree with her party's opposition to the seal
hunt. She praises politicians in other parties, including
Alexa McDonough, Brian Mulroney and former Liberal
environment minister Stephane Dion. Ms. May will even
comment on Premier Rodney Mac-Donald's recent marital
problems. "They probably got married too young - a
neighbourhood observation," she said over lunch in Ottawa on
Tuesday. "But having failed to hang on to any marriage, I'm
not going to judge. Obviously, if he were cheating on his
wife, I would kind of hold that against him, but I don't
think that should be a political issue."
Ms. May seems to say more or less exactly what she thinks
about everything - a rarity in Ottawa, where party leaders
try to avoid saying anything important unless they run it
past their teams of advisers and pollsters. The former
leader of the environmental group the Sierra Club, Ms. May
won the leadership of the Greens this weekend on the first
ballot. She was raised in Connecticut but lived for years in
Margaree Harbour and rose to national prominence largely
because of her work in pushing for a cleanup of the Sydney
tar ponds. She vows that she will not avoid controversy now
that she is a politician.

Even as she celebrated her victory with her speech on the
weekend, she shocked many by calling for the North American
Free Trade Agreement to be renegotiated. Ms. May does not
look like Canada's four other party leaders. She describes
herself as "an overweight 52-year-old with a bad hip,"
dresses stylishly but casually and has an unruly mop of
greying blond hair. She is unusually animated as she talks,
cracking politically incorrect jokes and laughing often. She
said she won't even have to point out that she is different
from the other party leaders. "I don't have to say a thing,"
she said. "It's going to be obvious. It's just how it plays
out. Four guys in suits who are going to be into prescripted
sound-bite mode, with their groomers and handlers having
coached them. And they're not going to be thinking on their
feet. And they're not going to say what they really think.
And I think voters will catch on to that pretty fast."

The Greens have a budget of more than $1 million and won
more than five per cent of the vote in the last election
with a leader who was not as media-savvy or well-known as
Ms. May. She predicted the party will do better now and will
soon elect its first members, but she's not sure she will be
the first. She has promised to run in Cape Breton-Canso in
the next election but acknowledged it would be quite an
upset if she were to beat the popular Liberal MP, Rodger
Cuzner. But she said she doesn't need to win the riding to
be successful.
( smaher@...)

The Green gamble working.com
Ottawa Citizen
Published: Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The Greens are taking a chance with Elizabeth May. She could
turn the party into a contender, or, if she grows too
enamoured with her own reputation as an "activist," she
could turn it into a flakier version of the NDP.
May has the country's attention, having emerged victorious
from a high-profile leadership convention. This is a time to
put the party's best ideas front and centre. May's comments
as leader so far are not encouraging. She seems to have
chosen the renegotiation of NAFTA as her priority. That's an
odd choice for a leader looking to broaden the party's
appeal. May says she isn't anti-trade, but her dismissal of
NAFTA will make many Canadians nervous. Besides, NAFTA isn't
dominating dinner-table debates.
The broader issue of climate change presents the best
opportunity for the Greens to shine. The Conservatives have
yet to explain fully how they plan to reduce emissions. The
NDP wants to encourage green behaviour without discouraging
harmful behaviour. Veteran Liberals are running from an
awful climate-change record.

JCT: They're telling her to keep her nose in environment and
out of finance.

Many Canadians are sick of talk and ready to consider ideas
that seemed radical a few years ago, including tax reform to
encourage green solutions and discourage pollution. May
should be fighting to keep tax-shifting squarely in Green
territory: Liberal leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff --
a centre-right thinker -- is in the process of stealing it
away. There are other policy areas in which the traditional
parties have not kept up with the electorate. On foreign
aid, both Liberals and Conservatives have been disingenuous.
Farm policy also has been a mess for years. The Green party,
though, has a wealth of agricultural know-how. Smart food
policy appeals to many constituencies.

JCT: Stick to what they know best, not finance!

