Month: July 2021

The Green Party still doesn’t get it.

You can’t be successful and win elections or even get MPs elected when you are continually and publicly stabbing your leader in the back.

Sorry folks, but that is a recipe for disaster, especially when an election is weeks away.

It seems that every day there is another media story talking about the divided party. Just yesterday there were more media reports that new candidates for the party’s governing body oppose her.

So far, the party which has been forced to lay off staff has spent $100,000 on legal fees to take their leader to court, with another $100,000 earmarked for future court costs, all because Paul won an independent arbitrator’s decision.

So, a cash strapped party is going to blow $200,000 just before an election call.  You can’t make this stuff up!

No political leader is perfect. A leader can’t always make statements or comments that please 100% of party members or supporters 100% of the time.

The big question remains why the continuous attacks on her and why the attempts to kick her out of her job?

There is no such thing as a spontaneous uprising against a leader. It is often someone with a bruised ego, sour grapes, losing candidates, someone passed over, and the list goes on. Someone will benefit if the party dumps Paul. The question is who?

The attacks are continuous and reflect a degree of planning. Someone is hiding in the background coordinating the attacks. Time for the media to dig deep and let voters know who it is, they can’t hide in the background forever. The media would be quick to do this if it were the Conservatives and even the Liberal Martin-Chretien war was brought into the open by the media.

Paul would be smart to treat public pledges of loyalty carefully. There are enough examples in Canadian politics of individuals pledging public loyalty while stabbing their leader in the back.

As Julius Caesar would say “Et tu Brute”.

Can Paul survive remains the question. Whoever is behind the push to oust her is doing irreparable harm to the party for years to come.

The Blame Game Has Started.

The potential for an election call has given rise to the usual blame game- as in you are using taxpayer funds to pay friends or give them contracts.

It is great fun for political staff to play this game and once in awhile you can come across a real scandal. Three come to mind- Jane Stewart and the Transitional Job Fund, Shawinigate and of course the Sponsorship Scandal.

There is nothing out there like any of those right now. If we move outside of Ottawa, how many voters are staying up at night worrying about a childhood friend of the PM getting a contract? Unless you can get the police involved, the story doesn’t have legs.

However, it does make for lots of good video clips of feigned outrage by Conservative MPs. Does the CPC brain trust think that the public believes for one minute that the Conservatives would never give a contract to a friend’s company?

By the way the CPC attack team needs to learn a basic rule when developing a line of attack- always check your own house first and make sure no one on your side is doing the same thing?

Keith Beardsley is a former Deputy Chief of Staff to a Prime Minister for Issues Management. He was a senior political advisor and was involved with political research, Question Period, political attack teams and election war rooms for over 20 years.