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Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is taking the train as much as possible. Sure, it's better for the environment than taking the plane, but she also thinks the manic pace of traditional campaigns is silly.

Bill Curry, a Parliamentary reporter with The Globe and Mail, sat down with Ms. May for an evening chat on VIA Rail's train 648 from Toronto to Ottawa to cap the first day of the 2008 election campaign.

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The long train ride allowed time to hit on plenty of topics. Ms. May discusses her plan to become an ordained Anglican Church minister, the time Bill Clinton showed up at her house when she was 14-years-old and the fury south of the border over Sarah Palin.

Download the full audio file of the Q&A here (right-click, save target as)

The following is an edited transcript of that discussion.

GM: We're taking the train back to Ottawa. Why the train?

EM: For a number of sensible reasons. First of all, because far less carbon is emitted in my travel by taking the train. And secondly, it is a more efficient and a pleasant working environment for the entire trip. So I prefer VIA any chance I get over any other way of travel. I also get to see the scenery and it's gorgeous.

GM: It's a short campaign and it's five hours we're taking to go on this train. Other people are zipping all over the place. Do you worry about what you're not doing when you're on the train?

EM: Well I know I'm missing lining up for security clearance. I know I don't have to take my shoes off before boarding the train. Nor do I have all the time sitting on the tarmac and not being able to be connected to people while in the air. So I will not worry about doing the more sensible environmental thing for the sake of being frustrated by living in airports.

GM: So the sense I get so far from this campaign is that there's less of a frantic pace that you see in other campaigns. Is there a reason behind that? Is that more your style?

EM: I think it's more a Green way of doing things; is to be more sensible. There's no point in wasting a lot of money. There's no point in being frantic. I've observed other leaders' tours and how they zip across the country by air in an effort to, I don't know, dazzle people with the fact that they're able to be in one capital city in the morning and another one at night. But I don't think that assists the voters in getting to know the leaders. I don't think it actually makes a difference on the ground. The events are overly orchestrated [and] staged and they don't really connect with the voters in the way that I think we will in campaigning in a more reasonable fashion.

GM: So you've certainly seen the other campaigns and there's parts of it, or large parts of it, that you don't want to do?

EM: That's right. I've known people in the media who've gone through campaign plane trips with leaders and the exhaustion factor from jetting all over the place for no purpose I think is a detriment to effective campaigning … I think planning a tour around maximizing the physical stress on the campaign team, the leader and the media, all of them, is overblown, overwrought and not particularly effective. That's my view as an amateur campaigner.

GM: The other thing you're doing a bit differently is you're planning to spend a lot of time in your riding, whereas a lot of party leaders may make a couple of visits but it's not the focus of their campaign. It seems like you're going to do a lot of that?

EM: Yes, I am. I think I can be candid. Mr. Duceppe, Mr. Dion, Mr. Layton and Mr. Harper can regard their own ridings as safe seats. I cannot regard my own riding of Central Nova as a safe seat. I have to unseat Peter MacKay and win ridings across the country for other Green Party candidates.

GM: You've got your daughter, Victoria Cate, with you here. Tell me about the decision to bring your daughter. I understand she's not going to be in school for a bit?

EM: It was her offer to take time off school to travel with me whenever the writ dropped. It's a combination of a couple of things. She's a very effective campaigner. And she is not only my daughter, she's my favourite person in the whole wide world and when I'm with her I'm happy; which is not a bad thing considering there is very little else that will keep me happy as we go through very gruelling long days. So I'm very happy that she's willing to do this. It was her offer because she's entering grade 12 and she'll want to have stellar grades as always to head into university later. And keeping her grades up while doing any kind of campaign or even being distracted by the campaign, would simply undercut her academic achievements … So she won't just be my daughter travelling with me. She's an indispensable part of the campaign team.

GM: In what way?

EM: In every possible way. She's in charge of the fundraising, the speech writing … no just kidding (laughs). She's got a very good ear … She tells me things she liked, things she didn't like. She helps me with innumerable things from watching my Blackberry when I don't have time, checking with me if I need to have a cup of tea; All these [things]. We have a very strong bond and she is remarkably paternal towards her mother. It's very hard to explain. It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? I don't know what to say. Answering the questions in front of her is difficult, but she's an amazing person.

GM: This is the first time you've run a national campaign.

EM: I'm not running it of course.

GM: Sorry, as leader of a national campaign. And you're relatively new to politics as well.

EM: That's true.

GM: So what scares you about all this?

EM: Nothing really. One of my favourite slogans is amateurs built the arc and professionals built the Titanic. I'm counting on Mr. Harper to design his own Titanic. He's got enough money to do it.

GM: What do you think of the show of money? You see all the ads and the big war room.

EM: I hope the voters see through all of that. I feel as if Mr. Harper's running the media equivalent of George Bush's shock and awe campaign. Touring their war room is just so much machismo and bravado. The fact they call it a war room just underscores how politics is in peril and democracy is at risk.

GM: You mention machismo, there was a press conference a while ago with Jim Harris, you're former leader, talking about 'four guys in ties' at the debates and how you would liven that up. And there's been a lot of talk in Canada and the U.S. about Sarah Palin and the vice-presidency. What are your thoughts on the debate right now?

