Congrats to Harper & Co - I'll be a tool no more

Dana's post over at The Galloping Beaver touched me deeply.

It so expresses what I've been feeling since the results came in from the latest show produced by our federal political parties. You know the one, the $300 million production designed to fool Canadians into thinking they were participating in a democratic process.

Dana expressed the same sense of dismay I've been feeling and a profound disturbance that Canadians have allowed themselves to be so swayed.

I've been thinking all morning and over the days before and since our most recent reality TV election that I'll likely not vote in the next one.

I've done that only once before. Had been away from the country for a few years and had only just returned when a federal election was called. I was uninformed and out of touch with the issues which mattered to my riding, the province and the country and so I thought the most responsible thing to do was not vote rather than risk choosing the wrong candidate.

Next time, I am likely not to vote for equally valid reasons:

• Our democratic institutions and practices no longer function as they should. In fact, I'd say that our democracy has become a sham.
• The voters have become puppets of the corporate regime, fed propaganda by the corporate media and then blamed by it either for not voting or voting the wrong way.
• The only value of a vote for a party which never wins is a $1.95 per year between elections. In theory, if a party gets enough votes, then it can buy its way into the public consciousness. Yet not all money has equal purchasing power. I can easily envision corporate media turning down ad purchases by parties whose ideology the owners don't support. That already happens in the U.S. and we know that the CPoC has adopted the U.S. neocons' tactics.

There's a provincial election coming up in BC May 12, 2009. And a second turn at a referendum on electoral reform.

Last time, British Columbians voted 58% in favour of changing to the Single Transferable Vote system. The change we voted for was denied us by the BC legislature's imposition of a 60% threshold. The Opposition NDP approved.

We get to do it all over again on May 12th. Same 60% threshold. Same collusion by the purportedly progressive provincial NDP.

If the BC referendum again doesn't get passed, that provincial election will be the last one in which I cast a vote. I will no longer accept being a tool for corporate Canada.

To have to say this saddens me beyond description.

I'm 58 years old and only missed that one election. Yet as I canvassed with my local candidate over the past weeks, we met many people at the door who had made the decision not to vote. It was never apathy which had turned and was keeping them away; the media has that wrong - deliberately, I suspect. It was disgust which had made these engaged citizens disengage from our farcical electoral process.

Unlike them, I've just been a little slow to catch on.

I'll still write on the issues, volunteer to help my local candidate, and work to inform those who still vote about the practices, policies and platforms of the various parties. But I'll not collude with the major players by allowing myself to be their puppet.

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Harper Govt 2007 "Public Consultations" on Reform - P2

This is the second of what will be six parts investigating the Harper government's "Public Consultations on Canada's Democratic Institutions and Practices." Part I can be found here.

In this post, I focus on the call for tender for this government-funded project and the two organizations which ended up being awarded the contract.

The call for tender

The call was published January 9, 2007, revised January 15 and closed January 31. Unless you know a particular tender is in the works, you would be hard-pressed to put together a decent proposal in time.

Under the Nature of Process is the following:

The public consultations will consist of deliberative citizen forums as well as a large sample national telephone survey. Deliberative processes are designed to delve beyond top-of-mind approaches and provide a detailed understanding of citizens' considered perspectives on complex issues. They take a sample of citizens that is roughly representative of a cross-section of the larger population; have them learn about an issue in an objective/impartial manner....

The resulting report will identify priorities, values and principles which Canadians believe should inform democratic reform. It will also provide an assessment of the views of citizens regarding various options for change. [My emphasis.]

The items stressed will feature in my future analysis of the actual process undertaken in these "deliberative citizen forums," particularly in light of the conclusions in the investigators' final report.

Also among the project requirements listed in the call for tender is a telephone survey and workbook for participants. The outcome of the survey is to provide "detailed information about the views of Canadians" on the state of Canada's democratic institutions and practices.

The workbook should enable participants to "educate themselves on the issues" and guide them through "a number of scenarios so that different broad courses of action for each issue or series of issues can be discussed. Participants are thus confronted with choices which serve to focus their views."

As I comb through the workbook, I'll be assessing the (choice of) content/issues and its framing.

Another section to highlight in the call for tender is Some of the Mandatories.

Er, "some"? If there are other mandatories, why aren't they included in the call for tender?

Any, moving along, I come to a point where I begin to suspect the fix - well, one of them - is in:

Bidders MUST submit proposals that are jointly prepared and submitted by a) one or more independent research organization(s) ("think-tank(s)") and b) one or more firm(s) that is/are principally dedicated to public opinion research. Bidders MUST clearly demonstrate that each of a) and b) have experience within the last two years conducting research related to governance and/or democratic reform and/or citizenship issues.

Further into that section there's a reference to "Annex A of the request for proposals," but I can't find an online version of that RFP.

Cost of project: Including expenses and GST, no more than $900,000.

Project Principal Investigators

The winning bidders for this project were COMPAS Research and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

COMPAS Research

It didn't take much reading before I hit on something which elicited "ahhAHHahh" - in suitable rising crescendo.

Our experience with the [Financial] Post taught us a lot about designing research to help a client’s bottom line.... Today, COMPAS is a research partner to CanWest, Canada’s largest media company. CanWest’s many assets include the National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, and Montreal Gazette, as well as the ... Global Television Network.

Frontier Centre for Public Policy

FCPP is a self-described prairie-focused, Winnipeg-based think tank. Without looking further than a Google search of the company name, which conveniently spits up a list of organizations and groups which use FCPP as their primary source of information, I'm guessing this think tank does research which skews to the right, maybe even the far right.

A short visit to the FCPP website (it was all I could stand) supports this view. For example, under Aboriginals, one finds this enlightened title on a recent publication: "Ask not what your country can do for you..."

Under Environment, their policy would move away from the "'command and control' style of regulation and towards the use of markets and property rights."

--

There's likely a lot more which could be uncovered about the tendering process and the two organizations which were the investigators of this government-funded study. But I'll leave that to others to do.

Next up: The methodology of the forums and survey, including recruitment and payment to participants.

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Harper Govt 2007 "Public Consultations" on Reform a Sham

In 2007 and all within the space of five months, the Harper government began and completed "Public Consultations on Canada's Democratic Institutions and Practices," issued a call for tender for the "independent" overseeing of same and as part of this project, had 12 Luntz-style forums held across Canada, a "national telephone survey" done - whose response rate was 11 percent - and produced a final report, two appendices and a participant workbook.

The purpose of these public consultations?

To learn the view of forum participants (after they'd 'studied' the issues) and survey respondents on, in the words of Peter Van Loan when he submitted the final report to the House of Commons on September 10th, 2007, "a wide range of issues, including" - i.e., far from limited to, these topics:

• Citizen participation in a democracy - including discussion of voting and volunteerism
• House of Commons
• Senate
• Political parties
• Electoral reform

The twelve forums were each held over the course of a single 24-hour period. In other words, less than six hours of actual study was done.

From the final report: "Video presentations by subject matter experts were presented at the forums. Each topic began with a presentation, typically involving a video and brief questions and answers. This was followed by extensive discussions in breakouts. Breakout groups then re-assembled for concluding discussions."

It took the citizens assemblies of British Columbia and Ontario up to ONE YEAR to study various electoral systems alone. Yet forum participants in these "public consultations" were expected to provide an informed answer on their voting system preferences after ONE HOUR and at the end of an intense session at which other topics had been thrown at them.

“Canada’s New Government committed to consult Canadians on the state of our democracy,” Minister Van Loan said. “With the release of the report, we have fulfilled that commitment.”

“We approached the consultations process with a clear goal: to move beyond the vested interests, entrenched institutions and powerful lobbyists in Ottawa to determine the views of average Canadians, whose voices in this day and age often aren’t heard,” said Minister Van Loan. “I am pleased to say we have achieved that goal.”

No doubt the Harper Conservatives were pleased. The design of the forums ensured the results they wanted.

Am going to write much more about this. However, I just wanted to get this stuff out there now.

As calls for reforming our electoral process get louder and more frequent, Harper & Company will most assuredly argue that they've consulted Canadians and learned that we're happy with the electoral system the way it is.

No doubt the Liberals (or the power-brokers among them) will sing the same tune.

You know the song: "Been there, done that and results align with our view."

