Blog: Articles filed under elections

I have discovered how I will get through the next six months. Or year. Or two years. However long it is until Stephen Harper tries to get a majority again. I will watch CBC comedy news shows.

What would I ever do without The Rick Mercer Report or This Hour Has 22 Minutes?!

For my American friends, The Rick Mercer Report is similar to The Colbert Report. Mercer does a lot less in-studio, however, and has more clips where he goes out and meets people, politicians¹, goes to schools, and gets naked.² He has a regular photo challenge on his site where anyone can edit a photo he posts, and he’ll put them up in his gallery.

I don’t know what the American equivalent of This Hour Has 22 Minutes is. You’ve got a cast of news anchors who know no boundaries in “reporting” current events. When I was younger, I grew up on Royal Canadian Air Farce; I didn’t watch This Hour Has 22 Minutes much. However, as Air Farce declined, I started watching 22 Minutes more and more, and now I watch it exclusively. Some of their sketches are quite creative. And they are Canadian, so obviously Canadian. It’s wonderful.

There’s clips (pretty much full episodes broken down by sketch) for both the Mercer Report and 22 Minutes on their respective CBC websites. Not sure if non-Canadians can watch them, but it’s worth a try if you’re interested.

These sort of political commentary shows, in both Canada and America, can do something regular news corporations cannot: they don’t have to impartial! And that makes it so much more fun. Moreover, these comedians can poke and pry into issues that might be too sensitive or not “politically correct” enough for the evening news. Whether or not you agree with these comedians’ perspectives or laugh at their jokes, they do us a great service in a society where freedom of speech is eternally at risk.

• [ 1 ] Yes, I am implying what you think I’m implying
• [ 2 ] Really. But I won’t tell you any more than this, because now you’ll waste half an hour searching the Internet to find out. Muwahahahaha!

The polls are closed, and the votes are mostly tallied. Last month, Stephen Harper called an election; this month, he was re-elected with yet anohter minority government—a stronger minority, but still a minority. In the ensuing chaotic coverage, some interesting trends have emerged. The new hot issues are Liberal leadership, government functionality, voting reform, and voter turnout.

The Liberals lost eighteen seats (at the time of this writing), which is a blow for them. Still the official opposition, yet weakened. Additionally, Dion declared in his concession speech that he would be willing to work with the Conservatives on the economic “crisis” that we’re facing. While I commend Dion for extending the olive branch, two questions come to mind: does this mean the Conservatives will have a de facto majority? And will this matter at all in a week or two when the Liberals get a new leader? For indeed, if there was anything the majority of pundits agreed that Dion is done. My opinion of Dion improved during this campaign; however, that still doesn’t mean he’s a strong leader.

The next question is: will this government be functional? Harper’s cited reason for calling the last election was that government no longer worked properly. The Conservatives have made some gains and the Liberals some losses. With a potential new Liberal leadership, will the government work together better? I’m going to be optimistic here. I predict that the government will indeed work well for at least a year, hopefully two (as the CBC panel’s predicting). There’s several reasons for this: firstly, none of the party leaders are eager for another election. I‘m ready for another one, but I don’t think it’s in Canada’s best interest right now. Secondly, although Harper has made gains, his experience with the last government will hopefully temper his attitude when it comes to cooperating. I‘m hoping he’ll play nicer with the Liberals when it comes to the economic issues on which he needs their support.

A lot of the talk on Twitter concerned reforming the electoral system. People were disgruntled with the low voter turnout. Complaints abounded regarding the new ID rules, which some people thought were the primary reason so many didn’t vote. While I don’t know about that, I can understand why the ID rules are a concern. Many are advocating reforms to the system, things like proportional representation, to mitigate the influence of parties like the Bloc Québecois, who have forty-eight seats (at the time of this writing) but only ten per cent of the vote.

