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You know, I’m more than a little tired of our “law and order” federal government gleefully breaking the law.
Just sayin’.
Each time the tone seems to have reached bottom, down it goes again. When the House of Commons marked Remembrance Day, each party stood to say a few words honouring the dead, but MPs from the Green Party and the Bloc Québécois needed unanimous consent to speak because they are not officially recognized in the House of Commons. They didn’t get it because some Conservative MP, or MPs, objected. The next day, with the support of the NDP, they tried again. Again the Conservatives blocked them.
Blocked them. From saying a few words in honour of the dead. Why? Who knows? The Conservatives never bothered to explain this shameful deed.
From a very thoughtful article by Dan Gardner, The politics of ruthlessness. He is much more polite in his story than I am in my headline. Well worth reading. (But, I suggest, skip the Comments section…)
Much of the news recently has been either terrifying—the economic outlook, the failure to address global warming) or infuriating—pretty much everything the federal Conservatives have been doing, particularly their retarded Omnibus crime bill…
(Results that came up when typing “omnibus crime bill” into Google:
StarPhoenix – 2 days ago
Omnibus crime bill misses the mark Toronto Star
Bar association blasts tough-on-crime bill Vancouver Sun
Conservative crime bill a long-lasting mistake Brandon Sun)
And also the fact that they are being petulant, nasty jackasses in the House, instead of sitting back and basking in the fact that they can do anything they damn please for the next four years.
So when I saw the story about the peaceful, unresisting UC Davis students being casually pepper-sprayed at point-blank range by a police officer, I initially saw this as just more nasty news.
It just reminded me of the excesses the Canadian police forces brought down during the G20 summit, and not even just against protestors—also against a lot of people who just happened to be there.
(The above is not a photo is not of Guantanamo. It’s a Toronto G20 temporary jail, clearly depicting the human rights violation of leaving people handcuffed once in a secure area. And 90% of these people never should been arrested at all…)
And nobody’s really been held to account for that.
But the UC Davis story seems to be going a little differently.
For one thing, if you watch the full 8 minute 30 second video (instead of just the 1 minute 30 second pepper spraying), you can’t help but be really impressed at how the students handled this.
First of all the students are not being threatening in any way; the police office is just being a dick. As if pepper spraying seated students at point blank in the face one time isn’t enough, he then does it again, and again.
The crowd responds: “Shame! Shame!”. And they begin to act and move together. And one point, they do seem to have the police officers surrounded. And then… They offer a “moment of peace.” “You can go. We won’t stop you. You can go. You can go.”
And the policemen do retreat.
It’s kind of cool, and nearly gives me hope.
And sure, there are a ton of YouTube trolls posting horrible comments, but the UC Davis University has also been flooded with complaints about the incident. The mainstream media is all over the story. The officer involved has already been identified and suspended (OK, with pay, but it’s a start).
And to those who think these kids don’t even know what they’re protesting about (“What do they want?”), note that these ones do have one really specific target: The university plan to raise tuition fees 80% next year (with no plan to improved the education quality by 80% in compensation). Source: Interview with a pepper-sprayed UC Davis student at BoingBoing.
Is this a turning point?
My bold predication for the Ontario election: Elizabeth Witmer, MPP for Kitchener-Waterloo, will retain her seat.
When voters turned against the Mike Harris, when they ran from John Tory’s school funding proposal, Ms Witmer, Progressive Conservative, still handily won her seat. She’s been in there for something like 21 years. She certainly not going to lose now, when the PCs are riding a “we’re tired of the Liberals!” wave.
This means, under our most undemocratic of electoral systems, me voting is just a waste of time. I am not voting PC, but whether I vote Green, Liberal, NDP, or Marxist-Leninist, whether I spoil my ballot or just sit at home watching TV, the result will the same. Ms. Witmer’s most votes will give the whole seat, and the choice I made will make no difference at all in who runs Ontario.
I will say I don’t have any particular issues with Ms. Witmer. Generally, I think she has been a good representative. And if Ontarians had been smart enough to change their electoral system four years ago, when they had a chance, I might have even have considered voting for her as my MPP, while selecting another party with my second vote.
But, Ontarians didn’t want more democracy, so we have the system we have, and a vote for Ms. Witmer is a vote for Tim Hudak. And I can’t do that.
I’ll grant that my distaste for Mr. Hudak was perhaps not on the most solid basis, initially: The man is just horribly boring to listen to. All he does is repeat sound bites, that nearly always contain the word “tax”. Tax grab. Sneaky eco-tax. Taxman. Tax on home heating.
