Green Party Media Exclusion: Canada Election 2006

The news media is supposed to offer an unbiased and accurate reporting of the news. In times of Federal Elections their job becomes even more important as most voters get their information on party platforms from the news. We are fortunate to have choices in this country. A number of parties provided a full slate of candidates for the 2004 election. The size of our playing field is perhaps recognition by Canadians of the complexity of government making.

Despite the notable exclusion of the Green Party from the main stream media, the 2004 Federal election confirmed the status of this party as a national player and the media can not refute these numbers. If Canada did not use a first-past-the post electorate system then the Green party would have gained seats in the 38th parliament since they earned 4.3\% of the overall vote. This success did not earn them a seat in the media 'big leagues' for this election though. The mainstream media have yet to include the Green Party in their presentation of leaders of 'national parties'. Jim Harris is not scheduled to have a place in the televised debates, again.

The internet has revolutionized the ability of the electorate to create, share and disseminate information. All political parties have web sites and many have web blogs. The main stream media is ignoring the Green Party of Canada in their web logs too.

Luckily, the Greens in Canada have been internet innovators in the Canadian political scene since the late 1980s and the party has their policies (with an innovative interactive forum) online. This party did not qualify for federal election campaign funding until the last election so it is amazing what they have accomplished, on their own. The Green party of Canada now receives approximately $875,000 per year and one would hope that, despite the media blackout on this party, that on January 23rd, 2006 the party will be able to generate the minimum 2\% of votes cast in order to continue to receive public election campaign funding.

Why is it that you, the mainstream media, including the CBC - a federally funded media organization - can be so obviously prejudiced in your programming decisions? The Bloc does not run cross country candidates - yet gets full national media coverage. Most Canadians do not want nor need to hear from the Bloc because there is a probability of zero that the Bloc will run this country (Quebec has 75 of the 308 seats). The media continues to propagate ideas from a party that is meaningless to most Canadians instead of the ideas from a legitimate candidate with voter-allocated federal election funding dollars and candidates *across the country*.

Please reconsider your programming decisions during this election. There were 4.3\% of Canadian voters in 2004 who voted for the Green Party of Canada despite your exclusion and Canadian voters would like to know that the media represents all Canadian viewpoints, even if they are personally not going to vote Green.