As I mentioned above, I spent most of the night glued to Twitter’s search engine following some Canadian election hashtags, and I tweeted quite a bit myself. The Twitter coverage was actually much better than the coverage on television! Real reactions from real people across the entire spectrum. CBC’s TV coverage was unhelpful. Their graphics lacked relevant statistics and were uninformative. Their opinions weren’t very insightful. The CBC website was much more helpful, with an interactive map showing the current disposition of the ridings, plus very detailed statistics for each riding—I commend the CBC’s web team.

I was very disappointed with Susan Ormiston’s Ormiston online coverage of the online reaction. Ormiston displayed a remarkable lack of competence using the technology she had in the nerve centre tonight. In her defence, some of that incompetence may be due to the technology itself. From the looks of things, she wasn’t very well equipped to cull and display particular tweets or emails very nicely. It looked like some sort of hastily-created mashup in a notebook program with a couple special effects.

In addition to the poor presentation, whatever happened to actually covering the Internet reactions? At the beginning of the special coverage, they went to Ormiston, who explained how throughout the night they would refer to her for the reaction of people on Twitter, on blogs, through emails, etc. I think they referred to her a total of about three times. So much for listening to public reaction. Although the Internet is helping people have their voice heard, I don’t think that we‘re quite at the point where social media is becoming the new paradigm for politics. Not yet. Maybe in the next decade, but first we need a generation of newscasters adept at manipulating and participating in the paradigm.

Well, I have class in seven hours, so I should go to bed. To all of those who voted, no matter for whom you voted, I thank you for participating in our democratic system. To those of you who didn’t vote, I’m disappointed.

I shall close by quoting Kevin McCann tweet, which may be the best comment of the night:

U.S. friends, Canadian election is over after just 6 weeks. 60% voted left-of-centre; right-of-centre government gets in.

OpenOffice.org 3.0 is out today, so while I was downloading the torrent, I remembered I had yet to watch Michael Moore’s free film Slacker Uprising chronicling his campaign to get slackers to vote in the 2004 American presidential election.

The film was interesting. Whatever you think of Michael Moore’s position or techniques, he’s certainly passionate about what he’s doing. And democracy may not be the most perfect system of government, but it seems to be the best one we’ve tried so far. Democracy is all about getting the people to vote, and Michael Moore was encouraging people to vote. As Martha Stewart might say, “That’s a good thing.”

Tomorrow is Election Day here in Canada. If you are a Canadian citizen and 18 years of age or older, you can vote. If you aren’t sure how to do this, go to the Elections Canada website. If you can vote, you should vote. Even if you’re going to vote Conservative (I’m not), I want you to go and vote. We live in a democracy; it is your duty as a citizen to participate in the democratic process by voting for your representative in the next government.

You don’t need to be a political junkie to vote. I wish that everyone could be an informed voter, but that isn’t a requirement either. Just go to your polling station tomorrow and vote. There’s still time to research party platforms if you really want to be informed. Otherwise, just mark a name on the ballot.

If you don’t vote, then what right do you have to complain when someone you dislike comes into power? You didn’t do anything to even try to stop it from happening. If you don’t vote, then what right do you have to complain when the government cancels a program from which you benefit or introduces legislation that affects your family? Some people don’t vote because they’re apathetic—I find this particularly true of my peers. Like it or not, however, as long as you live in Canada, the actions of the government are going to have an impact on you. If you don’t vote, you’re sending the message that you don’t care about living in a democracy.

It doesn’t take up your whole day. It doesn’t even take up an hour. If you have already voted, then good job. You’ve done your duty. You can go home, sit on the couch, and watch TV until the next election rolls around—I won’t bother you. If you haven’t voted yet, then tomorrow, go to your polling station with the proper identification, get a ballot, and make your mark. That’s all you have to do.

This morning I went to a debate for the candidates of Thunder Bay-Superior North (my riding). The debate was hosted by LUSU, so naturally most of it was focused on how the candidates can help students. There were plenty of questions about student loans and debts, jobs after graduation, taxes, etc. I used the debate as an opportunity to actually familiarize myself with the candidates, one of whom will represent me in Ottawa by the end of this election.