So, too, will the corporate media, whose owners also have part ownership of our two major political parties.

Fellow bloggers, please have at it.

Download for posterity the full report, Appendix 1, Appendix II and workbook.

Dig into:

1. the tendering process and the backgrounds of the people/organizations who conducted these consultations;
2. the methodology of the forums and survey, including recruitment and payment to participants - I couldn't find the number of participants who attended the forums anywhere;
3. the questions asked, and their number and order in the survey (Appendix 1);
4. the authorship (COMPAS Research/Frontier Centre for Public Policy) and content of the workbook - electoral reform was treated last, over three pages and there's clear bias;
5. the conclusions made in the final report, with a comparison of them to the framing and order of questions and how the forums were conducted.

Am going to start my own digging expedition and shall be reporting back...

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Fair Vote Canada Calls Government on Electoral Reform

Fair Vote Canada calls on the new government and Parliament to quit the dithering and dodging on electoral reform: Commit to a citizen-driven electoral reform process before the next election.

When the new House of Commons is convened in mid-November, Fair Vote Canada says the first order of business should be a commitment to institute a citizen-driven electoral reform process, with a timeline that ends no later than the next election. The call for action was issued at a Parliament Hill press conference, where Fair Vote Canada was joined by Green Party leader Elizabeth May.

“How far does our system have to deteriorate before our political leaders address the appalling democracy deficit created by our dysfunctional voting system?” said Larry Gordon, Executive Director of Fair Vote Canada. “The lowest turnout in history, distorted results, seven million orphan voters, the Green Party with nearly one million votes being denied seats, the Bloc getting a million fewer votes than the NDP but far more seats – this is not democracy and it is not tolerable.”

“First-past-the-post was developed in the 11th century, when people believed the earth was flat,” said Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada. “When it was first used in Canada, leeching was still considered a cutting-edge medical practice. Time has moved on but Canadians are still being punished by a dysfunctional voting system that is an embarrassing relic of a bygone era.”

Fair Vote Canada is calling for a citizen-driven federal reform process, with one model being the independent citizens’ assembly and referendum process used by British Columbia and Ontario. The process used by New Zealand in the early 1990s is another option: in a first referendum, voters indicated whether they wanted reform and also voted on their preferred alternative system; in a second referendum, they voted between their preferred alternative and the status quo.

“Mr. Harper said he intends to address the future of the Senate.” said Andy Blair, Vice President of Fair Vote Canada. “Last year, Senator Hugh Segal and others floated the idea of a national referendum on abolishing the Senate. If Mr. Harper proceeds with such a referendum that is an opportunity to add a referendum question on electoral reform for the House of Commons.”

“The next Parliament will be judged by the Canadian people on whether it continues the do-nothing path of past Parliaments, or if it finally recognizes the urgent need to give Canadians equal votes, fair election results, and a truly representative House of Commons. With voters walking away from the system in disgust and young people concluding that voting has no purpose, Canada cannot afford a Parliament that sits on its hands,” said Blair.

- 30 -

Reprinted from today's Fair Vote Canada media release.

If you care by electoral reform, please sign up to become a member of Fair Vote Canada or to volunteer to help with its campaign to reform Canada's electoral system.

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Podcast: Stories of Poverty in the First Person - Sheree

Episode 19 of 24. A reading from the book Policies of Exclusion, Poverty & Health: Stories from the front.

I've always hated the way I looked. I was fair-skinned; I had light hair. I wasn't Status. I was considered Caucasian by the Native community and by the government, but the white people would look at me: "You're Native." I was hated and ridiculed by my family and my peers: I was nothing; I was nobody; I would never amount to anything, no matter how I tried, where I tried or who I tried with; I was adopted; I was found in the ditch; I was found in the garbage. That was what they told me. I was beat up physically everyday. By the time I turned 5, I was made into a sexual object.

I read that over to myself after copying and pasting it and don’t know what else to add. It sickens me what Sheree and so many of these women have gone through.

All these stories were heart-wrenching to collect, assemble and hold secret until I released the first project report. Now to read them again, out loud, for these podcasts - well, that has proven difficult.

In that respect, Sheree’s story is no exception. Nor is Sheree an exception in protecting and nurturing an incredible inner strength to overcome what so many others wouldn’t:

I’m hiding right now in this little place. I’m trying to gather my energy to go out in the world and say:

“OK, here I am again! Let’s try it again. One more time. Let’s get it right people!”

I think I’m so stupid sometimes, seriously, because I go out there and try again. I really, honestly think that I’m going to find someone who’s going to help. It won’t go away. I just believe.

These women are amazing and literally take my breath away. It’s been a profound privilege to know them and to be trusted with their stories.

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Star Wants Democracy Only for Some

Alberta's turnout was among the lowest in the country, fourth from the bottom, with the Northwest Territories (48.6%), Nunavut (49.4%) and Newfoundland & Labrador (48.1%) the only provinces or territories lower.



In the case of Alberta, with only 52.9% voter turnout the Conservatives obtained 27 of the 28 seats. But that 94.6% virtual seat sweep was courtesy of 34.2% of the Alberta electorate. The other 65.8% of Alberta voters either stayed home or voted other than Conservative.

Now consider Newfoundland and Labrador, which came in last for voter turnout. NL Premier Danny Williams and supporters pushed his Anything But Conservative campaign hard throughout the province. Reports were common of demoralized Conservatives and the CPoC's struggles to find people willing to run as candidates against the moneyed avalanche which was the ABC campaign.



Should progressives be pleased with the demoralization of the CPoC's supporters in the province?

No, not if they hold that democracy should be inclusive of and for everyone, not just those with whose views they can agree.

I feel as bad for the disenfranchised Conservatives in NL as I do for the 65.8% disenfranchised Albertans who either voted differently or didn't vote at all.

The numbers are telling. No matter which political ideology you hold, surely you can see that forcing a multi-party democracy into a two-party voting system is unfair to the electorate, undemocratic and horribly wrong.

The first past the post voting system was designed and implemented back in the days when Canada and most other democracies had just two parties competing for office.

A true democracy adapts to change.

All but three democracies had done so by the end of the last century, having recognized that the development of more parties, as created by the citizenry, meant the requirement to accommodate to this growth. Adapting to change did NOT mean forcing those parties to reduce back to two, thus forcing citizens of the democracy to choose between only two options.

The needed change was obvious to the leaders of these democracies, to move from a voting system which was designed for only two parties - first past the post (also Alternative Vote, as used in Australia, or Instant Runoff Vote) - to one of proportional representation, which is designed for multi-party democracies.

But there continues to be resistance to such democratic change in Canada. It comes almost exclusively from the elites who hold power, among whom are the corporate media, such as the Toronto Star.

That the Star should tout earnestly about the need for poverty reduction, environmental protection, etc., etc., etc., but at the same time be consistently against proportional representation speaks to how stuck in the old days the paper is.

If Canada had a system of proportional representation ... the pro-life Christian Heritage Party, for example, might win enough votes to get seats. And new parties might emerge to win seats – say, an Alberta First party or even ethnic parties.

So Harper might be kept in power by entering a coalition with pro-life and Alberta First parties. Now that, indeed, is a scary prospect.

Scare mongering. How quaint.

The Star needs to catch up with the current century and get its head out of its ass expand its view. If Harper, the Alberta First Party, and some pro-life and far-right parties collectively obtained a majority of seats under proportional representation and they formed a coalition majority government, then the government would represent a true majority of Canadians.

This would be a democratic result, which proportional representation is all about.

Clearly, the Star endorses democracy only for some. Which, in the end, amounts to no democracy at all.

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This Day 79 Years Ago Women "declared" Persons

Seventy nine years ago today, October 18th, Canadian women became PERSONS (activates audio file). Our voices were heard through the efforts of a small group of politically motivated women from the prairie provinces.

Much has changed since that day, but too much has stayed the same.

Recently, the Federal Conservatives deleted the word "equality" from the Status of Women's statement of purpose; discontinued the national child-care proposal that all Provinces were engaged in structuring and cut funding to many social services that benefited women, the elderly and families.

Suddenly, according to Mr. Harper and his neo-cons, the women in Canada ARE equal to men.

How can this be when we earn 25% less for doing the same job as a man; when we are under-represented in the practises of law and the sciences; when we must fight to gain credence in the political sphere; when we are not safe walking alone at night; when rape and abuse of our person is punished less than a corporate embezzler?