It’s the most excruciating thing to listen to. (I’ve heard that Queen’s Parks reporters routinely leave his press conferences early, since all he does is repeat his boring lines over and over.) Four years of that? Not sure I can handle it.
Since then, though, he’s given some reasons of more substance to not vote for his party.
The numbers don’t work
As pointed out by that paragon of lefty, socialist thinking, The Toronto Sun, the PC’s economic plan doesn’t add up. Tax reductions and no cuts to education and health sounds great, but how do you pay for it? Truth is that after education and health, there isn’t a whole lot left to cut. So what’s the plan, here? Letting the deficit rise exponentially? Praying for miraculous growth in Ontario’s economy?
(Yes, all the parties are being somewhat unrealistic in their fiscal promises. The PCs are just the most so.)
Update: A rather damning and very detailed examination of just how much the numbers don’t work, courtesy of the Centre for Policy Alternatives. Graphs in Conservative Changebook misleading: At least three of the graphs present data that is clearly false. All of the others contain major errors.
Taxes probably will go up under Hudak
I’m not saying he’ll raise provincial taxes or the HST. But as several have pointed, he will not say whether he will continue to take over the cost of certain municipal programs, as the Liberals plan to do. If he does not (and remember he does have to cut somewhere), it is likely our municipal taxes will increase. OK, they always increase. But they will increase more. And unlike with provincial and federal taxes, which give credits for things like RRSP and charitable donations, there’s nothing you can do to protect your income against those ones.
Addition: The anti-green energy stance
Mr. Hudak wants a better world for his daughter (which I believe), but he’d cancel every green energy project he could? While there do seem to be some flaws in the Liberals handling of the alternative energy file, from what I’ve read, I still applaud the general direction. I believe it’s one of the most progressive in North America. It’s even earned a rare, specific endorsement from David Suzuki!
Xenophobia
Why are politicians allowed to bald-faced lie during elections campaigns, again? In election ads, which can’t be dismissed as an unfortunate slip of the tongue?
Because nothing, nothing has been more appalling to me than this party’s response to the Liberals plans to give tax credits for immigrants who are having trouble finding jobs in their field.
Hudak calls them “foreign workers”. He says the funding will go “outside Ontario”. “Ontarians need not apply.”
But only Canadian citizens would qualify for this tax credit—being a landed immigrant would not be enough. And it’s only for jobs in Ontario.
Hudak is just lying, and in the most xenophobic, divisive, hateful way possible.
Now, I don’t know that the Liberal plan is that wonderful. That professionals who immigrate have trouble finding work in their field is a real problem; I’m not sure how much this would solve it. And I don’t think comparing the PCs to the Tea Party is all that helpful a response, either.
But I do know that all Canadians are equal, no matter how long they’ve been Canadian. And if one group is being particularly discriminated against, it is reasonable for the government to see if something can be done to rectify that.
I won’t vote a party that promotes near-racism.
Unfortunately, what I do won’t make a difference.
Rest of Ontario: Good luck to you. Sorry I can’t be more help.
I know, like we need more commentary on this. I’ll try to be brief.
I’ve been surprised by the strong response to Jack Layton’s death. I’ve been just as surprised how much I share in the feeling. Like going to track down what you think is an obscure song and finding it in the iTunes top 10.
So many Canadians were tweeting on the day of his death, RIP Jack Layton trended not only in Canada, but worldwide, leading to puzzled members of the global twitter-verse to respond with items like, “RIP Jack Layon. Whoever you are.”
That was kind of funny.
A lot of people have said they felt very sad about his death even though they’d never voted NDP. Me, I actually did vote for that party while he was leading it. Heck, I even attended a rally of his once. I’d like to say it was terribly inspiring, but the truth is, I left a little underwhelmed. I think that was his first campaign as NDP leader, and he still had some work to do in learning to inspire the troupes.
But he did get better at that, I thought, even as pragmatism had me voting Liberal the last couple elections. Since that party’s rather stunning performance in the last election, and the equally stunning reaction to his death, of course there has been a lot of attempts at analysis. Most notorious was Christie Blatchford’s, who accused Canadians of show and Layton of cynical manipulation. It’s not just that it was too soon (mere hours after he died); I think she was just wrong, on both counts.
John Doyle, Globe TV critic (of all things), was one of those who, I think. got it more right. Jack persisting through that campaign, which looked hopeless for the NDP at the outset, armed with that cane, yet refusing to give up. Shades (pale shades, but nevertheless) of another Canadian icon, Terry Fox. The man dies, but the movement…? That remains to be seen.
