Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/3/2019 (556 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Federal Green party leader Elizabeth May is feeling confident about her party’s odds in the October federal election, and she wants Manitobans to know it.

"The stars are aligning in ways that, as leader of the Green Party, I don’t think I thought I’d ever see," said May in an interview after hosting a town hall event that filled the Park Theatre on Osborne Street.

The event capped off a two-day tour of Manitoba by the party leader, which also included town halls in Brandon and Portage la Prairie.

May, the only Green member of Parliament, doubts Andrew Scheer’s Conservative party will be able to win a majority this October, given a right-flank challenge from Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada.

"I don’t think the Liberals will have a chance at a majority, because Justin Trudeau, there’s a bit of tarnish on the glow," she said. "And it’s likely that we’ll have a minority parliament."

That would mean cross-party co-operation, May said, which is where the Greens could shine — either as a partner in a coalition government, or by supporting a minority government with a confidence-and-supply agreement similar to the one struck by the New Democrats and the Green Party in her home province of British Columbia.

That kind of co-operation has been good for Canada’s progressive political movements in the past, she said.

"That’s how we got our health care system, Canada Pension Plan, unemployment insurance, student loans — all of that progress for Canada happened in a minority parliament, back in the 1960s, where the smaller party was open to co-operation."

May said her party would work with any other party, "if it’s in the public interest."

Manitoba Green Party leader James Beddome, who will run his first federal election for the Greens in Winnipeg South-Centre this year, said Manitobans who support the party’s policies should take the plunge and vote Green.

"I think about all the different people that I know that voted for the Trudeau Liberals in 2015 on promises like proportional representation, real action on climate change," said Beddome.

"Now they are, four years later, swallowing thick because they didn’t get any of it. So vote for what you want, vote for who’s out there truly pushing for those issues."

The Greens won 3.4 per cent of the total vote in the 2015 federal election, and 3.2 per cent of the vote in Manitoba.

This time, May said, "we’ll do a lot better, for sure," citing a big improvement in the Green vote during a recent Quebec by-election.

"Everything I’ve seen in Manitoba is further encouraging me to think that anything could happen in the next election," said May.

Here, a mischevious tone crept into the voice of the MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

"It might be that we have to ask if Justin Trudeau is prepared to prop up a Green government, who knows?"

solomon.israel@freepress.mb.ca

@sol_israel