Nelly McLung, in her speech on CBC radio 79 years ago said, "...and the end is not yet". Truer words have never been spoken.

Woman's endeavour to walk beside their male counterparts continues.

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Hey Liberals! It's the grassroots!

According to a Liberal candidate with whom I had a long conversation, there are no Liberal grassroots, locally or nationally.

Here's the story...

When the Green Shift was first announced, I was excited about the Liberal Party for the first time in my life.

So I contacted my local Liberal candidate to volunteer to maintain his website - keep it up to date with the latest news items, refresh its design, post events, etc. - and to help with canvassing. I also later volunteered my services to the Green candidate, an offer which she took up.

Got an email response from the Liberal candidate within a few days with a Thank You! and an advisement that I'd be hearing from his campaign.

Never heard a word from them.

Nor, coincidentally, did I receive a reply to an email of inquiry I'd sent to the President of the local EDA a year or so ago, a man well known in the community.

I too am known in the community both for my work through WISE on exposing local poverty issues - not appreciated by all, to be sure - and my having done such nationally-recognized work while living on extremely low income.

Am beginning to wonder now if my social status was the culprit - you know, I am and represent local throwaways, people with whom the LPC would prefer not to associate and who couldn't conceivably have anything to offer the great "natural governing party" or its local team.

Anyway, it's not as if the local campaign couldn't have used the help. The website never was maintained, events posted continued to be from a year and more ago, some even from the last election.

When I met the candidate in the last week before the election, I suggested that the local Liberals really needed to get their grassroots involved - at which point he said in a disheartened manner and apparent resignation, "There is [sic] no grassroots."

The implication from the subsequent conversation was not only an absence of "ordinary" Canadians in local and national Liberal campaigning, but also that said ordinary folk wouldn't be welcome by the Liberal elites - of which the shrinking party seems mainly made up.

The irony couldn't be more obvious. The success of a political party depends on its ability to win the hearts and minds of so-called ordinary Canadians, or at least enough of them who vote.

Yet a party can't win those hearts and minds unless they employ the use of said Canadians in their campaigns.

It's not all about throwing money around, as we've seen from the Conservatives' recent win and the gains by the NDP and Greens. It's about connecting to your supporters and including all and any who are willing and want to help.

NB: I've never met an "ordinary" Canadian.

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City of Victoria vs. Homeless

Wow. They just don't give up, do they? Recently, a decision by the BC Supreme Court struck down a City of Victoria law which prohibited homeless people from erecting tents on public parks. The law was found to be unconstitutional.

Now city councillors have slapped a limit on the times of day the tents can be up.

According to Judge Ross, sections of the two Victoria Bylaws which denied homeless people the right to provide themselves shelter on public land “violate ... the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in that they deprive homeless people of life, liberty and security of the person in a manner not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

So what do the City's councillors do in response?

The city plans to appeal the court decision, but until the appeal is heard - which could take more than a year - the city has adopted a bylaw enforcement policy that will allow homeless to erect and use tents in parks only between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m.

At 7 a.m. a person using a tent in a park will be asked to dismantle it and move on. If they refuse, the city will dismantle the tent and remove it.

The policy, which will be in effect at all times when the number of homeless in Victoria exceeds the number of available shelter beds, restricts the erecting and use of temporary shelters in public spaces to homeless persons. It prohibits cooking, campfires and fire pits in parks, and will not allow tents or temporary shelters to be erected on streets, sidewalks and boulevards....

"We're looking at business as usual with the understanding that we have to allow camping in parks," [Acting Mayor Dean] Fortin said yesterday.

"We're going to ensure, on behalf of the residents of Victoria that we're taking care of children's playgrounds, sports fields and sensitive ecosystems. We must protect those parts of parks but at the same time follow the judgment."

"Maybe the politicians should pack up their homes and take them with them during the day," said James, a man who was sleeping at the [Beacon Hill Park] encampment. [my emphasis]

Good on James!

And incidentally,

• The need to provide for one's life, liberty and security of person doesn't conveniently turn itself off between the hours of 9 p.m. and 7 a.m., nor does inclement weather.
• There is no justifiable reason for making parks accessible for ten hours but not for 24. Moreover, the hours chosen smack of white-collar, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., centrism.

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Electile Dysfunction Worsens in 2008

The disproportionality of our so-called representative democracy worsened in 2008.

Among the astonishing facts: The only party to have gained votes in Federal Election 2008 was also the only party not to have won a single seat to the House of Commons.

All other parties LOST VOTES. The following table, whose data was obtained through Fair Vote Canada, visually highlights how deeply eroded our democracy has become.

	2006	2008	Vote Change	Seat Change
Cons	5,374,071	5,205,334	down 168,737 votes	up 19 seats
Libs	4,479,415	3,629,990	down 849,425 votes	down 27 seats
NDP	2,589,597	2,517,075	down 72,522 votes	up 8 seats
Bloc	1,553,201	1,379,575	down 173,636 votes	down 1 seat
Green	664,068	940,747	up 276,679 votes	0 seats in HoC

Given the Conservatives gain of 19 seats (by our ridiculous and archaic first-past-the-post voting system), Stephen Harper claims to have received a "stronger mandate" to govern. On the contrary: In losing almost two hundred thousand votes, his party lost favour with Canadians.

Not only does Election 08 go down in history for the first in which voter turnout fell below 60%, it may also have gone down in history for delivering the least democratic result since the formation of Canada.

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Fair Vote Canada: Electoral dysfunction, yet again

Press Release - October 15, 2008

Fair Vote Canada

Electoral dysfunction, yet again

Greens deserved more than 20 seats - voting system also punished New Democrats, western Liberals and urban Conservatives

Once again, Canada's antiquated first-past-the-post system wasted millions of votes, distorted results, severely punished large blocks of voters, exaggerated regional differences, created an unrepresentative Parliament and contributed to a record low voter turnout.

The chief victims of the October 14 federal election were:

• Green Party: 940,000 voters supporting the Green Party sent no one to Parliament, setting a new record for the most votes cast for any party that gained no parliamentary representation. By comparison, 813,000 Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able to elect 27 MPs.
• Prairie Liberals and New Democrats: In the prairie provinces, Conservatives received roughly twice the vote of the Liberals and NDP, but took seven times as many seats.
• Urban Conservatives: Similar to the last election, a quarter-million Conservative voters in Toronto elected no one and neither did Conservative voters in Montreal.
• New Democrats: The NDP attracted 1.1 million more votes than the Bloc, but the voting system gave the Bloc 50 seats, the NDP 37.

"How can anyone consider this democratic representation?" asked Barbara Odenwald, President of Fair Vote Canada.

Had the votes on October 14 been cast under a fair and proportional voting system, Fair Vote Canada projected that the seat allocation would have been approximately as follows:

• Conservatives - 38% of the popular vote: 117 seats (not 143)
• Liberals - 26% of the popular vote: 81 seats (not 76)
• NDP - 18% of the popular vote: 57 seats (not 37)
• Bloc - 10% of the popular vote: 28 seats (not 50)
• Greens - 7% of the popular vote: 23 seats (not 0)

Fair Vote Canada also has data for each province on the number of seats won and number of seats actually deserved by each party.

Odenwald emphasized that any projection on the use of other voting systems must be qualified, as specific system features would affect the exact seat allocation.

"With a different voting system, people would also have voted differently," said Larry Gordon, Executive Director of Fair Vote Canada. "There would have been no need for strategic voting. We would likely have seen higher voter turnout. We would have had different candidates - more women, and more diversity of all kinds. We would have had more real choices."

Fair Vote Canada (FVC) is a national multi-partisan citizens' campaign to promote voting system reform. FVC was founded in 2001 and has a National Advisory Board of distinguished Canadians from all points on the political spectrum.

- 30 -

Interested in learning more about electoral reform or volunteering to help spread the message? Then visit Fair Vote Canada's website and its new home for Canada's latest Orphan Voters.

[Press release reprinted with permission.]

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Historic Low in Voter Turnout Indictment of Gaming the Vote

Election 08 now goes down in history for being the first federal election campaign to have generated such public disdain that over 40% of the electorate didn't bother even to cast a vote. Only 59.1 percent of us showed up at the polls.

