Angry in the Great White North

The NDP should be ashamed of itself for attacking the Green-Liberal co-operation agreement, Green Leader Elizabeth May said Wednesday.

"There’s something wrong with Jack Layton if he’d rather open up discussions with the Taliban than the Green party," Ms. May said.

The NDP has angrily denounced Ms. May and Liberal Leader Stephane Dion for agreeing not to run candidates in each other’s ridings. Ms. May says she has tried many times to persuade Mr. Layton to discuss similar co-operation, but he refuses to talk with her.

It’s strange, given that Mr. Layton is happy to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Ms. May said.

"We know that Mr. Layton meets regularly with Stephen Harper," she said. "As a matter of fact Stephen Harper has praised Jack Layton as the leader of the opposition with whom he meets most often and finds the most co-operative."

OK, now here's the reason why Stephen Harper and Jack Layton must meet with each other, and Jack Layton can feel free to decline a meeting with Elizabeth May, and there is no hypocrisy involved.

Stephen Harper and Jack Layton are both elected members of parliament and party leaders. Elizabeth May is neither.

Elizabeth May seems to think that she is not being treatly equally, and that Jack Layton is being hypocritical. If she was an MP and the leader of a party with official status in the House of Commons, and Jack Layton refused to meet with her, then she'd have a point.

But then to be earn official party status, you need a minimum of 12 seats. Without that, you're just an independent, so Elizabeth May and her Green Party colleagues has a long way to go before Stephen Harper or Jack Layton feel obligated to treat her in the same way as they treat each other. She is due the respect any Canadian citizen is owed. But to wonder why she isn't being treated like the head of party in the House of Commons?

Well, to point out the obvious, she isn't one.

So let's not accuse Jack Layton of being guilty of something he is not.

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