May's energy and devotion to principle have been assets to
Canada's environmentalist movement. She need not temper
those qualities now that she's leading the Greens. But she
will have to think more about what Canadians want than what
she wants. If she can do that, the Green party will grow.

May's next move: Taking Greens mainstream
2006 The Halifax Herald Limited
By MARILLA STEPHENSON

MS: ELIZABETH MAY has never been one to back down from a
challenge. As the landslide winner of the federal Green
party leadership, she's going to be facing another big one.
The 52-year-old Cape Breton environmentalist and Dalhousie
law school graduate, best known to Canadians as the longtime
executive director of the Sierra Club, took the weekend
convention with a two-to-one, first-ballot victory over her
nearest challenger. The race was seen as a contest that
pitted the left-wing May, with a stellar record of
environmental activism, coupled with such prestigious awards
as Officer of the Order of Canada, against David
Chernushenko. He was widely viewed as very similar to the
more right-wing Jim Harris, the business-friendly former
leader who left this year after the party failed to win a
single seat in the January federal election.

JCT: Jim Harris, the business-friendly former leader who
didn't see the potential of a LETS financial network linking
all his party members.

MS: Harris's efforts could hardly be judged a failure,

JCT: Depends on whether future members will thank him or
curse him for failing to use the party's first funds to
engineer the LETS rocket engine.

MS:though, given that he moved the party to 4.5 per cent of
the popular vote, up from 4.3 per cent in 2004. That was the
breakthrough year for the Greens, enabling the party to
begin receiving federal funding after gaining more than two
per cent of the federal vote.

Connecticut-born May, who now lives in Ottawa, says she will
run for the Greens in Cape Breton-Canso, a seat renamed with
a slightly different boundardy in 2004 that has been held
over the past three elections by Liberal Rodger Cuzner. She
had also run unsuccessfully in 1980 against Liberal stalwart
Allan J. MacEachen....

JCT: Why not adopt a LETS financial program and run for
mayor. I can't fun in Ottawa.

In her Sierra Club role, May was also part of the Green
Budget Coalition, which this spring called on Harper to
redirect spending towards a series of environmental
measures. The group dug up a quote from a 2004 Harper speech
in which he called for a review of "corporate welfare." The
group used the quote as a wedge to call for the new prime
minister to reduce subsidies to petroleum, nuclear and
mining companies. And rather than criticizing those
industries directly, the group presented the cuts as a cost-
saving measure, given Harper's earlier complaints about
government overspending.
A 2005 study by the Pembina Institute in Alberta estimates
the petroleum industry alone receives $1.4 billion in annual
subsidies. This weekend, political opportunity knocked
again. Environmentalism increasingly cuts across party lines
and should hold a more prominent place in the national
agenda.
Still, May will face an uphill battle to convince Canadian
voters that the Green party is a mainstream option - a
necessity to gain seats in Parliament and a voice in setting
national policy. ( mstephenson@...)

The ChronicleHerald.ca
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA | Wednesday August 30, 2006
Greenhorn heads Greens

NOVA SCOTIA has maintained its propensity for producing
national political leaders. Cape Breton-raised Elizabeth May
was chosen to head the Green Party of Canada on Saturday and
vows to launch her parliamentary career by seeking a Commons
seat from the Island. It's the third time in recent years
that a Bluenose has been put in charge of a national party.
Alexa McDonough headed Canada's New Democrats from 1995 to
2003, Peter MacKay ruled federal Progressive Conservatives
until he merged the PCs with Stephen Harper's Alliance
party, and now Ms. May leads the fledgling Greens.

Ms. May, 52, was born in Hartford, Conn. Settling in rural
Cape Breton in the 1970s, the May family, including
Elizabeth, embraced the Island and environmental causes with
passion. The younger May was involved in opposing spruce
budworm-spraying and later, as executive director of the
Sierra Club, in challenging the type of cleanup proposed for
Sydney's tar ponds.A graduate of Dalhousie University and
adviser to federal environment minister Tom McMillan in the
1980s, Ms. May raised her personal profile considerably
during her stint at the Sierra Club. Her determination to
make the tar ponds cleanup a national issue saw her stage a
hunger strike on Parliament Hill; and her media savvy,
especially her capacity for being quite quotable, has served
her well in promoting other environmental issues.