I know some people who just don’t get this whole thing. Who didn’t like him that much, who just don’t feel it, who are tired of hearing about it. Which I can appreciate, because even though I share in the feeling, this “week of Jack” has been a bit much.
But still, I just had to watch the funeral. Which was kind of amazing. Very inclusive (French / English / native, multi-denominational, gay / straight), funny, sad, moving. When Stephen Lewis describe Jack’s letter as “ultimately, a manifesto for social democracy” and got his first of several standing ovations, I thought, “the Conservatives are in trouble.” I’m bad at political prognostication, so I could be wrong about that. But who knows. Optimism is better than despair, right? I think someone said that.
And the opening of that eulogy also, I think, hit the nose on why so many have been so unexpectedly affected by this.
Never in our collective lifetime have we have seen such an outpouring, so much emotional intensity, from every corner of this country. Jack was so alive, so much fun, so engaged in daily life with so much gusto and so unpretentious, it was hard to focus, when he was alive, on how important that was to us, until he was gone…. Jack simply radiated an authenticity, an honesty, and a commitment to his ideals that, we now realize, we were thirsting for.
He tapped into a yearning that politics be conducted in a different way and in that difference, would emerge a better Canada.
Here’s to a better Canada. Thanks, Jack.
When I say I found the election results depressing, I mean it literally: when it was announced, I burst into tears. Events that might otherwise have cheered me—the collapse of the Bloc Québecois, the election of Elizabeth May, even that entertaining bunch of new NDP MPs from Québec—were completely eclipsed by that Majority result. I had trouble sleeping, trouble eating, was given to random bursts of anger: The whole week has felt like a bad dream.
I’m only now starting to feel like I may be in recovery.
As with ScotchNeat, the thing I found most alarming in the result, and in the polling numbers throughout, was just how many Canadians were willing to vote Conservative at all. 25% of the population; 40% of the electorate: That’s a hell of a lot. Ultimately, you can’t blame this result on NDP vote splitting, or even the Liberals’ lacklustre campaign… Hate to be obvious, but the real problem here is the people who voted Conservative.
Because of those voters, will Canada remain as the worst Global Warming offender, not only doing nothing ourselves, but also trying to prevent other countries from making progress. Civil servants will continue to be fired if they dare to tell Canadians a truths the Conservatives don’t want us to hear. Aid to Africa will continue to decline, though it’s in Canada’s long-term economic interest that the continent prosper. More young men will go to jail longer, and learn to become better criminals. (And Conservatives will continue to hide how much that costs.) In this more dangerous Canada, police will no longer be able to rely on the long-gun registry information to help them solve crimes. The quality of Canadian social, scientific, and business research will continue to decline, not only because of funding cuts, but also because those groups no longer have reliable census data to work with. And so on, and on.
People who voted Conservative not only approved of all that, but asked for more, please. They watched all those horrible, negative ads and thought, “That’s for me! Those are my people!” I mean, I’d almost feel bad for them, and their dim view of humanity, if they weren’t dragging me down with them.
But, OK, fine, I’m in recovery. So, what the hell did happen in Québec? Damned if I know; I haven’t lived there in 20 years. But Chantal Hébert has an interesting and positive take on it.
And what the hell happened to the Liberals in Ontario? Don’t know either, but here’s a clue, maybe, in Glen Pearson’s report. He was a popular Liberal MP, expected to win his seat. In the end, he lost it to the Conservatives. But as he notes, the loss wasn’t completely a surprise.
Yet I’d had something of a premonition of the outcome during the last few days of the contest. At doors I canvassed I kept hearing certain stories about how I spent too much time in Africa, or that my voting presence in the House wasn’t too impressive. When I informed them that I only spent one week a year on that continent (Sudan), and that I take it on my holiday time over New Years and on my own dime, I could sense the hesitation in their voice. “Oh … that’s not what we heard when the Conservatives phoned us last night.”
….
It was frustrating, but I didn’t know who to talk to. It was only when the election was over that a good Conservative friend informed me that they had actually been utilizing a central office for phone calls and that none of them emanated from London itself. They had poured big money from afar into influencing my riding.
I’ll paraphrase for Mr. Pearson. In his riding, the Conservatives ran a centralized campaign to call people up and lie about him.
But, probably only in that one riding, right? Surely their central office didn’t call up other Ontarians and tell them “creative truths” about their Liberal MPs? Nah. I’m sure that had nothing to do with it…
At times, this election campaign has made me really cranky. With politicians. With the media. With other Canadians.
