The following letter to the editor was submitted to the Sudbury Star for publication on Thursday, May 26, 2011. At the time of posting, the letter has not been published.—–ATV’s on streets will create conflict for cyclistsLater this year, our munic…
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Sudbury Steve May: A Culture of Cycling: Building Healthy Communities, or Partisan Political Hot Potato?
After a long weekend spent driving around our fair province, it was a pleasure to return home and bike into the office this morning. Even a mild spattering of rain couldn’t dampen my enthusiasm on “Take Your Bike To Work Day”. I have been cycli…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: Green Party of Canada: Focus on the Future, Part IV: Internal Structure & Processes
For those of my regular readers whom may have thought that in my last few blogposts that I have been venturing a little too deeply into the waters reserved specifically for Green Party swimmers, I offer both an apology and a warning: in this specific p…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: Green Party of Canada: Focus on the Future, Part III: Politics
In my first two blogposts of this series, I took a look at a couple of things. First, I took a look at where the Green Party has come from regarding its recent internal struggles to “mainstream” the Party in order to experience more electoral succ…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: Green Party of Canada: Focus on the Future, Part II: Creating Local Opportunities for Success
In Part 1 of this series, I took a little look at how the Party has ended up where we are at today, through the lens of the struggle between the “grassroots” and the “Central Party”. The strategy of the Central Party has been to continue centr…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: Green Party of Canada: Focus on the Future, Part I: Growing Beyond the Grassroots
May 2nd has come and gone, and the fortunes of the Green Party are either at an all time-high, with the election of Elizabeth May to parliament, or at a virtual all-time low, with our share of the popular vote having plummeted to less than 4%, its lowe…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: Politics of Polarization Not Suitable for Greens
“Partisanship is what’s strangling democracy.” – Elizabeth May, Vancouver Sun, Friday May 6, 2011 (“May is only one voice, but it will be loud”)Unquestionably, with the election of more Conservative and NDP MP’s to the House of Commons, w…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: Pushing Back Against the Climate Change Deniers in the Media, Government
This is a copy of an unpublished letter to the editor of the Sudbury Star, submitted on April 21st in response to an article written by Sun Media’s Monte Sonnenberg (“May’s Green Party on the fringe for a reason”, Sudbury Star, April 21 2011).I note th…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: The Green Party and the 2011 Federal Election: My Observations
It’s been an interesting week in Canadian politics. I’ve fallen a little behind with my own analysis of the election that happened two days ago now. In my defence, I, unlike Stephen Harper, don’t mind having a drink or two or more. When the CB…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: From Conservative Minority to Majority, Part IV: The Conservative Edge
In Part III, I described why I believed that the Governor General would have little choice but to follow the advice offered to him by the Prime Minister to dissolve parliament, once a Conservative minority government falls on a vote of confidence, orch…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: From Conservative Minority to Majority, Part III: Fallout from the May 2nd Vote
Tuesday morning, May 3rd. Canada wakes up to discover that it’s elected yet another Conservative minority government. Just as all of the pundits were predicting prior to the vote of non-confidence in the Harper government. Sure, maybe the NDP and …
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: From Conservative Minority to Majority, Part II: Following the Advice of the Prime Minister
In Part I of this series, I expressed my own understanding about how parliament works with regards to the ability of parties to work with another and establish a government in circumstances where two or more parties, who don’t have the most seats, co…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: From Conservative Minority to Majority, Part I: Revisiting the December, 2008 Prorogation Decision
“We will go over the heads of Parliament; over the heads, frankly, of the Governor General; go right to the Canadian people.” – John Baird, in an interview with journalist Don Newman, regarding Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s request to prorogu…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: A Triumph of Substance Over Spin: An Electoral Epiphany at the Social Planning Council’s All-Candidates Meeting
Last night, I attended one of the most unusual meetings of federal election candidates that I’ve ever been to. Hosted by the Greater Sudbury Social Planning Council, the all-candidates meeting consisted of the normal questions and answers. What made …
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: Unexpected NDP Surge Derails Media-Scripted Election. Thank Goodness Something Has.
Well, someone finally chucked out the media script for the election, and we’ve suddenly entered into uncharted territory. Throughout the day today, a number of polls have been released which show the NDP surging ahead of the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: Conservatives Left Twisting in the Wind by Media on G8/G20
Talk about media-driven election stories. Yesterday, Joan Bryden of the Canadian Press wrote about what was contained in a draft report from Auditor-General Sheila Fraser about spending on the G8/G20 summit. This January draft of the AG’s report wa…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: Canadians Deserve Better From the Fourth Estate
I’ve been troubled by the mainstream media’s coverage of the 41st General Election so far, and by all accounts, it isn’t going to improve. Specifically, my concerns relate to the media managing, and creating, the messages being conveyed to the e…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: There’s Something Happening Here in Greater Sudbury’s Downtown
There’s something happening here in Greater Sudbury. What it is ain’t exactly clear. Well, actually it is pretty clear, and it’s exciting, and even though I should be writing about the federal election, I just feel the need to share a recent experien…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: A Conservative Majority Government Election Scenario Worth Pondering
So, Stephen Harper keeps telling Canadians that they have two choices: it’s either give him a Conservative Majority government, or instead they’ll end up with a Coalition of Losers, which include socialists and separatists. In the past, Harper has…
Continue readingSudbury Steve May: Canada’s 41st General Election: Following the Media Script
What’s been very obvious to me is that the election so far has been following the media script to a tee. What do I mean by “media script”? Well, it was no secret that as the election began, the media was playing up a number of items which, “c…
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