The four candidates were Brendan Hughes (Green), Bruce Hyer (NDP), Don McArthur (Liberals), and Bev Sarafin (Conservatives). Naturally I‘m biased toward the left, and this presents me with the question: if I think the Green Party or the NDP would do a better job than the Liberals, should I vote for one of those candidates instead of voting for the Liberal candidate, thus splitting the Liberal votes and enabling the Conservative to get elected?

Watching the candidates speak, I was able to get a sense of how they’d do in the House of Commons, as well as their stance on the issues. All were articulate; all tried to emphasize their personal connection to the region and their commitment to being our voice in Ottawa. Great. But what good is a voice unless it says what I want it to say on my behalf?

After opening statements and two prepared questions, the moderator (Doug West, a professor of political science at LU) opened the floor to questions. I asked the third question:

Copyright reform has received much attention since the introduction of Bill C-61. Critics of the bill point out that there has been a lack of open, public consultation and that the bill may be unenforceable without raising privacy concerns. The bill’s emphasis on technological protection measures has wide-ranging implications. For students and teachers, it may interfere with access to materials for assignments and lessons. What can you do to provide fair and balanced copyright reform?

Each candidate had two minutes to respond to the question. I was unimpressed with the responses. For the most part, I think that my question was unanticipated, especially coming from a student-focused debate. But that’s good: these people should be able to improvise on the spot. Otherwise, they’ll be eaten alive during Question Period.

• Bev Sarafin essentially said that if she gets elected, then she’ll be willing to discuss which parts of the bill (she called it “Jim Prentice’s bill”) I find dissatisfactory. Apparently she missed the day in school where we learned that you tell people how you‘re going to fix things first, then you get their vote. Not the other way around.
• Brendan Hughes was the second to respond, confessing a lack of knowledge on the bill but expressing a desire to learn more about the issue. I applaud his willingness to learn and understand that not everyone can be intimately familiar with every single issue, but it does seem like he was unprepared to answer my question.
• Don McArthur actually addressed the question, calling for provisions that enshrine fair use in law. He specifically cited that Canadians should be able to copy music from a computer or CD to an iPod (a practise that, right now, isn’t actually legal). For a two-minute response, I suppose it was fair.
• Bruce Hyer was the only one who seemed to have a prefabricated response at the ready. I’m not surprised, since the NDP has been on the ball with copyright from the beginning. However, since it was a prefabricated response, it was heavy on the NDP and light on the Hyer. He denounced Bill C-61 and praised fellow NDP member Charlie Angus, telling us to refer to his website. While it’s good that he was prepared, I would have liked to hear more than a party line.

I’m still not certain for whom I shall vote. I liked Brendan Hughes; he spoke well when it came to clarifying that the Green Party isn’t a one-issue party. They simply take the environment into account in all their policies, not just as a separate issue. I thought that was a good point. However, I don’t know if I like Elizabeth May. The more I think about it, the more Stéphane Dion seems like the best of the current choices for prime minister.

Maybe the English-language debate tonight will help me decide. Election Day is October 14. We shall see.

So I was going to write this entry in French, but I discovered along the way that I’ve forgotten my simple past tense. This disturbs me.

I took French from grade 1 until grade 11 in school (this was before the provincial government postponed mandatory French until grade 4). It’s only compulsory until grade 9, but I liked my teachers, and the courses were interesting and academic. Plus, being able to speak another language is a plus. Except I can’t really speak it now, can I?

Part of me thinks I don’t have an ear for languages. I excelled at reading and writing French. However, even at the height of my proficiency, I was never too hot at pronunciation or comprehension of spoken French. Nevertheless, I feel bad that I live in a bilingual country yet I only speak English. There’s this whole other culture that’s an integral part of my country’s history and current events, yet I ignore it. I feel like an elitist anglophone snob!

This week’s episode of Spark includes a segment about the French-English digital divide. That’s what got me thinking about this, although it was also tonight’s French-language debate amongst the federal party leaders. I recorded it, even though my French is rusty. Luckily I was able to catch the gist of what I watched—I didn’t watch it all, because it is rather long, and most of the issues will be covered again in Thursday’s English-langauge debate.