But it hasn’t had all been bad. To my surprise, some things have actually been inspiring. Who would have expected that?
Votes mobs: The enthusiasm of youth
Inspired by a Rick Mercer rant, vote mobs are groups of young people who swarm political functions or other public spaces, encouraging people to vote.Will they actually turn around the typically dismal showing of voters under 25? I don’t know, especially that the timing couldn’t be worse for university and college students.
But regardless, they’ve left behind a nice YouTube legacy, like this one from McMaster:
Civil online debates: Yes, we can
The typical comments section on most political articles (or YouTube videos) tends to make you despair for humanity as a whole. But under this article in an American online publication (decent in itself) is a bunch of really well-informed, civil, intelligent comments from what seems to be across the political spectrum. (Until a spammer joins in at the end. Ah well, better that than a troll.)
And though I’m biased from knowing the blogger, the non-partisan Procedure and politics has been a nice oasis of rationality, showing that you can calmly dissect how politicians and the media sometimes get it wrong, all without calling anyone a “stupidhead”. (Also a great place to learn about Britain’s upcoming referendum, if you were wondering about that. Or maybe you didn’t even know they were having one?)
The return of oratory
I’m a sucker for a great orator. Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, John Kennedy… I don’t know if these guys were great leaders. But they sure talked nice. I loved listening to all of them.
In Canada, we haven’t had a great federal orator since… What… Pierre Trudeau, I think?
Or so I thought. Until I actually started listening to Michael Ignatieff speak. It started at their platform announcement, part of which I watched online. This was in the midst of all the commentary about Harper’s “bubble” — not taking questions, hiding from the public. So to see Ignatieff speaking so easily, so clearly, sans notes or teleprompters, answering questions from everyone, at such a strategic juncture—I was kind of impressed.
But it was only after coming back from vacation, having missed the debates (where, I hear, Ignatieff didn’t do that well), I found this YouTube video getting a lot of play:
That I became really really impressed. I liked what he said. And how he said it. And apparently, that wasn’t even him at his best.
I started to wonder if I was just in some weird Liberal spell here, when Rick Mercer (him again!) commented on a similar experience:
And then there was Prince Edward Island, where, in a curling club, Ignatieff showed off a set of skills I had no idea that he possessed. From a pure showbiz perspective he killed. Speaking without a teleprompter or notes he gave perhaps the best speech I have heard since watching Gen. Rick Hillier address the troops in Kandahar.
His speech also inspired this non-partisan song on voting for what you believe in–“Rise Up Canada!” (A song for Canada’s 2011 Federal Election):
Of course, people like Blair, Clinton, Obama, and Kennedy all had such personal charisma, their elocutionary skills were just icing on the cake. With Ignatieff, it’s the whole cake. In this day and age, that seems to not be enough. But damn, it’s nice to hear anyway.
Creative protest: Hanging with the cool kids
I like civil debate, and I like neutral calls to vote, but I have picked a side. So, I’ve also appreciated the many people, much more creative and eloquent than I, who have to the same conclusion about who they are voting for, and produced online materials as to why. There’s tons of it, but I’ll just mention a few. I’ve already tweeted about Shane Koycan’s powerful “Wasted Votes” video. (He’s the spoken-word poet who appeared at the Olympics by the way: the “We Are More” poem.) I also enjoyed Margaret Atwood’s comparison of the Conservatives to a vaccum salesman who insists you buy his product, but won’t tell you the cost.
And this mock ad—Too Smart for Canada—made me laugh out loud. So close to the actual ones, some people think it’s real.
The NDP surge
Of course, we don’t yet know if this will stick and have a real effect in the end. All we can know for sure, is that among those that were polled, there has been a shift. In Quebec, the NDP has risen considerably; that has been spreading to other regions. And why does this please me?
I’m not afraid of NDP policies or what them having more power might mean. All evidence shows that the NDP becomes very pragmatic once handed power. And if you look closely at what they’re proposing, it’s full of caveats that gives them plenty of wiggle room to ensure Canada does not become a deficit-ridden, high-tax, socialist mess.
But this is in no way changes how I plan to vote. The conditions, for me, remain the same. Local polls show no evidence of an NDP surge. Plus, my local NDP candidate is a 27-year-old with no political experience at all, whereas the Liberal one is a past MP with a record for actually going with his conscience against his own party, which is a rare thing indeed. And another thing I view positively.
This kinds of pisses me off:
Federal parties agree to scrap bill correcting voting inequalities
The Harper government and the opposition parties have agreed to quietly sink legislation that would have given Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta more seats in the House of Commons. As a result, urban and visible-minority voters will continue to be discriminated against in Parliament.