Green members, who made Ms. May their first-ballot choice
for leader, are counting on her to keep the party in the
headlines and to stage a breakthrough in electing candidates
to the Commons. Her win was impressive as she garnered 65
per cent of ballots cast, but much work remains to boost
party fortunes.

Retiring leader Jim Harris put the party on the electoral
map, fielding candidates in all 308 ridings in the last two
elections and tapping into federal funding under Elections
Canada rules. The new leader is pledging to attract
prominent Canadians to run under the Green banner, and to
seek the Cape Breton-Canso seat (held by Liberal Roger
Cuzner) herself in the next election. (She said she would
run in a byelection anywhere in Canada if one were called
before a general election.)

JCT: Good for her, we'll run against each other in the
upcoming Montreal byelection.

MS: Ms. May has promised to stage policy sessions across the
country and to call on experts to craft a comprehensive
platform with new ideas. She is already rightly pushing TV
networks to include her in the leaders' debate in the next
election.

JCT: She's going to have to carry the torch to get all
parties into the debate too, not just her.

MS: It's a request that should be accepted, given her party
is running candidates in all ridings and is eligible for
federal funding.

JCT: Though nowhere in the election rules does it say a
party needs x% support. The CRTC legislation says it should
be "equitable, quantitatively and qualitatively" though
complaints invariably fall on deaf ears.

With the Greens perceived as being a one-issue party,
focused solely on the environment, the challenge for Ms. May
will be to broaden the party's agenda to make voters
disillusioned with the three mainstream parties feel at
home. Her track record for attracting public attention will
now be put to the test.

TheStar.com - Editorial:
Greens still too fuzzy
Aug. 30, 2006. 01:00 AM

Elizabeth May, the celebrated environmental lawyer and
activist, has given a much-needed boost to the Green Party
of Canada's profile by winning the party's leadership.
May, who quit as executive director of the Sierra Club
Canada to enter the race, will bring a welcome clarity and
focus to environmental issues, from climate change to clean
water, in the next federal election.

But if her party is to become more than just an outspoken
force on the environment, it needs to stake out a more
comprehensive position on all the issues facing Canadians.
The party's slim 30-page platform talks in generalities of
reforming the tax system, addressing Canada's fiscal
imbalance, improving the lot of women and rejecting "red
tape simply for the sake of red tape."

Woefully short on detail, it calls for "health, not just
health care," lessening the financial burden for post-
secondary students, affordable housing, properly funded arts
and culture and support for Canada's immigrant communities.
May hopes she can inspire voters who are now disillusioned
with politics, particularly youth, women, natives and
members of Canada's multicultural communities.

JCT: I guess Jim didn't explain how LETS could provide the
funding to solve all of the "underfunding" problems.

The party has some momentum. In the last election, it
attracted a record 665,940 votes or 4.5 per cent of the
vote, but won no Commons seats. Still, the 2003 changes to
electoral financing laws have proved a boon for the Greens,
who will collect about $1.2 million annually in federal
funds to run their operations.

JCT: $1.2 million a year and Jim couldn't offer his members
a LETS account.

But polls show the Greens have one of the biggest gaps
between the number of people who consider voting for it and
those who actually do. That is why spelling out a full
platform is critical for the Greens. And while the Greens
claim ownership of the environment issue, both the Liberals
and New Democrats are united on the need to clean up the
air, soil and water and both are already vying for the non-
Tory vote.

JCT: They's for motherhood and apple pie too.

That is precisely where another problem lies for the
Greens. Collectively, the Liberals, NDP and Greens won more
than half the votes in last January's election. The
Conservatives won their minority with just 36 per cent of
the vote. The Tories would be in a good position to win the
next election, too, if these three keep vying for and
splitting the same left-of-centre votes. Thus the challenge
for the Greens is to explain why they remain a separate
party at all, rather than merging with the NDP or the
Liberals to push an agenda that would be attractive to
progressive liberal voters who want both to protect the
environment and defeat the Conservatives.

