Elizabeth May and Fair Vote Canada Apply for Intervener Status

On Monday, November 8, 2010, in Montreal at the Quebec Court of Appeal, Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada, and Fair Vote Canada, the Pan Canadian civic association that promotes fair voting practices throughout Canada, will appear before the Court seeking to be granted intervener status in the Charter Challenge of the constitutionality of Quebec's use of the first-past-the-post voting system, Gibb v. Quebec's Attorney General and Quebec's Director General of Elections.

The two parties will be represented by the renown Canadian Constitutional lawyer, Peter Rosenthal, who successfully pleaded the landmark Figueroa v. Canada (Attorney General) before the Supreme Court of Canada. Many of the principle arguments put forward in our case stem from Figueroa decision. Having Peter join our legal team headed by Julius Grey, who has also successfully pleaded cases before the Supreme Court, gives us perhaps the strongest legal team ever assembled to put forward arguments in a democratic rights case in Canada.

The two parties could bring important perspective to our case. With regard to Elizabeth May, she leads the political party whose supporters participated in a mind boggling electoral anomaly which left the approximately one million Canadian electors who voted for the Green Party in the last federal election with no representation in Parliament. In the instance of Fair Vote Canada, its expertise in the manner that electoral systems function relative to their ability to produce fair electoral results is unparalleled.

At this point, I would like to thank the Green Party of Canada and Fair Vote Canada for their generous support, both financially and morally, for without their support and the support of other organizations and individuals, this case would never have made it this far.

As well, I would like to thank both Julius Grey and Peter Rosenthal for their generous spirit and unfailing devotion to advancing important democratic rights issues. In my mind, they both merit inclusion into the Order of Canada.