Under the legislation, Ontario would have received 18 new seats, British Columbia seven, and Alberta five, bringing all three provinces up to the level of representation in the House warranted by their populations.
Though the above is denied by the government, the bill has been given one day of debate so far, so it’s not exactly speeding on its way to passage. The fear, apparently, is of angering Quebec and Maritime voters.
So fellow Ontarians, BCers, and Albertans, if you really want to have an impact on the next federal election, you’d best move to another province, where your vote will actually have weight.
Because in Canada, everyone is equal. Only, some of us are more equal than others.
Woke up in a panic
Like somebody fired a gun
I wish I could be dreaming
But the nightmare’s just begun
Ever do that? Wake up from a dead sleep in full panic mode, heart pounding, mind racing?
It’s happened to me a few times in the past couple weeks, and it’s quite unpleasant. I do not recommend it. And as sleep deprivation accumulates, the brain gets less and less effective. For the first time, I feel I have just a tiny understanding of what parents of babies and young children go through.
Don’t know why I feel so bad
Is it the weather, or am I going mad?
Don’t know why I feel this way
I don’t know whether I’m coming or I’m going
Can’t cover up, ’cause it’s obviously showing
Normally, I’m a fairly calm person, not given to emotional outbursts. So the number of times I’ve heard “You’re stressing me out!” in the past few weeks must be some sort of record.
I didn’t actually know, before, that stress was catching.
“Nice to know you’re human, too,” I also heard. Well that’s over-rated, I say.
Standing on an island
In the middle of the road
Traffic either side of me
Now which way do I go?
I should have stayed at home
I should have never come outside
Now I wish I’d never tried
To cross to the other side
So what’s been bothering me? Well, I’m not going to say. It’s personal, and it’s nothing dire—no cancer, no house burned down. It’s just stuff, that’s led to a lot more introspection than I’m used to, which is clearly bad for me. Frankly, I’m getting quite sick of myself.
Lyin’ awake in a cold, cold sweat
The Kinks: State of Confusion
Am I overdrawn, am I going into debt?
It gets worse, the older that you get
No escape from this state of confusion I’m in
And anyway, it’s gone beyond anything real, and I actually am panicking about going in debt, even though I have no real reason to do so, upcoming trip to Europe or no. And hearing all this bad economic news—not helpful! I’m like a walking Dow Jones average, overreacting to every new bit of information.
I thought, maybe a news break would help, then noticed how much news permeates my life. I wake up to CBC news (business news at 6:45), get up and get the paper (hard to get to the Arts section without passing by Business news with all its downward red arrows), cook dinner to CTV News 1: Your News first! (Business report at 6:30 pm).
So anyway, that’s why I haven’t been writing about politics much. But I suppose I should say something about the federal election results.
Given how bad the Liberal campaign was, it’s fortunate Conservatives managed to lose the majority on their own, scaring the Quebecois with thoughts of arts cuts and 14-year-olds in jail. But they did get a stronger minority, one that will take two parties to bring them down. Stéphane Dion didn’t dither in doing the right thing and stepping down, though this means the Liberals will again be spending all their money on getting a new leader, and not on winning power. There’s been lots of talk of uniting the Left. I’d love to see it, but won’t hold my breath.
Most disappointing for me had to be the local results, losing two excellent Liberal MPs: Andrew Telegdi (by 43 votes!) and Karen Redman. Redman lost to yet another “holy roller”—a social conservative, against gay marriage, pro-life, etc. So the whole region is now “served” by undistinguished Conservative members who will be as muzzled in office as they were running for it.
At least south of border, knock wood and all that, election results are looking to be much more promising. In fact, I was listening to Mr. Obama read from his own Audacity of Hope book today. It was very relaxing. He’s so smart, so well spoken.
It did, indeed, provide me some escape from the state of confusion I’m in.
Now, I don’t think animal welfare should be the top issue in this campaign, but Canada’s penalties for animal abuse crimes are a little archaic, don’t you think? And the public gets regularly outraged when an appalling act of cruelty against an animal gets met with a slap on the wrist, as that’s all the law allows for.
So, I guess there is one area where I think we could get a little tougher on crime.
Anyway, WSPA sent a survey to all five major parties to ask for their stand, their platform, on animal welfare issues.
But without even looking up the results, can you guess? Can you guess which one party refused to answer any of the questions?
You got it. The Conservatives aren’t even willing to make a statement against kitten abuse.
Where’s the platform—under the sweater?
Jack Layton to Stephen Harper
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