And then she hugged me. Earth Mother Lizzie May, that is.

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, ol' Scotty Tribe scored a boogin' coup by gettin' the gal I adore, Earth Mother Lizzie May, to post a guest piece on Scott's Diatribes. I hafta admit it's good to see a national party leader takin' the time to reach out to us Pergressive Boogers. But, ScottyBoy, I'll go you one better.

Yesterday, I personally met Lizzie May an' that ain't all. When I introduced myself an' told her she might know me better as "JimBobby," her eyes lit up an' a big smile come over her face.

And then she hugged me.

Anybuddy who's been readin' my boog stories or my yammerin' comments on other boogs knows that ol' JB is one o' Lizzie's biggest fans. Up until yesterday, though, Lizzie an' I had only corresponded by email. Despite my barely decipherable dialect, Lizzie replies to my emails an' we write back an' forth every so often. I gave her a little dressin' down when she chose to run against PeteyBoy MacKay an' I try to keep her up on what some o' the boogs are sayin' about her.

I reckon the Atlantic Accord debacle, the Bill Casey affair, the MacKay family ties to Karlheinz Schreiber, the Red-Green deal, the losses to Nova Scotia economy due to untendered military contracts and a general higher awareness of green issues are all comin' together to pave Lizzie's way to Ottawa. I was dead wrong when I doubted her wisdom in runnin' in CN.

I spent the weekend at Green Party Campaign School in Kitchener-Waterloo at Wilfred Laurier University. That's where I met the gal I adore. I also had a chance to meet my old friend Jim Harris, former GPC leader. And I met a few other GPC bigwigs like Deputy Leader Adriane Carr and a few behind-the-scenes federal party workers. About 150 treehuggin' GPC members and candidates were in attendance and I met a buncha them, too.

I went up to WLU with a few of my local riding association fellers an' gals, includin' our candidate fer Haldimand-Norfolk, Frank Nightingale. (I ain't asked him yet if he's any relation to Florence.) Frankie's one of the handful of Green Party candidates who actually stands a real chance of winnin'. Ol' Frank ran fer mayor of Norfolk County (pop. ~62,000) in the last municipal election. He came in second with 33% of the vote. He was endorsed by the outgoin' retirin' mayor. Frank's also the president of the Norfolk Federation of Agriculture and he's a director of the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association.

The biggest newspaper in the county, the Simcoe Reformer, says Frank's got a real chance to unseat the do-nuthin' absentee MP Diane Finley. The Grits got a star candidate in Eric Hoskins but the locals think he's a parachuter who's got way more ties to Ottawa than to Haldimand-Norfolk.

Frank thinks he might be the first GPC MP elected. I think he'll be at least the second one. Nova Scotia's Central Nova riding is in a different time zone and Lizzie's gonna be elected an hour before Frank.

Now, I ain't some unrealistic, idealistic neofightin' Greenie. I been a GPC member fer quite a few years an' I voted GPC a few times before joinin' the party. I've seen how our first past the post (FPTP) electoral system has consistently robbed Green supporters of Parliamentary representation. I've watched as the cabal of TV execs known as the Broadcast Consortium have barred the Green leader from televised leaders debates. I've watched as the old-line, entrenched parties have dismissed the Green Party as a one-trick pony out on the fringes.

Things are different this time.

Canajuns have woken up to the impending doom if we don't get off our asses and deal with climate change. The Harper Con's have aptly demonstrated their disdain fer Canajuns and fer ol' Mother Earth herself. First, they tried to foist airhead Rona Ambrose on us. When everyone seen what a know-nuthin' Rona was, Harper put a pit bull into the portfolio. The teeth-gnashin' Baird has embarrassed Canada on the world stage and worked hard against real environmental progress.

Voters are also tired of the kindergarten antics they been seein' in the House o' Comments. Name-callin', incivility and insults are all we see. Voters want civilized MP's workin' together to solve the greatest threat mankind has ever known. We been gettin' stall tactics and outright lies from our so-called leaders.

On Saturday, Adriane Carr used a phrase that us Greenies are adoptin' as our battle cry:

"Change the climate in Parliament."

In March, Toronto Centre Green candidate Chris Tindal is gonna be in a bigass by-election campaign an' he's goin' up against Bob Rae. I don't live in TO Centre (thank God!!) but I'll be takin' the train to the big smoke and knockin' on doors to help young Chris whip Bobby Rae's flabby ass. I know it's flabby on accounta he showed it to everybuddy on national TV with Rick Mercer. Bob Rae's got baggage and I ain't just talkin' about junk in the trunk.

I don't reckon the Grits can afford to sit on their hands much longer. There's a budget comin' down I think on March 28 and I figger the rotten Con gummint'll fall on its face an' we'll be goin' to the polls around the end o' May or the first o' June. I hope it's May. I like the sounds of "a May election". I think they call that a double entendre.

JimBobby