Of course, no amount of wanting my French to improve will magically make it improve. I‘d actually have to do something about it. My chances of doing this in my free time are virtually nil. Maybe next year, if it’s offered, I’ll take Lakehead University’s Elementary French course—it accepts my grade 11 French class as a prerequisite, and that will provide the classroom-directed motivation I need to re-engage myself in French. I guess I could also try reading for leisure in French. Maybe some Camus? I wonder if I could get my hands on Douglas Coupland in French…. :P

For those of you who speak multiple languages, what was your experience in learning languages other than your first? If you went through immersion (either in school or just by living in a different country), did you find that conducive or challenging?

CBC radio show Spark wants to know what Canada needs to do today to become a major innovator tomorrow. This is an important issue with the election looming. In addition to interviewing technology experts, the Spark blog has asked listeners to submit their own “Digital Wish Lists”. Here’s mine:

1. Establishment of a Minister of Technology. I agree with Mitch Kapoor. We have a Minister of Health, a Minister of Industry—why not someone in charge of the country’s technological infrastructure?
2. Better copyright reform. Bill C-61 has demonstrated that many Canadians care about copyright reform. Even if one is in favour of the copyright protection measures outlined in Bill C-61 (I am not), critics have pointed out numerous flaws that make Bill C-61 a poor piece of legislation. I want our government to have open consultation with the public to craft viable, enforceable copyright legislation that balances intellectual property ownership with the need for access to information.
3. More competition in the telecommunications sector. I am not a capitalist, but a lack of competition does mean that consumers have less choice. Here in Thunder Bay, we have one choice for cable TV service: Shaw. Until recently, only local TBayTel provided home phone service; now Shaw does too. Only TBayTel and Rogers provide cell phone service. That doesn’t leave the consumer much choice when it comes to negotiating contracts. On a national level, a lack of competition stifles innovation and growth.
4. Nation-wide improvement to technological infrastructure. Broadband penetration. We need it. Not just fibre-optics right to homes (which would be nice), but also coverage in rural areas. Bring Canada into the 21st century.
5. Access to government databases. Putting publicly-available data online should be a priority. People need to be informed; an online presence is virtually a requirement for any organization. The government has already made good progress, but it can still go further and think bigger.
6. Government adoption of open alternatives to proprietary formats. The Quebec government was recently sued for buying proprietary software. While I don’t know if I’d go that far, the government should explore alternatives to proprietary software. Otherwise, businesses like Microsoft and Apple have unnecessary leverage.

Technology advances too quickly for a mechanism like government to legislate in real time. Like any social fad, once a technology becomes mainstream, it pretty much stays until rendered obsolete by newer technology. Rather than trying to create legislation about specific technology, the government needs to establish a framework that encourages the development of technology along certain trajectories.

Part of my comment on that entry was included in this week’s episode of Spark. It’s also got an interesting tale from Bill Parry, an intriguing new service from Nathan Eagle, and a discussion on the French-English digital divide.

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, recently released the results of a survey of economists that he commissioned. You can read the results yourself; those of you who are economically-inclined may want to view the available slideshow (lots of tasty graphs and percentages). Adams has also posted his opinion on the results of the survey.

I‘ve been reading Scott Adams’ blog since its inception on TypePad. I enjoy his wit and his unique perspective on both mainstream and esoteric issues. Much of what he says is designed to get a rise out of people and provoke them into calling him a stupid lemon-eater. Some of his favourite subjects include intelligent design, the workplace, environmentalism, and of course, politics and the economy. I was not surprised to hear that he had commissioned a survey; it’s just the sort of thing he would do.

So how about those results? Lots of Democrat econimists—it must be biased? Well, I love math, but statistics are not my favourite type of math. I‘m in the camp of people who thinks the survey is an inconclusive indicator of which candidate would be best. I doubt that either of the candidates truly has a plan for the economy. They’re stating positions on issues, but whether or not they would follow through after being elected is doubtful at best.

