Greenpeace and Sierra Club advocate voting Bloc

“If you look at the record of the four other political parties – the NDP, the Greens, the Liberals and the Bloc [Québécois] – they're all substantially better than the positions of the Conservatives,” said Stephen Hazell, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada.

Good job Greenpeace and Sierra Club, let's vote for the Bloc so they can destroy the country.

Of course both Greenpeace and Sierra Club have strong ties to other left wing parties that would benefit from this advocacy.

In 2004, Mr. Cox was the campaign director for the NDP in Jack Layton's first campaign as party leader. Shortly after that election, Mr. Cox took up a new position with Greenpeace.

Mr. Hazell took over as executive director of Sierra Club after the position was vacated by Elizabeth May, who entered politics to become leader of the Green Party.

And then there is the issue of third party election law. It would seem like both Greenpeace and Sierra Club are in violation of third party election laws.

Neither Greenpeace nor Sierra Club are registered third parties. Since Sierra Club and Greenpeace are opposing a registered party should they not have to be registered?

I also wonder if they have resolutions permitting them to intervene in the election? According to Elections Canada, corporations must have explicit permission from their governing bodies prior to intervening in the election campaign. Sierra Club has a governing body, it is less clear about Greenpeace.

If the third party is a trade union, corporation or other entity with a governing body, the application for registration must include a copy of the resolution passed by its governing body authorizing it to incur election advertising expenses.

A third party is defined by the Elections Act as such:
"the transmission to the public by any means during an election period of an advertising message that promotes or opposes a registered party or the election of a candidate, including one that takes a position on an issue with which a registered party or candidate is associated."

Now technically, a news conference doesn't count as third party advertising -- to me, this seems like a big loophole -- but both Greenpeace and Sierra Club have their campaigns on their websites, their don't vote Conservative campaigns. Now, I am not a lawyer but this seems like it is in contravention of the Election Act. It is on commercial websites.





Anybody out there have any insight into these issues around third party election laws?

We're better off with Harper.