The People’s Party hasn't come close to meeting the criteria to get a place on the stage. Why give Bernier special treatment?

The more experience we have of former governor-general David Johnston, the more cause we have to admire the man. After a distinguished career educating young people, he served seven years as a highly successful governor general, and has continued to serve the country in a number of capacities, including as the first-ever debates commissioner, tasked with organizing two debates to be held before the upcoming federal election.

As governor general he worked quietly but effectively, putting the onus on getting the job done as opposed to luxuriating in the stature of the position or the goody bag of perks it comes with. In serving the country so capably he demonstrated to prime ministers present and future the advisability of entrusting the position to men and women of quiet competence as opposed to celebrities and showpieces, as has too often become the case. He’s the sort of person most Canadians envision when they think of public service; we could use a lot more like him, it’s a pity they are so hard to find.

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David Johnston … is the sort of person most Canadians envision when they think of public service

As head of the election commission he has once again set out to deliver what was asked, establishing an organization to oversee debates, set some rules for how they are held and who gets to participate, ensure as many Canadians as possible are able to watch the results, and make sure the whole effort adheres to the holy mess of headache-inducing propriety that is Canada’s national obsession with pleasing everyone everywhere while preventing anyone from having anything to complain about, ever.

He seems to have done a pretty good job, as usual. At least we know there will be some debates, and they will be run on a reasonable basis, as opposed to the mish-mash that resulted in 2015 after former prime minister Stephen Harper declined to participate in a series of head-to-heads put together by a consortium of TV networks.

The rules set out by the commission are simple and straightforward . In order to get a place on the stage, a party has to meet three criteria: it has to have at least one member who was elected under its banner, it has to have candidates running in 90 per cent of ridings, and it has to have attracted at least four per cent of the vote in the previous election, or have a “legitimate chance” of winning seats, according to credible polls.

Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/CP

Five parties made the cut for this year. As usual, there’s been an outcry — there is always an outcry. This time it’s because the People’s Party of disgruntled former Conservative cabinet minister Maxime Bernier was left off the list. Bernier stalked out of the Tory caucus after he failed to be elected leader. Since then he’s busied himself claiming he was robbed, while assembling a party of people willing to support his “vision,” which consists largely of hostility to immigration and sad echoes of Trumpism, including pledges to build a fence along areas of the border and “make Canada great again.”

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Canada being a democracy, everyone gets to have their say, no matter how batty. But Bernier wasn’t left off the list because he can’t produce a better agenda than one that parrots the U.S. president; his exclusion came because he managed to meet only one of the three criteria. The PP has yet to elect a candidate, and its polls suggest its candidates have little chance of being elected.

Polls suggest PP candidates have little chance of being elected

The wording in this is important. Although Bernier won a seat in the 2015 vote, he was elected as a Conservative. No constituency in Canada has chosen to put a representative of the People’s Party in Parliament. Since there’s nothing Bernier can do about that for now, attention has focused on the party’s polling numbers, which bump along at the bottom of every survey, roughly in the three per cent range.

Once again, the wording is important. The rules state that candidates endorsed by the parties must “have a legitimate chance to be elected in the general election in question.” Seat projections indicate Bernier’s party has no serious chance of victory anywhere but Quebec, where he might — just might — manage to hold onto his own seat.

The People’s Party is all about Bernier, and pretty much only about Bernier. Without him it would quickly disappear. Why give this guy a chance to share his personal gripes with millions of Canadians? The view in his favour appears to be that he did manage to find enough people to run as party representatives to justify inclusion. It’s the same argument that has been made in the past any time the Green party didn’t make the cut . Given Elizabeth May’s high personal profile and general likability, there was a degree of sympathy for giving her a break.

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Photo by Adrian Wyld/CP

May persevered nonetheless, and her 13 years as Green leader have paid off: the Greens can now take their place among the others in expectation of meeting all three criteria. Which is the way it should be. It’s not the job of the debate commission to help incipient parties get the ear of Canadians, or give them a hand in drawing more members. The reason to hold debates is so Canadians can hear the views and policies of those parties that have built a solid degree of support among the electorate, and to judge the qualities of their leaders.

Bernier and his party haven’t come close to that yet, and there’s no reason to fudge the rules so he can be given special treatment.