The economy has been a hot issue of late, what with the uncertain financial markets. What about here in Canada? As always, the economy is an election issue. Harper is playing down job losses, stating the there is a net gain of job creation. Dion and Layton are jumping on the child-care bandwagon after the Tories tried to sway voters by claiming that if they weren’t elected, the government would cancel Harper’s national child-care plan (since I don’t know much about the child-care plan, my opinion is embryonic at best). And let us not forget Danny Williams, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, and his Anything But Conservative campaign. The ABC campaign has its roots in an economic issue: the removal of nonrenewable resource revenues from the energy equalization formula.¹ Harper broke this promise, so now Williams wants to encourage voters to elect a non-Tory government.

What about Dion’s crazy carbon tax and “Green Shift” plan, eh? We‘re all going to be driving to work in outboard canoes with seven layers of sweaters as we go back to living in igloos because we can’t turn on our furnaces, eh? This bit of environmentalism is just the latest consequence of an increasing social conscience toward “green” policies. The question is not whether this carbon tax makes sense, it’s do voters want a more environmentally-friendly government? If that is the case, then there’s two steps: 1) elect a government that will implement environmentally-friendly policies. This is probably ABC.² 2) Lobby your local MP to support environmental initiatives until the government implements something that works. Dion’s shown that he can be persuaded to modify his Green Shift plan. That may have just been election fever talking. But I mean, if it doesn’t work out between us and him, we can just dump him and call another election, eh?

I digress. Personally, I try to ignore the economy as much as possible. It gives me a headache. But I must admit that when it comes to voting, it’s an important issue. All politicians will screw up the economy; that’s a given. What you have to decide is: who will screw it up in your favour?

• [ 1 ] Newfoundland and Labrador have offshore oil reserves. Removing the nonrenewable resources from the calculation of revenue owed to the federal government would generate a huge amount of money for the province.
• [ 2 ] The Greens still have a snowball’s chance in hell—and soon, if we don’t implement green policies, the phrase will be “a snowball’s chance in Whitehorse”.

It’s official. Prime Minister Harper met with Governor General Michaëlle Jean today, and she dissolved Parliament, triggering an election. Canadians will vote on October 14.

The American election machine has been rumbling away for the better part of a year now, and we have called and will be finished our federal election before the Americans even get to vote. I love Canada’s electoral system.

What I don’t love is the lack of any charismatic leaders and the lack of any compelling candidates in my riding. The Conservatives have already begun airing these obnoxious ads that consist of Harper sitting in a chair, wearing a vest—very “casual” indeed—and talking about how he enjoys being a father, how he is proud of Canada as a country, and how he wants Canada to have a greater role on the world stage. The tagline of the commercials is: “We’re better off with Harper.” I, for one, find this tagline hilarious.

The CBC has spent most of the day focusing on voters’ response to the election call: are we ready for the election? The response has been mixed. Many people have expressed disapproval, since Harper was a proponent of the fixed election date law that the government passed in 2006. They see this premature election call as a betrayal of his promise for fixed election dates. They also see it as a waste of time, that not many seats will change hands, and the election will result in essentially the same government at great expense to taxpayers. Others, like myself, feel that the election is necessary.

My dad and I listened to CBC’s Cross Country Checkup today, and it seemed like most of the people who phoned in to talk about the election supported the Conservatives! Could it be true? Could we end up with a Conservative majority? Perish the thought. On the CBC website, comments lean more toward the anti-Harper side of things. From a demographic standpoint, this makes sense. To illustrate, I’ve prepared the below Venn diagram. I don’t actually have any statistics, and I’m too lazy to make them up (as most statistics are), so I‘ve decided to just insert some random animal names instead. You can make up numbers if you like.

My riding has three candidates running, one from each of the three major parties. I’ve yet to see if the Green party will be floating a candidate. The incumbent MP, Joe Comuzzi, who ran as a Liberal and is sitting as a Conservative now, is not running again. It’ll be interesting to see who wins my riding, and in turn, if Thunder Bay will benefit from this election, no matter what it holds for Canada in general.