For Conservative voters, there was a greater incentive to get to the polls. In general, they knew that in voting FOR a party, their votes might actually count.

For most supporters of the NDP, Liberals and Greens, there would have been a depressing awareness that a visit to the polling station was going to be a useless exercise, that their vote wouldn't go toward electing anyone. Either that, or the elector had the distasteful 'option' of casting a vote AGAINST the Conservatives and for the party running second, one which they considered less than the best for Canada - that alone could have been a disincentive to show up.

Did vote swapping or strategic voting work? Not on your life. And the lowest voter turnout ever suggests that it helped achieve the opposite of what their proponents had wanted.

This is just one more argument for reforming our electoral system to one of proportional representation. I hope that federal Liberals, NDP and Greens across Canada will do their utmost to support the referendum coming in BC on May 12th, 2009.

Four years ago, British Columbians voted 58% in favour of changing our electoral system to the Single Transferable Vote, one which includes both a preferential ballot and multi-member ridings. The BC Liberal government's imposition of 60% for passage of that - and the coming - referendum, a threshold supported by the opposition NDP, ensured that the voters were denied. For voters who had favoured STV, the irony couldn't have been more obvious.

Now we get to do it all over again in just over six months.

If British Columbians manage to exceed that 60% threshold, then a change from first-past-the-post here could increase the public enthusiasm and volunteer effort for proportional representation across the country.

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Congratulations to NDP and its entire volunteer team

OK. 'Tis premature.

But am betting the NDP increase their number of seats by at least 20% compared to the 30 seats they had at dissolution. Which therefore calls for a big thumbs up to the team for a job well done.

Now am curious to see by how much they exceed that estimate.

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ID Rules: Two-thirds of Dalhousie students turned away

This news is disgusting and all too predictable:

At Dalhousie University in Halifax, nearly two-thirds of the students showing up to cast ballots on campus were turned away because they didn't have the necessary signed form from their university residence stating their address or were off-campus students, said Mark Coffin, vice-president of education on the Dalhousie student council. The form is the only way for some students to prove they live in the area, as many of them have IDs with an address from another region...

"You know, 1.4 million young Canadians didn't vote in the last election," Coffin said. "Well, these new rules aren't making it any easier for students to vote."

...[Elections Canada official Dana Doiron] said Elections Canada got a sense of how widespread the lack of awareness was at the advance polls when people failed to show up with the proper ID.

Guess which party is most served by this failure of our electoral system to be accessible to all Canadians? A change which was pushed by that same party?

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Carbon Footprint Award: Greens win, NDP last

The David Suzuki Foundation evaluated the carbon footprint of each of the four national campaigns. The results?

Green Party - 2.5 - to visit 26 cities
Liberals - 503.4 - to visit 68 cities
Conservatives - 514.4 - to visit 66 cities
NDP - 586.1 - to visit 64 cities

All parties bought offsets to compensate for their carbon footprint.

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A Supreme Court Win for "Homeless People"!

Or, as I prefer to refer to such friends, those who live (and may choose to live) without bricks and mortar around them.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has struck down the City of Victoria's bylaws that prevent homeless people from sleeping in city parks.

In a judgment released today, Justice Carol Ross found it is unconstitutional to prevent homeless people from sleeping on public property or erecting shelter to protect themselves when there are not enough shelter beds available for the number who are homeless...

“I'm sleeping in a tent-city tonight,” wrote David Arthur Johnston, one of the defendants challenging the bylaws, in an e-mail. Supporters were to meet at the Victoria court house at noon. “From there I intend to go to where I will set up a tent and invite others to initiate a tent-city.”

So here's one for David! - as in David and Goliath.

I urge people who are interested in this issue to read the study which I cite in that second link above. It has to be one of the best qualitative, in-depth studies on homelessness I've come across in all my years of research. It makes the poignant case, mainly through the voices of people who once built a community and made non-traditional homes for themselves in Toronto, of the importance of allowing tent cities.

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Making system work not all up to voters

Someone over at another blog made the following comments:

All I am asking is that the rest of us ... appreciate how those most informed on this critical issue are so conflicted in our allegiances... Let’s hope that in the next government ... we begin the process of moving to a new electoral system where people no longer have to make such undemocratic decisions at the ballot box. [my emphasis]

I haven't linked to the post since it's the content which I want to address, not the person who wrote it and who included his professional accreditation after his name, as though to give extra force to his argument.

The comment is paradigmatic of countless arguments we've seen over the course of this campaign.

First, I've known people who never made it past fifth grade who've demonstrated more wisdom and perspicacity than all the academics and professionally-certified I've met combined. And I've met a lot of them.

Second, the other portion I highlighted employs less than all the facts by, for example, omitting one role which party leaders in this democracy should be playing.

Voters are never forced to vote this way or that, at least not in Canada, and we're certainly never forced to make an undemocratic decision. The democratic choice is always to vote for the party which represents the values, policies and platform which the voter thinks are best for Canada - and, for some voters, the world. If voters choose to vote other than this way, so be it. But don't suggest that we're forced to do so. We are not.

In this democracy, which is currently saddled with a two-party voting system, it is up to party leaders to make the system work democratically and to fix it when it doesn't. It is up to our party leaders, when necessary, to form a coalition government - indeed, a government which amounts to a majority - which represents the will of the people, as democratically expressed at the ballot box. That party leaders have never done so at the federal level is reflective of their choice to allow the voters' choice not to be honoured. It is these leaders' own moral failure, not that of the voters, to make our representative democracy work.

The argument employed in the above comment has placed the entire onus for the results of the current election on the backs of voters, whereas the responsibility lies with both voters and the parties we elect to make the current system work and to change it when it doesn't.

I agree that this system needs changing, urgently. In fact, beginning the process toward proportional representation should be the first order of business of the new government.

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Nanosophy: May likely hurt Green breakthrough

There's no doubt that the oblique and not-so-oblique comments uttered by May which urged Green supporters to vote Liberal or NDP or Bloc - but, by extrapolation, NOT Green - will prevent what likely would have been a Green Party breakthrough this election.

Nik Nanos (PDF), the pollster whose work and methodology I most respect, would seem to agree.

Elizabeth May will likely preside over the best showing for the Green Party of Canada in terms of the aggregate number of Green votes. Getting into the leaders' debate represented a breakthrough for the party but it is unknown what type of negative impact she had on Green Party support by telling Green voters to cast their ballot for the Liberals. [my emphasis]

I think May's negative impact on GPC support will outweigh any gains. Her intentional (?) obfuscations and duplicity have perplexed, frustrated and finally angered this Green Party supporter.

There's a GPC convention shortly after tomorrow's election... Should be interesting... Wish I could go.

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Subtlety from CBC: Two images

Currently on the home page of CBC's Canada Votes section, there's an image of two side by side head shots, those of Harper and Dion.

See anything interesting about the photos chosen or how they've been rendered?

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May is against, for, against, for, against ... strategic voting

Help!

I just have to wonder how often Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada, can be misconstrued in the media. Is it a concerted effort by all media types deliberately to distort her meaning or is there something about what May is saying which makes her position, at minimum, ambiguous? I mean this question seriously.

Here's the latest press release, issued from the Green Party of Canada a few hours ago:

Elizabeth May did not advise strategic voting

Green Party leader Elizabeth May has not called on voters to abandon Green Party candidates. A news story that states otherwise is misleading.

Ms. May did say that, "Being honest with the voters, I acknowledge that there is concern over vote-splitting in a small number of ridings. But I am not going to say 'vote Liberal here, vote NDP there.'

"I do understand how difficult choices can be due to the perverse results of the first-past-the-post voting system. Canada needs an electoral system that accurately represents how Canadians vote.

"I repeated over and over that I would not advise voters to vote for anyone other than Greens. Attempts to misrepresent my position on this issue are tiring. I do not support strategic voting and I have not advised voters to choose any candidate other than Green."

All media reports of May speaking about strategic voting have included direct quotes. Given the sheer volume of those reports, can we continue to believe there's no truth to them? That they're ALL putting words in May's mouth?

I'm always inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt. But frankly, I'm getting tired of the number of times I've had to do that over the past couple of weeks regarding May's comments on strategic voting.

And that hasn't been the only issue on which May's words have gone back on themselves.