EM: I do think we've met every hurdle that the consortium [of broadcasters who set the rules for the debate] has mentioned as a criteria. There is an added benefit in putting me in the debates in any case because I think it's in the public interest to have a woman political leader on the stage, if for no other reason that it gives young girls, young women a role model. Not that I want to be their role model in all things, but if you don't ever see a woman on the stage in a federal televised leaders' debate, the message to young women is that they don't belong on that stage, that women aren't in politics. That we don't have a good chance to become Prime Minister and I think that carries itself out to why so few women do enter politics. So if we're going to change the political culture and make it welcoming to women, it's a big challenge. Because the political culture at the moment is hostile to women. If we're going to change that, my presence on the national stage should prove to be helpful. And I say that in a non-partisan sense. I think women across party lines like the idea. As much as Hillary [Clinton] excited interest in U.S. politics and now there's this focus on Sarah Palin, I'm a very good example of a woman able to hold her own in a man's world.

GM: There's a lot of debate on what Sarah Palin represents. Do you have any views on that?

EM: It's awkward treating her as a cultural phenomenon instead of what she is, which is a governor of a small state where she holds, in policy terms, views that I find appalling in relation to climate change, drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the right to bear arms. But in terms of the fact she was sought out for the Republican ticket because they wanted to capitalize on having a woman, any woman, on the ticket — that's a really interesting point. And you can look at it two ways. In one way, you can say it's good that we've come to a place in the U.S. where a Republican candidate realizes his chances are better with a woman vice-president. On the other hand, one could say a woman should earn that spot through merit, like Hillary Clinton, and not through the accident of political strategists, that you need a woman on the ticket. As far as her personal life, and her children and their situation, I think nobody has any business commenting on that and people should back right off - Because if she was the father of those children, it wouldn't even be an issue.

GM: That's true. Maybe explain a little bit to people who don't know your connections to the Clintons. Did you keep in touch with them throughout the Hillary campaign at all?

EM: Yeah. I saw Bill. Well, it's hard to keep in touch with them. I've known both of them since they were in Yale law school. But Bill Clinton was asked by Senator George McGovern, who at that point was putting together his campaign for the presidency in 1971. He was at Yale law school and my mom had been as both a peace activist and civil rights activist, drawn into politics, as many people were in the late 60s, as an effort to end the war in Vietnam. I was at the Chicago convention when I was 14 with my mom. She was a delegate in '68. Anyway, she was a very good fundraiser. And when putting together the Connecticut team for George McGovern, Bill Clinton approached my mom to see if she'd join the team. So that's how I met him. I actually opened the front door of my house and there he was: a Yale law student. And he became basically part of our family. He came for meals. He lived in New Haven of course to go to Yale law school and at that point my family lived in Connecticut. And we moved soon after the '72 campaign and moved to Cape Breton. Basically immediately after Nixon won. [Ms. May's mother, Stephanie May, who passed away in August, 2003, was American and her father, John May was born in Britain. Elizabeth May was born in Hartford, Conn., and moved to Canada at the age of 18.]

GM: We spoke a while back and you were talking about how you were working to become an ordained [Anglican] minister. What happened with that?

EM: I'm still taking my courses. I had a good instinct and didn't sign up for a course this term. But I finished a course last semester and I take one course per semester. I am [going] slowly but surely and we'll pursue it when the time is right. For now, it's not so much I'm working to become an ordained minister — that is a long term interest. And in the short term, I find the study of theology enormously intellectually stimulating. People who don't know what theology is, it's not Bible study. Theology is like philosophy or anthropology. It's an academic area of inquiry where you actually study the history of religion in actual translations of various texts. It's fascinating. And I find being in a course of theology once a semester, just to use one part of my brain that isn't going to be used while I'm leader of the Green Party, learning completely new things that have no immediate application — [going] word by word of Genesis from the original Hebrew and then comparing it to Greek texts — quite interesting.

GM: So you won't be quoting scripture on the campaign trail?

EM: That way lies peril, I think. We do not mix religion and politics, and for good reason. Although I did regret that Stephen Harper chose Sunday morning to do all this because I usually go to church on Sunday mornings, and I thought he did too.

GM: There was some talk on the radio actually today, people were calling in expressing that point of view. Do you think that would upset people?

EM: I found it distressing. I quite honestly found it very distressing, as my staff can tell you, that Stephen Harper's timing meant I couldn't go to church today. I also think it's distressing that he's picked Sukkat for election day. My step-children are Jewish and I celebrate Sukkat with them and I regret that I will not be able to celebrate it this year because we'll be in an election.

GM: We'll go through all the Canadian politics another time, but we'll touch on the main points. I think people might want to know, you've made clear, you said, I think this morning, your focus is to make sure Stephen Harper is not elected Prime Minister.

EM: But in my speech, I think I made it clear that my focus, and the Green focus, is to engage Canadians in politics … If the issues are well-expressed, if people can participate, I trust in the wisdom of the electorate to make their own decisions. That said, it's true. Stephen Harper represents the very worst-case situation to achieve the goals that the Green Party believes in.

GM: There are some people, strategists looking at the situation, who would say a strong Green Party could actually make Stephen Harper's prime ministerial ambitions more likely by splitting the vote.

EM: Then it's an interesting question why he's trying to keep my out of the debates.

GM: You think he's worried about you?

EM: Yes. I think he wants the Green Party to be noticed but not heard … What he doesn't want to do is be on a stage where I get to debate him. That's clear. The most vociferous objection to me being in the debate comes from Stephen Harper.

GM: Do you have a closing message to those who have managed to load this on the Internet and listen to the very end?

EM: (laughs). Travel Via. Enjoy seeing your country. Look at our website and look at our policies and decide for yourselves if you think that you can support a party that believes in doing things differently. And if you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me directly. Because I do, at least so far through this life, answer all my e-mails. We'll see how long I can do it throughout the campaign.

GM: Tell them the address then.

EM: leader@greenparty.ca

GM: Elizabeth May, thank you very much.

EM: Thank you Bill Curry.