An election looms in my own fine country even as the Americans battle it out for who gets to inherit the Bush legacy. Two and a half years ago, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives inherited the scandal-ridden legacy of over a decade of Liberal government. As usual, getting elected is easier than actually running the country and making effective decisions that improve the lives of its citizens—Harper hasn’t been doing either of these things very well. He blames his inability to perform on his partners in Parliament, our three opposition leaders. They maintain that he refuses to compromise, doesn’t put the toilet seat down, and until he decides to cooperate, they’re moving out and going to live with their mothers.

Er … anyway, now that we have fixed four-year election dates, the next election would theoretically be in October 2009. However, the Prime Minister still has the right to go to the Governor General and ask her to dissolve Parliament if he believes the government can no longer function effectively. Harper has been rattling just that particular sabre lately, and an election looks increasingly likely. He has met with all three opposition leaders now, but I doubt that any of those meetings was very productive.

The Conservatives have been airing an annoyingly obvious campaign ad on television. I mute it every time it comes on. Those of you not in Canada or lacking a TV can see it on YouTube (warning: contains graphic and disturbing endorsements of Stephen Harper). Notice how the Conservative Party has disabled comments and video responses for the video. Alas, this is not a clean jab—admittedly, disabling comments on YouTube is probably a good idea, considering the average level of intellect you’ll see in the other comments.

The ad focuses on how these supposedly “everyday, Main Street Canadians” see Stephen Harper as a leader who is taking Canada in the right direction. I have several problems with this. Firstly, our government should not be about one leader. That’s the U.S. shtick. I’ll vote for a member of Parliament who I believe will best represent my constituency. However, I do admit that I take the leader of the party into account when I’ll vote, and as this entry’s title declares, I will not vote for our Conservative candidate, no matter who he or she is.

It’s at this point that I must admit I’m a hypocrite. I denounce the attack ads aired by all campaigns; I want them to focus on the issues more than painting their opponents as undesirable leaders. Yet here I am, determined to support a party other than the Conservatives because I find its leader undesirable! Yes, I also disagree with most of the stances of that leader. I still feel kind of dirty though. Curse you, Stephen Harper, and your Kobayashi Maru election!

Moving on….

Secondly, that shot of Harper at the end is kind of creepy. Finally, I disagree with the main message of the ad, and I don’t care what these other people say. Unfortunately, I suspect that the Conservative government doesn’t care if they persuade me with their bubblegum campaigning. I suspect they only care about persuading those other “Main Street Canadians” (the four that weren’t included in the ad) who might not otherwise vote for the Conservatives; the party is emphasizing Harper’s pro-citizen reforms: harsher justice, family values, lower taxes, and all that jazz.

Of course, it doesn’t help that our other potential Prime Ministers have the charisma or leadership abilities of a shaved llama. The Green Party still hasn’t had an elected MP—just recently they obtained their first sitting MP by shopping at a discount Liberal MP store. The NDP get closer to pulling it off each time, but they are still a long way away from garnering enough support to form a government. Not living in Quebec, I have trouble understanding the national relevance of the Bloc¹. So we‘re left with the Liberal Party of Canada, just as corrupt as the Conservative Party, but slightly more palatable because it’s not the Conservative Party—just as the Conservatives were slightly more palatable last time because they weren’t the Liberals. It’s how our elections work.

I want an election, if only to kill the horrible copyright bill that’s in Parliament right now. In addition to that, I dislike the cuts that the Conservative government has made to programs designed to promote Canadian culture and Canadian artists abroad. A person more paranoid than me might see these actions as a form of sneaky censorship. It’s a good thing I‘m not paranoid, no sir!

At the very least, if the Liberals form the next government, we can make fun of Dion’s accent. Remember when we used to do that with Chrétien? Good times….

• [ 1 ] Which is not to say that I disrespect the concept of Quebec as a nation or Québécois as a culture. Please don’t throw poutine at my dad’s house.