Green Party leader Elizabeth May has a way of clouding her message through the poor choice of words.  She might have had something intelligent to say about political priorities with regards to global warming, but everyone was talking about Elizabeth May's reference to Nazis (actually a direct reference to Neville Chamberlain, but the message was lost in the furor).   She has mocked evangelical Christians as waiting for the end of time with "glee".   She has fought her own party's budget committee, threatening resignation if they didn't bend to her will, complaining publicly that her $50,000 salary has left her "broke".

Now again, she has a chance to deliver a message, this time in a talk with the editorial board of the Guelph Mercury.  This is an important opportunity for an alleged political party.  I say alleged because despite all the trappings of a party, the Green Party has never actually elected a member of parliament.  To be invited to talk to any editorial board is a courtesy, and one that the Green Party leader ought to take seriously.

Instead, Elizabeth May manages to mess up her chance by using another poor choice of words.  This time Elizabeth May jokes to the editorial board that political rhetoric in this country is making her suicidal:

Elizabeth May has clear ideas about how she will comport herself if she is invited to join in the national leaders' debates. She vows to eschew rhetoric and speak from the heart.

But it was an observation during this week's editorial board meeting about her aversion to the overly packaged nature of these debates -- where the leaders try desperately not to stray from the script -- that demonstrated the perils of making an off-hand remark that carries some heavy political baggage.

"I was close to slitting my wrists after the last debate," May said sarcastically of the spectacle she had witnessed, employing a figure of speech that unfortunately still retains an uncomfortable degree of currency in our society.

Those who use it may challenge the assumption that it makes light of the extremely serious subject of suicide, but however unintended, it does. It's clearly inappropriate and demonstrates poor judgment, errors that are just compounded when the person making the remark is the leader of a national political party.

So now instead of the issues the Green Party considers important taking centre stage, the editorial board is left discussing Elizabeth May herself.  Her offhand reference to suicide was in poor taste -- grossly poor taste, in fact.  There are people whose personal problems have overwhelmed their limited ability to deal with life's trials, and they have hurt themselves and others as a result.  A political debate does not rise to the level of one of those disappointments.  Not even close. 

This sort of thing has caused trouble for other politicians far more important than Elizabeth May.

Recall Mike Huckabee, former Republican presidential hopeful, made a similar remark in October 2007:

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said his joke suggesting his opponents consider slitting their wrists because their support doesn't match their fundraising wasn't an attempt to make light of suicide, though he did not apologize for the remark.

"I would never intentionally hurt the feelings of anyone for any reason, and I certainly was not making light of suicide, but of the excesses of campaign spending," Huckabee said Wednesday in a statement issued by his campaign.

In a television interview Tuesday, Huckabee joked that better-financed candidates could be "sitting in a warm tub of water with razor blades."

Suicide counselors took this comment seriously:

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention criticized Huckabee's remarks in an open letter to the former Arkansas governor earlier Wednesday.

"While we understand that these statements were meant to be humorous, they instead make light of suicide, and contribute to the myth that suicide is a rational choice rather than the fatal consequence of mental illness," wrote its executive director, Robert Gebbia.

The National Hopeline Network, which runs the 1-800-SUICIDE help line, criticized Huckabee in a statement issued Tuesday night.

I think Elizabeth May and the members of her party have some serious thinking to do.  This is not about issuing some sort of press release about how seriously she takes the problem of suicide, and how she regrets the remarks.  Let's just take that as a given.  To me members of the Green Party have to consider carefully whether Elizabeth May is helping or hurting their chances of seeing the party actually win something somewhere. 

When Elizabeth May is allowed to play at being a leader of a political party (and like I said, until the Green Party actually wins something, this is all pretend), she is being tested.  No one cares about her opinion on global warming and carbon taxes, because everyone knows her opinion about global warming and carbon taxes.  Of all the parties, the Green Party is easily the most predictable because their members see all issues through one lens only.  Her appearances are tests of her ability to mimic a real political leader, and that is to consider all members of the potential audience, their priorities, their concerns, and to package a message that speaks to all of them.

For the Green Party, presumably suicide is not an important issue, since it is not really an environmental issue.  Or at least that's what it seems like when Elizabeth May makes offhand allusions to suicide in public political statements.  For her, people in the audience who have been touched by suicide in some way are not important.  As she frames her responses, these people are not given even a passing consideration. 

Canada's overall suicide rate is about 14 per 100,000 people, or about 4,000 people annually.  The number of people who have attempted suicide, or have harboured suicidal thoughts, is much higher than that.  Each suicide and attempted suicide, we are told, profoundly affects an average of six other people.

That's a lot of people to hit with a tasteless joke trivializing suicide.

And so the editorial board of the Guelph Mercury, and now you and I, have a chance to consider whether Elizabeth May ought to be given the opportunity to join in a leader's televised debate during an election.  To me, the answer is clearly no.