JCT: Good point and the best difference is that their
program preaches using LETS, even if past leadership hasn't
praticed was preached. Only 1 NDPer ever had the brains to
grasp LETS is another good reason.

Vancouver Sun
Appealing new leader not enough to turn Greens into winners
Published: Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The Green Party of Canada has always fared better in public
opinion polls than it has on election day. That was supposed
to change in the last election, when for the first time the
party had the advantage of public funding for its campaign.
But the public dollars were not enough to achieve anything
close to winning a single seat in Parliament in a race in
which the party was all but ignored by the media and voters
alike -- and then leader Jim Harris finished fourth in his
home riding.

JCT: With an average of 20 members per riding, what did he
expect?

Once again the party has a new leader promising a political
breakthrough, but for the first time that promise now may
have some credibility. The choice of veteran environmental
campaigner Elizabeth May does not guarantee the party will
be represented in the House of Commons after the next
election. But it greatly increases the odds that the Green
Party will play an important role in the campaign and that
its issues will be part of the debate.

In Europe, where Green politicians have been able to win
seats above the municipal level, they have depended on
proportional voting systems for their success. Under such
system, a party that gets five per cent of the vote in a
100-seat parliament can expect a proportionate share of
seats. In our winner-take-all system, it is much harder to
achieve a breakthrough. The fact that Canadians understand
that a vote for a Green candidate is essentially a protest
vote makes it that much more difficult to attract support.

On a policy level, the Green Party has had several planks in
its platform that on their own were attractive to voters.
But they have failed miserably at relating those individual
planks to a coherent or affordable economic strategy. A new
leader, even one with May's credentials, won't be enough for
the Green's to shuck its fringe status without a platform
that works for mainstream Canada.

JCT: But thousands of time-trading members would. What a
great and unique of belonging to the Greens, an interest-
free world-wide time-bank credit card!

The convention and leadership election attracted national
media coverage and included live television broadcasts.
Representatives from each of the other political parties
even registered to attend the convention as observers,
according to party spokesman Dermod Travis. "I think it
signifies that all political parties are interested in the
impact that the Green Party of Canada is going to have on
their own electoral fortunes," he said.
Much of the talk throughout the weekend focused on how the
Greens can grow as a party, appeal to more Canadians, and
reach the ultimate goal of electing its first member of
Parliament.

JCT: Bet no one suggested starting up a party timebank.

The Green party now has a youth wing to help it organize its
support among young people and get them to the polls during
the next election.

JCT: Youth always catch to time-trading better than adults.

On Friday delegates heard from speaker Joe Trippi, a digital
democracy expert, and the party is taking his advice to
heart. Plans are underway to revamp the Green party's
website and make it more interactive with online chat rooms,
blogs and databases. Web team manager Pierre Denis said the
Internet has, and will be, critical to the party's success.

JCT: But not so sophisticated as to operate a timebank
account?

"We're a small party, we can't afford to be flying people
all over the country," he said. Denis said how the party
will use the Internet will fit in well with its grassroots
nature.

JCT: Nor paying for motels when accommodations trading is
one of the most useful products I ever used LETS for in my
travels around the world.

Though the Greens have no seats in the House of Commons, May
promised to be a familiar face on Parliament Hill. She will
reach out to MPs and senators in an attempt to assemble an
informal "green caucus." "There are many ways we can affect
the public policy discourse in Canada before we have our
first seats," she said. "As far as I'm concerned the
campaign for the next federal election starts today."

JCT: The real issue of Ms. May's leadership will be whether
she practices what she preaches and gets her programmers to
install LETS or not.


--
Abolitionist Slave Leader John C."The Banking Systems Engineer" Turmel
for UNILETS interest-free time-based currency in U.N. resolution C6
to Governments in the http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration.htm
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel 519-753-0645 USENET: can.politics