There was that kerfuffle awhile back over May's supposed remark on TVO's The Agenda, which had her purportedly agreeing with the statement: "Canadians are stupid'.

Alas, no guest on that show uttered such a sentence.

What one guest did say was: "Politicians think that Canadians are stupid."

The taped video of that program reveals that May never agreed with a statement which, we've already established, was never made. It did show May turning, in mid-sentence, to someone off-camera. She appeared to remark to that person, in response to something he/she said: "And I agree with that assessment."

Here's the problem. Neither did May say, "and I DISagree with that assessment," which she claimed in a follow-up program of The Agenda, to which she'd been invited in order to clear up the matter once and for all.

Moderator Steve Paikin, who had sat right next to May during the first program, said he had not heard her say 'DISagree' nor did he hear her say it on the video tape of the program which they both watched together. Moreover, it was clear to anyone else watching the video tape that she hadn't said 'DISagree' either. She'd said "agree." But on that second program May continued to insist, having just watched the clip of the first show, that she'd said 'DISagree'.

So, was that the end of it? No.

A couple of days later, May wrote on her blog exactly what most people had thought had happened - what I described above as the first explanation: turning to someone off-camera and agreeing with that person's unrecorded statement.

Which means that May reversed her own explanation as given in that second program of The Agenda.

This is why I'm not at all confident that what May is reported to have said by some media types (the few reputable ones) isn't exactly what she did say.

That aside, there are some peculiar goings-on with media bias particularly during this election.

Therefore, is it so totally out to lunch to suggest that, for example, The Canadian Press - which has been observed to have jettisoned any semblance of objectivity - isn't up to some mischief making? We've already witnessed CanWest media up to no good - e.g., Mike Duffy shilling for the neocons on CTV, ditto Craig Oliver also on CTV and CanWest newspapers across the country all dutifully falling in line with endorsements of Harper.

I wonder who owns The Canadian Press now?

Anyway, combine corporate media bias with May's loose tongue and all kinds of interesting things can happen. None of them, unfortunately, seem meant to further democracy.

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Fishy: Scrutineers given possession of ballot boxes?

This is scary news. We are used to seeing such things reported from the U.S. and other countries, but not from within Canada.

Police in Quebec City are investigating the disappearance of three ballot boxes from an advance poll held early last week in a city riding.

The scrutineers took the boxes home, but when they were returned, three boxes containing hundreds of votes were missing.

Media reports Saturday also said the seals had been broken on some of the boxes.

Elections Canada had asked the scrutineers to take the boxes home with them, but then ordered the boxes to be returned to the local returning officer when media reports revealed the broken seals...

One serious question to ask: Why would scrutineers have been given possession of ballot boxes in the first place?

Scrutineers are party representatives, specifically representatives of their party's candidate in a given riding. Talk about the fox guarding the hen house!

Let's hope the RCMP get to the bottom of this quickly. Or, as one commenter astutely noted, perhaps it's best to leave the investigation to Elections Canada.

The RCMP? Well, 'tis not so corruption-free or trustworthy itself lately.

See more recent post for an update.

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Feminists, Poverty-Environment-Health Activists: Attention please!

This commentary by Elsie Hambrook, Chair of the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women, is a must-read.

When Doris Anderson, former and famed editor of Chatelaine and lifelong activist, came to Saint John on a stormy winter night in 2003, drawing hundreds of women to hear her speak on electoral reform, she confided something that, years later, still makes some of us think.

She was more than 80 years old, feisty as ever, and she said if she had it to do over, she would spend all her energies on electoral reform. She had had many causes and careers, several to do with advancing Canadian women's equality, and she had become convinced that without an electoral system that better reflected the actual votes, women would not gain political equality. [My emphasis]

I made such a decision when WISE folded December 15th last year, to pour all my energy into advancing democratic and electoral reform, the latter with emphasis on changing our archaic, undemocratic first-past-the-post majoritarian voting system to a system of proportional representation. After all, WISE had made that its very first of three goals.

Ever since making that decision, I've felt one frustration after another. And yes, I do know that a mere ten months isn't a long time; there have been people working for years to get electoral reform to the position of importance it needs to be in the minds of the Canadian public.

As we found when operating WISE, getting the message out to the public is damn hard. Not just because the media and corporate and party elites are so strongly against democratic and electoral reform, but because, among other things, locations where people come together are increasingly not available for canvassing or soliciting.

For example, at the All Candidates Meeting in my community, I wanted to distribute Fair Vote Canada flyers on the seats in the theatre. I'd printed off 250 flyers, plus sheets of the FVC petition for candidates and audience members to sign (was hoping to ask a question at the mic on ER/PR).

When I arrived at the ACM venue, I asked permission of the manager to distribute my flyers on the theatre seats.

Denied.

So I asked permission to distribute the flyers outside, at the front of the building.

Denied again.

Even the purportedly public sidewalk fronting the building was off-limits.

It's a common problem: more and more places that used to be public gathering-places are now in private hands. Even public places can be under lease to private concerns.

Anyway, with an issue as fundamental as electoral reform and the unfortunate glazing of eyes one witnesses too often when it's mentioned, I was immensely gratified to learn of two other feminists, one of whom is located in one of Canada's leading feminist hotspots, writing about the same issue and urging some serious activism in support of proportional representation.

As I've argued previously and will no doubt do again and again, the single most pressing issue for Canadians is the recovery of democratic choice for voters. Until that happens, none of the issues that matter to the true majority of Canadians will be addressed. At best, they will be given only lip service. At worst - and this is no different than what's happening now -, Canadians will continue to be governed by politicians whose priorities are the same as their corporate backers and moneyed lobbyists.

That's because the people with the power to change policy - those who get 100% of the power on the basis of 60% of the seats, which in turn are on the basis of less than 40% of the popular vote - have no reason to listen to the remaining 60+ percent of Canadians who voted. Nor do they have to listen to the 35 to 40 percent of the Canadian electorate which has given up voting altogether.

Until acceptance of politicians' applications for employment to these powerful positions are directly tied to whether or not those politicians DO listen to the majority of the electorate, said politicians will keep on ignoring the issues which matter to 76 percent of the Canadian public eligible to vote.

For more information about electoral reform, please visit Fair Vote Canada and their brilliant new website for Canada's Orphan Voters.

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Falling Markets - Rich get richer, the rest get poorer

There's an excellent money-for-dummies article out today, written by an Associated Press writer, which explains a basic economic fundamental in plain terms. Once you understand that basic principle, you soon realize the broader implications for "ordinary Canadians" of Harper's "great buying opportunities."

Titled "All that money you've lost - where did it go?," the article explains the difference between the value of stocks vs. the value of cold hard cash.

If you've ever been confused about the distinction between the two - or never supposed there was one - then you should read this article.

Trillions in stock market value - gone. Trillions in retirement savings - gone. A huge chunk of the money you paid for your house, the money you're saving for college, the money your boss needs to make payroll - gone, gone, gone.

Whether you're a stock broker or Joe Six-pack, if you have a 401(k), a mutual fund or a college savings plan, tumbling stock markets and sagging home prices mean you've lost a whole lot of the money that was right there on your account statements just a few months ago.

But if you no longer have that money, who does? The fat cats on Wall Street? Some oil baron in Saudi Arabia? The government of China?

Or is it just - gone?

If you're looking to track down your missing money - figure out who has it now, maybe ask to have it back - you might be disappointed to learn that is was never really money in the first place.

The bottom line in terms of those "great buying opportunities" mentioned by Harper?

The people most hurt by the stock market slides are those who need to cash in their stocks. In other words, people who haven't already enough in their chequing accounts - or under a mattress, buried in the yard, or tucked away in a drawer - to support them over the coming year or so.

Which means, in turn, that the rich are about to get richer, again, on the misfortunes of the middle-class and those who have worked so hard to create for themselves a small investment nest-egg.

And it means that numbers of the middle-class are likely soon to be joining the burgeoning number of us who live below Canada's poverty line.

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Cadman Affair: Harper expert says tape NOT doctored

The Conservatives' own audio forensic expert found the tape of journalist and author Tom Zytaruk, which had featured Zytaruk questioning Harper about his involvement in the alleged attempted bribe of former MP Chuck Cadman, had NOT been doctored.

