Ard Van Leeuwen's blog

We said that we would like to be in the televised leader’s debates because we received over 650,000 votes in the last general election from ridings throughout Canada. They said sorry, you have to have a Green MP.

This is a bit of an experiment. There's probably a better home for this list down the road. In any case I thought it might be useful to have a quick to get at directory of all candidates who are on Facebook.

What’s a host do when a high profile guest puts a lampshade on his head and twirls across the room? It seems Tony Clement has found a new way to embarrass Canada.

Economic development is often associated with environmental degradation. At first glance it seems counter intuitive then that the Green Party's prescription for reversing environmental damage is not only more economic development but economic development on a massive scale.

Winston Churchill said that anyone who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and anyone who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.

Eighteen months ago the Conservatives did the right thing by leveling the tax playing field between Corporations and Income Trusts. Today we are doing the wrong thing by keeping the issue alive in Vision Green and press releases.

Some parties seek out candidates that are on fire but 100 Greens in Ontario's Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound riding just nominated one that is radioactive. Dick Hibma, a three term Owen Sound city councilor and chairman of Conservation Ontario also happens to be an employee of Bruce (Nuclear) Power.

The highlight of the Green Party of Ontario's AGM this weekend was the quality of the candidates stepping up for leadership roles within the party. The best gossip however, was about how the Federal Guelph riding in Ontario has a real chance of winning the by-election that will be called sometime this summer.

Today Ontario and Quebec are moving into the leadership vacuum that past Federal Governments have created through their lack of initiative and obstruction on the climate change agenda. Ontario and Quebec are intending to go it alone on a cap-and-trade system to fight green house gas emissions.

While any attempts to combat climate change should be applauded we can only shake our heads when we see in this dramatic way the opportunity that Ottawa has lost in setting a national climate change agenda.

Tar sands oil production is the poster child for Canada’s CO2 emission problems. To put things in perspective we should note that in 2004 tar sands emissions could easily have been offset by a “mere” 5% emission cut in the rest of Canada.

But tar sands production is already scheduled to quadruple, it’s disproportionate and it has other environmental consequences.