A tape recording at the centre of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's $3.5-million defamation suit against the Liberal party was not altered as the prime minister has claimed, a court-ordered analysis of the tape by Harper's own audio expert has found.

The key portion of the recorded interview of Harper by a B.C. journalist contains no splices, edits or alterations, says the finding by a U.S. forensic audio expert.

The analysis was filed in Ontario Superior Court on Friday by lawyers for the Liberal party, despite attempts by Harper's lawyer to keep the opinion out of the court file until at least next week.

Harper sued the Liberals in the midst of a raging controversy earlier this year over claims in a book by B.C. author Tom Zytaruk that Conservatives offered late MP Chuck Cadman a $1-million life insurance policy in return for help defeating the minority Liberal government in 2005....

Former FBI agent Bruce Koenig, the sound expert Harper hired to prove his allegations [of doctoring], submitted a report dated Friday to Harper's lawyer, which also had to be sent to the Liberal lawyer, Chris Paliare, saying the contentious portion of the interview was uninterrupted.

Spread this news far and wide. Harper will want it kept far away from voters eyes and ears. Let's do our best to thwart his ambition.

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CAW Atlantic endorses Elizabeth May

Announcement from the CNW Group, October 8th. Just came up on my Google News Reader a couple of hours ago.

Les Holloway, CAW Atlantic Canada Area Director, announced today that the union is throwing its support behind Green Party leader Elizabeth May, in the Central Nova riding....

"It is critical that we do not re-elect a Harper Conservative government that will continue with its failed right-wing policies which have already cost our country hundreds of thousands of good paying manufacturing jobs," said Holloway.

Holloway stated, "This ideology that you give everybody their taxes back, cut government spending to do it by deregulating everything and let the market take care of itself has cost us dearly in both life and economic well being, and it has indeed put us on the same course as the United States."

"Elizabeth May is an extremely intelligent and articulate woman and will do us proud as a Member of Parliament for Central Nova. She cares about what this unbalanced economy is doing to residents of Nova Scotia and elsewhere," said Holloway....

That's quite a coup, methinks!

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Response to Bob Hepburn's "Green Party should fade away"

Bob Hepburn, writing in the TorStar today, says that the Green Party should simply fade away "for the good of the environment." The following is my response.

How dare Bob Hepburn so outrageously dismiss Green Party supporters, who are as much citizens of this country as he is? Because that's what it amounts to when he suggests the Green Party should just "fade away."

Supporters of the Greens have as much right to build, and vote for a party which reflects their views as any other citizen of this country. It's not their fault that our embarrassing, archaic undemocratic first-past-the-post voting system functions as it should only when two parties exist.

No truly democratic country should force its citizens to choose between just two options. We need to change the system to reflect the various interests of our citizens, not force parties to die off.

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Tyee Reporter barred from Harper Rally

Other media personnel were admitted, but not The Tyee's reporter Geoff Dembicki. Read the whole account. It reveals even more interesting details.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper spoke to what was most likely a packed room of supporters at Vancouver's Bayshore Westin hotel last night. The Tyee can't be sure though, because I was not let inside.

This was the second time the Harper team barred The Tyee from reporting on this campaign.

As the Conservative leader began his address in the Stanley Park Ballroom, several members of the media pleaded with event staff to be admitted.

The staffers held firm that the event had already begun and nobody standing outside was to be admitted.

I was running a few minutes late ... but I arrived at the ballroom before 7:00 p.m., the official start time of the rally, according to a Conservative press release.

Harper staffers were adamant that media were too late for the rally. After a few minutes, however, reporters from World Journal and Channel M were admitted to the ballroom.

Talk about controlling the message! I wonder who those "no comment" people were?

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Fair Vote Canada: Open letter to strategic voters

Posted in full, with permission from Fair Vote Canada..

Open letter from Fair Vote Canada to strategic voters and vote-swappers

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.” - Albert Einstein


Another federal election and another disaster for democracy.

On October 14, millions of Canadians – possibly eight million – will become orphan voters, casting ballots that send no one to Ottawa. As usual, the election results will be wildly distorted.

Some parties will get a portion of seats far exceeding their portion of the popular vote, while others will get too little or none at all.

We may even see a party opposed by six voters in every ten take majority control in the House of Commons.

Why we call this exercise “democracy” is a continuing mystery.

During every election in recent memory the frustration created by an undemocratic electoral system leads some to conclude that voters should try to “game” the system. Instead of marking the ballot for a party you support, they say, be “smart” and vote for a party you do not support in order block another party that you despise.

A recent poll by the Toronto Star indicated that about half of those supporting the Liberals, NDP and Green Party would consider casting a negative or “strategic” vote, abandoning the party they actually prefer, to vote for another party in the hope of stopping a candidate from the front-running Conservatives.

In addition to 40% of the eligible voters who choose not to vote we could now have another large group of people who have given up on sincere voting and genuine democratic representation.

This is no way to nourish pride of citizenship or public respect for the laws that emanate from an unrepresentative Parliament.

Citizens in most major democracies take for granted their right to cast a vote that elects the representation they want. In the upcoming election, the majority of Canadian voters will all but certainly be denied that right.

Fair Vote Canada cannot advise voters whether to cast negative votes or to participate in vote-swapping schemes on October 14. It’s rarely a clear or easy choice.

What we can advise is that all Canadians should be coming together to demand reform of our country’s undemocratic election process.

If you have not already done so, join and support Fair Vote Canada. Sign the Fair Vote Canada petition calling for a national referendum on electoral reform. Urge other organizations to make active citizenship, equal votes and proportional representation for all Canadians a part of their basic mission.

Together we can win.

British Columbians showed the way in 2005 when 58% voted by referendum for proportional representation, only to be frustrated – in the short-term – by an undemocratic government-imposed threshold of 60%. On May 12, 2009, British Columbians will vote again in an electoral reform referendum. With our encouragement and help, they can lead Canada on the path of democratic renewal.

The electoral system has orphaned many of us. We must refuse to be silenced. Democracy has been long delayed, but if democrats are steadfast, democracy will not be forever denied.

Fair Vote Canada
Orphan Voters

Please help spread the word about the importance of reforming our electoral system - distribute this letter widely. - Ocean.

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Way... to... go..., Elizabeth!

Mike Duffy gets some of his own bad-tasting medicine and for a cure he sorely needs. Biased, much, Mr. I-Heart-Stephen Duffy?

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Quips from Opposition Leaders re Harper Economic Plan

Elizabeth May:
"He's offering tariff reductions to industries that can’t afford to import machinery, just as he’s generously given tax cuts to businesses that have no profits to tax. If this wasn’t such a serious matter, Mr. Harper’s policies would be a joke."

Stephane Dion:
"Mr. Harper showed his true colours today by saying that the current market conditions had created ‘some great buying opportunities'.... Mr. Harper said today that it is no time to change boats in a storm. But Mr. Harper has been asleep at the helm. We need to change the captain and his crew." [My emphasis]

That quote from Harper sickens me.

Who would be the people able to capitalize on these "great buying opportunities"? Not I. Not the increasing number of individuals and families whose household incomes are below or plummeting disastrously close to the poverty line.

And the "great buying opportunities" come at the cost of some of the most poorly-strapped Canadians, including seniors. The losses have been to their nest eggs. Therefore, many of those who invested in mutual funds and were reliant on them as a form of income support have nothing left with which to invest or take back what they've lost.

The headline of another Liberal media release caught my eye in the context of a CBC.ca headline. The juxtaposition of the two is hilarious.

Liberal headline: "Conservatives ditch censorship provision in a panic."
CBC headline: "'This prime minister isn't going to panic': Harper to Mansbridge."

Jack Layton:
No press release from them yet. No doubt there'll be a goodie or two to add here, once it does come out.

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Life-threatening Vandalism - and Nothing from Harper

Where is Mr. Tough-on-Crime now? The one who touts the line "If you do the crime, you do the time"? The manly man who wants to put 14-year-olds in adult penal institutions?

There has been not one word from Stephen Harper or his minions about the most recent cases of serious, life-threatening vandalism against Liberal supporters.

TWENTY-NINE Liberal supporters who have democratically chosen to show their support by having lawn signs on their property have been targeted. Many have woken up to find their brake lines have been cut. Others didn't discover this fact until they were on the road and in major traffic.

When are the Harper Conservatives going to speak up against these heinous acts? We all know whose supporters are targeting Liberal supporters. So must the Conservatives.

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Ugh... Am exhausted... Is it over yet?

Well, the title about says it.

Don't know how the candidates can bear it. The vast majority of them must be extroverts, the 60-odd per cent of the population that is energized by being in a room full of people.

Unfortunately, the opposite is true for introverts, of which I am one. Other folks exhaust us, not because we don't like people (most of us do), but because we invest so much of OUR energy into any exchange with another person - the Other becomes our sole focus of attention.

Even engaging with people online doesn't seem to help, although I thought that imposing a faceless barrier would.

How candidates can get hyped about the issues no matter how many times they have to repeat the same old thing also boggles this tired brain.

I canna do it day in, day out, without a break in between. And frankly, I get BORED with having to say and think the same thing over and over and over... Although I recognize the necessity of that if we're going to get our message out to as many people as possible.

So, what do you think? Are you just as frazzled as I am? Or are you just getting started?

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Podcast: Stories of Poverty in the First Person - Rayna

A podcast reading from the book Policies of Exclusion, Poverty & Health: Stories from the front. Compiled, with Introduction and Reports by Chrystal Ocean. Copyright 2005.

I was pretty outgoing as a really young child. If I thought something was crap, I would say so. The first time my mom took out her stuff on me, I sat her down the next day and said, "You got a little out of control." Just had this rational discussion! I was 7…

We moved to different neighbourhoods and I wound up at a really tough school; I got beaten up at school everyday for a couple of years. It was ironic. I got beaten by a gang of girls on the same bridge that [14-year-old] Reena Virk died under. Of course, I was supposed to come home with A’s and B’s. It just wasn’t happening. So I’d get beaten up at home as well.

Rayna has struggled with depression and anxiety most of her life. Now on disability benefits, she is trying to maintain a part-time job, more for the sake of her self-esteem than for any bit of extra money she might earn. In fact, Rayna faces strong disincentives to work, including employment expenses which are not included in Ministry calculations.

Rayna also faces other barriers: finding housing which allows pets, her pets having been her lifeline; and earning enough money in any given week to keep up with the interest charged on an original $180 payday loan.

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First Rae, now Layton

As I wrote yesterday, the argument both men are now using to sway voters to their party is no more rational when spewed from Jack Layton's mouth today than it was when uttered yesterday by Bob Rae. They are counselling voters to do the wrong thing, or the right thing in the leaders' own views but for the wrong reason from the perspective of voters.

Both leaders are shifting their own responsibility onto voters. That responsibility is to lead and to form a temporary coalition or alliance, if necessary, after the election. Such a coalition would either form a majority government - with due representation of each party according to the proportion of the popular vote it received and thus including Green representation - or agitate as one to begin a democratic, grassroots-lead process to reform our voting system and replace it with proportional representation.

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Rae: Liberals should target NDP

OK. This I don't like. As readers of this blog will know, I'm no fan of the NDP. But I'm even less a fan of flawed reasoning and tactics intended to scare voters into doing something they otherwise wouldn't.

The reasons given by Bob Rae today for urging Liberals to target their attacks now at the NDP are senseless. They're intended to scare voters into doing exactly what they shouldn't: vote on the basis of "who stands the most chance to form the government," rather than for the party whose policies a voter most supports.

Think seriously about how asinine that argument is.

Rae said the Liberals need to emphasize that voting for the NDP will only make it easier for the Conservatives to increase their seat count.

"In the last 10 days, we've really got to focus on what are the real choices. And I honestly believe the NDP is not a viable choice anymore," Rae said after rallying about 40 supporters.

"Jack might think he's Barack Obama, but he really isn't. He's Ralph Nader. The effect of voting for his candidates in most ridings is to perpetuate Conservative rule."

One might argue the reverse and it would be as equally self-serving.

Scene: Hypothetical NDP strategist argues to gathered supporters:

The NDP need to emphasize that voting for the Liberals will only make it easier for the Conservatives to increase their seat count.

In the last 10 days, we've really got to focus on what are the real choices. And I honestly believe the Liberals are not a viable choice.

Dion might think he's Barack Obama, but he really isn't. He's Ralph Nader. The effect of voting for his candidates in most ridings is to perpetuate Conservative rule.

What matters, or should matter, to each and every voter, is which party platform best represents that voter's values and offers the best solutions. And engaged voters should be working to make the party platforms known to their friends, co-workers and neighbours.

If I am to vote for the Green, NDP, Liberal or, for that matter, Conservative candidate in my riding, it will be because the party which that candidate represents coheres best with my own sense of what matters.

I'll not vote based on a self-serving argument such as that which Rae has put forward.

Yes, thanks to our embarrassing, archaic, anti-democratic first-past-the-post electoral system, voters face a prisoner's dilemma. However, no party or candidate should be encouraging supporters of other parties to vote for them simply because their own party of choice purportedly doesn't stand a chance.

Voters should not be asked to compromise their democratic right and obligation to vote according to what they believe would be the best platform for this country.

What voters need, after the election is over and after they have cast their votes, are leaders with the backbone to do what's right: to form a temporary coalition, if necessary, one whose representation reflects each party's percentage of the popular vote - hence giving voters a form of proportional representation. Then, approach the Governor-General to request that the coalition form the government.

The coalition's first order of business? As Elizabeth May in the October 2nd debate said,

"First we have to fix the electoral system. We have to put ourselves on the path to proportional representation so we don't run the risk of false majorities such as a majority of the seats with the minority of support."

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May Nails Top Priority Issue: Electoral reform

[UPDATE: Thanks to information from a reader, more details are provided below.]

One month ago, I wrote that electoral reform was the most pressing issue facing Canada's voters.

"Not the environment. Not poverty. Not the healthcare system. Not crime, gangs, or violence against women. Not abortion. Not the war in Afghanistan or the US invasion of Iraq and their imminent attack on Iran. Not the sabre rattling between the US and Russia."

None of these issues will get addressed by ANY party or politician. Not in any substantive, meaningful way. Not unless something fundamental changes in our eroding democracy.

Therefore, the first order of business of any government should be the start of the process to replace our embarrassing, archaic, undemocratic first-past-the-post system with a form of proportional representation.

And which leader would do that?

Well, each of them were asked in last night's English language debate what they would do first should their party form the government.

Did any of them mention proportional representation or electoral reform in their answer?

Not the Conservatives, who do just fine on the present system.

Not the NDP. They talk the talk well enough - well, not always, as I challenged in a letter to a local paper and as we heard last night from Jack Layton. Nary a word fell from Layton's lips about proportional representation. Indeed, when the NDP had the opportunity to support changing our voting system to proportional representation back in 1980 they turned it down.

The Liberals wouldn't change our voting system either. Their 66-page platform mentions not a word about it. And Dion's response last night only confirmed that bringing democracy to our voting system isn't even on his radar. "Democracy" is all well and good when it comes to debate participants, but not so good when it comes to true voter choice, apparently.

There was only one leader who responded correctly to that first-order-of-business question.

It was Elizabeth May of the Green Party.

May promised to start down the road toward electoral reform and to shift the tax burden to polluters.

"As a woman and a single mom, I'm really good at multi-tasking, so there would be more than one thing," she quipped.

"We've got to put ourselves on a path of proportional representation, so that the will of the voters is expressed and the way people vote is reflected in the House of Commons."

Am looking for videos and a full transcript of the debate. Please write a comment below if you come across either and include the link to its source.

UPDATE
The question asked during the debate: "I'm a retiree building my shed in the backyard here and I have a question for all of you potential prime ministers. My question is if I should elect you prime minister, what's the very first thing you'll do when you get into office. And I don't want any bull feathers, baffled brains answer, I just want the real issue you're going to tackle."

Elizabeth May: "First I'd like to say I'd love to come help you finish the shed but as a woman and a single mom, I'm really good at multitasking so there will be more than one thing. First we have to fix the electoral system. We have to put ourselves on the path to proportional representation so we don't run the risk of false majorities such as a majority of the seats with the minority of support. We also need to move forward on the plan to deal with carbon and carbon emission, that makes the future more secure. It's top priorities for greens. Top priorities for 80% of Canadians who realize we have a moral obligation to the future to act."

My thanks to a reader for that additional info and for providing its CBC source.

More updates to come (I hope), which will include video clips.

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Another Harper speech, another case of plagiarism

In a Liberal media release today, we learn of more plagiarism committed by Stephen Harper back when he was Leader of the Opposition in 2003. This time, he took the words of former Ontario Premier Mike Harris as his own.

Posted on the website of the Montreal Economic Institute - a conservative right-wing think-tank - are the December 4, 2002, speaking notes of Mr. Harris. They state:

“Thinking about things from a new and different perspective is never easy. It takes courage, conviction and the strength to know that in taking a new and innovative course, you are making change for the better.

“Genuine leaders are the ones who do the right thing.”

Two months later, on February 19, 2003, in Mr. Harper’s major address in the House of Commons in response to the Liberal budget, he said:

“Thinking about things from a new and different perspective is not about reading the polls and having focus group tests. It is never easy because it takes courage, conviction and the strength to know that taking a new and innovative course is going to make change for the better. Genuine leaders are the ones who do the right thing.”

As I mused when the first report of plagiarism came out, where there's one case, there's likely to be more - a history of such unethical, if not criminal, behaviour. In the academic world, such acts are grounds for dismissal.

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No pets laws should be outlawed - Response

In the Victoria Times-Colonist today is a Letter to the Editor by Val McWilliams.

I assume McWilliams was writing in response to a TC article about pets in rental units. BC's archaic Residential Tenancy Act allows landlords to prohibit tenants from having pets.

I sent my own Letter to the Editor today, in support of McWilliams.

Bravo! to letter-writer Val McWilliams, of Victoria ("No pets rules should be outlawed").

There are three classes of residents in this province: those who own their homes, those who rent the places where they live and those who haven't a home at all.

Only the first class can choose to have pets without someone else's "property rights" overriding that choice. Only members of that first class can reap the health benefits from having pet companions. Only members of that first class can choose not to be lonely. Only members of that first class can take in a warm live being whose companionship makes the human in the relationship feel needed and appreciated. Only members of that first class can choose to have a companion on which they can pour their otherwise unused love and need to nurture.

With few exceptions, renters and those without homes have incomes substantially lower than homeowners. And more of renters' scant incomes today go to housing - increasingly, over 60 per cent.

It therefore comes as a tremendous irony that the residents of our fair province who would most benefit from having pets are those most likely to be denied them - the people most likely to be in poor health due to the stress of living on too low an income, the people most likely to need the love of a pet companion, and the people most likely to be isolated and lonely and desperately in need of someone to love.

Pets help alleviate stress, improve one's sense of wellbeing, stave off loneliness and isolation, provide security and comfort.

But only homeowners in this province are allowed unrestricted choice to have these health benefits. And property owners - including the BC Government, which provides or subsidizes housing for those on low income - can choose to deny it to the rest of us.

Ocean,
Duncan BC.

Am curious to see if the letter gets published. Given that one letter in favour of tenants is likely enough for this CanWest paper for awhile, I suspect not.

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CanWest Global and Drug Ad Laws

The following video was researched and created by Rob Wipond, an independent journalist.

What it's about: Canada's biggest media empire has launched a lawsuit to strike down restrictions against prescription drug advertising. But your media isn't telling you about it - find out why and what the potential danger is to you.

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Conservative Sleaze Hits New Low

Do Canadians really want someone who would stoop this low to be their Prime Minister? Again?

From the Tory war room:

WHAT ARE LIBERALS SAYING ABOUT DION’S LEADERSHIP?

More and more Liberals are openly starting to muse about Dion’s leadership. In fact, even one of Stéphane Dion’s few original caucus supporters is now wondering out loud whether he regrets supporting him.

Charles Hubbard: “I sometimes say in my mind ‘what if Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff were leader?’” (New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal, October 2, 2008)

Versus the context of that quote:

Does [Hubbard] regret his early support for Dion?

“I don’t think so,” said the low-key Hubbard, a former high school principal. “I sometimes say in my mind ‘what if Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff were leader?’

“But the Conservatives would have done the same thing.

“No matter who it was, they would have run comparable ads.”

Kady O'Malley over at Macleans has the full transcript.

That someone is so desperate to hang onto power that he would stoop this low astounds me. Whether Harper saw this before it was released, I don't know. But even if he didn't, he hires the people who did. Mr. micro-manager Harper lets little happen in the Conservative camp without his express approval.

Canadian voters must be made aware of just how low these power-hungry men (they're almost all men) will go to rule this land and to force a two-thirds majority of us who don't share their ideology. That they take actions to deliberately, blatantly deceive voters should say it all.

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My Scarred Heart

This came after reading a book review* in Herizons Magazine about a creative writer telling her students to write about their scars for ten minutes.

So I wrote.

My Scarred Heart

My scarred heart,
Is it art?

The sad demise of my father
left a scar,
seeping sorrow.
A criminally induced abortion,
criminally induced
by rape
cries for forgiveness
while two miscarriages weep
for never having been seen.
The wound of a failed marriage wraps barbed wire
around my fragile beating orb.
Loud lament of women
world-wide
send pinpricks of pain
like buckshot fired at feeding deer.

Despite the wounds,
the dissipating anguish
my beating, bloodied blob beats on.
Still, there is room for
love
as it heals and cradles
all the wretchedness
with loving kindness.

My heart
is
scarred art.

* The review, which appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Herizons Magazine, was written by Lisa Tremblay. It was of Natalie Goldberg's book Old Friend From Far Away.

Here is Natalie Goldberg talking about her writing process and her latest book.

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Cool New Lib Site: Harpernomics

Clever, well designed, largely done in black, white and dark tones, this new Liberal website focuses on the Harper Conservatives' economic policies and their result on Canada's economy. In other words, Harpernomics.

'Tis worth a visit.

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NDP denied voters proportional representation in 1980

An explosive account in a major column today reveals that the federal NDP back in Ed Broadbent's time, rejected the Liberal government's offer to change our voting system to proportional representation.

Why?

Because "the MPs were afraid of losing their seats."

The electoral crapshoot would long be a thing of the past had NDP leader Ed Broadbent and his caucus seized a never-before-disclosed offer from prime minister Pierre Trudeau immediately after the 1980 election. The Liberals captured 147 of 282 seats with 44 per cent of the popular vote, but failed to elect a single MP west of Winnipeg despite the support of about 25 per cent of western voters.

A Liberal majority with no western seats ignited western rage. Not only do ongoing unrepresentative and perverse electoral outcomes undermine democratic legitimacy and suppress turnout, they rupture the bonds holding the country together, artificially fomenting regional alienation and fracturing national unity.

Trudeau invited Broadbent to his office for a chat. The NDP had captured 26 of its 32 seats in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and B.C. with about one-third of the vote. Trudeau said he would introduce legislation for proportional representation if the NDP would co-sponsor it.

According to well-placed sources, Broadbent said he would take the proposal to his caucus. The answer was no.

Broadbent told the prime minister NDP MPs were afraid of losing their seats. Trudeau declined to forge ahead alone.

Can't blame Trudeau, having obtained 44% of the vote, being reluctant to change our voting system without support of another party and one which better represented western provinces. The optics would have been bad otherwise, not to mention ethically questionable. ('Tis a shame Harper & Co. aren't so laden with ethical considerations such as these.)

Go. Read. Lots there to chew on.

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ACR: Harper's Canada in 60 seconds

By permission of Pale Cold, over at A Creative Revolution, here's Harper's Canada in 60 Seconds. Spread far and wide.

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Must-Read Article by Pundits Guide

Thinking about voting "strategically"? Then you should read this post by Alice Funke, stats- and facts-collector extraordinaire and the creator of Pundits Guide.

The Pundits' Guide is a non-partisan site and does not endorse any political party, and tries by the selection and application of quantifiable criteria to treat all major parties the same. I've even tried to redress the situation faced by smaller parties by starting to add in their party affiliations on riding and candidate profile pages.

However there is one issue I'm going to weigh in on during this election, and that's the advocacy of so-called "strategic voting". It's based on faulty assumptions, is frequently clumsily calculated and executed, often by people with hidden but vested interests, and most seriously: it can lead to quite perverse outcomes.

Go. Read. Funke backs up her claims with facts. And if anyone should know the pertinent facts, then it's her.

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