Oh Canada!
How could you? I really don't want to overly proselytize, but this is the best we as a country could do? 59% voter turnout, yes ladies and gentlemen, stand and applaud democracy.
I said i wasn't going to vote and I didn't, sort of. How does this give me license to grumble? Well thanks to my dear wife and the EDGE 102, I was able be counted and not vote. Here is the dirty little secret Elections Canada does not want you to know. You can register to vote at a polling station then when they hand you the ballot, you hand it right back (blank of course) and say I refuse to vote, I am protesting. They then have to put the ballot in a separate pile and mark down the vote as "protest." Pretty cool eh? Now it seems that even the lovely people at Elections Canada have no clue about this. I called them yesterday to find out for sure if protest vote was a valid option. The gentleman on the other side of the phone said that I should mark an "X" beside all the candidates names as a protest vote. I proceeded to inform him that this was in fact illegal (yes ballot spoiling is a federal offense carrying a 500.00 fine and the small possibility of jail time), whereupon he proceeded to get flustered and went to talk to his manager. The manager eventually confirmed that to submit a protest vote, one must do exactly as previously mentioned, hand back the blank ballot and affirm the vote is a protest. Again, I find this very cool indeed.
Now why did i protest and not submit a vote for any party? There are a few key reasons which I will explain.
1. There was no candidate I wanted to vote for in full. I like Layton just fine, would be fine and actually happy with him as PM, but he had chances to bring the last government down and instead propped them up. In fact it was the NDP that supported a no confidence with the Tories to bring down the Paul Martin minority which led to our dear leader taking office. That to me is inexcusable and I could not with any heart or conscience vote NDP. The greens, well, they still have issues and are not solid enough to get my vote, the liberals are dysfunctional and pompous and don't get me started on the Tories who are pompous and dysfunctional. I have previously stated that if i lived in a BLOC riding, i would be a staunch BLOC supporter. Duceppe is the only leader I truly have faith in and he is the only leader who has his country's best interest at heart.
2. Until there is proportional representation, I don't think the vote is fair and therefore is flawed. Here is my example of this. I have a broken car. It still works, but is dangerous to drive and might just give up any moment. Just because i have a car does not mean i should drive it. It is not an inherent right to drive the car, it is a right by proxy. Similarly with the election, just because I have the "right" to vote does not mean I should exercise it. If the system is broken and refuses to be fixed or even looked at, then why vote? It is not an inherent right of citizenship, it is a right by proxy which should be exercised with care.
3. Most importantly this was an ILLEGAL election. Our Dear Leader broke the law in calling this election. Not only broke the law but broke his own law! By saying parliament was dysfunctional (read: no one is doing exactly as I tell them), Harper, riding support numbers near or at 40% nationally, called an election. This was a despotic move, one that was so arrogant, so hypocritical, so callous in the disregard of principle and loyalty to a man's word that anyone who voted for him should question why they voted for him in the first place. The only thing i could do was protest a vote that ate up over 400 million dollars during an economic panic and was called only to stroke ego and manipulate the citizenry and parliament. This vote should never have happened nor been allowed on these terms, terms our dear leader himself set and held up as a bastion of citizen focused consensus and integral to democracy. All in all, this old/new government has done nothing more than embolden the mock in democracy to absurd heights.
But now back to the political clime...oftentimes i feel like i am on an island with few peers. I wish to stress that this is not arrogance, I do not believe I am better than other people, but when I see such folly in the elections, it only strengthens this perception. I remember when the Martin government fell and the tory ads had the tagline "Stand up for Canada." During that campaign, our dear leader promised an elected senate, then went ahead and appointed a senator. He promised fixed election dates, every four years (unless the government fell by way of no confidence), then broke his own law. He bribed a dying member of parliament with a life insurance policy to rejoin the tory caucus, lied about doing so then admitted doing so. He said there would be no fixed pullout date for the Afghan war, then affixed a pullout date for the mission. So the question I pose to you, my fellow Canadians, who voted for Our Dear Leader in the previous election: Is this the Canada you stood up for? Our Dear Leader promised an accountable government, then reneged on the promise basically trampling all over the Gomery report which accused his sitting government of the same practices that led to the sponsorship scandal. He promised a government that was honest, that you could rely on to keep its promises, then time and again showed how little he valued your faith and how highly he valued his own reflection. He plagiarized speeches and adopted policies from the neo-cons of Australia and America saying they were his policies. He sent envoys to world summits that blocked bills and binding resolutions to GUARANTEE CLEAN WATER for the most impoverished of our earth. This was chicanery and thuggery on a level even Vegas isn't privy to.
You have to hand it to the man though, he ran an effective campaign and even though he blipped, managed to dupe people into believing he is honest and the best fit for the job. He focused on the Liberals knowing full well that most of this country sees only two parties as effective. He showed images of a stumbling Dion then yelled HIGHER TAXES! HIGHER FOOD! cajoling the public through false fear and borderline defamation.
I am really disappointed in Ontario though most of all. The west we concede, but our province here? He has a finance minister who told the global business community not to invest in Ontario, was a finance minister under the Harris regime which decimated Ontario and brought us to a recession earlier than the rest of Canada (we are seeing the effects now) and Ontarians forgot. We forgot what it was like during the Harris years when our teachers were laid off en masse, were treated like incurable infections and our public school system spat upon. They laid off nurses, took no initiatives in qualifying immigrants for degree required positions, left our province in shambles and racked up a massive deficit by MAKING CUTS! And we forgot, gave the cons a free pass to destroy Ontario with last night's election. I am not even angry, just ashamed that we allowed this to happen. It is a sad sad time when we allow the murderers of our province to be the pallbearers for its funeral.
All in all we have a few things to be thankful for. Perhaps this is strawgrasping or trying to find a silver lining in an ever greying sky, but here they are.
1. Thank God for cities. Except for Calgary, the major cities in Canada (Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver) sharply slapped the conservatives in the face and elected only Liberal, BLOC, or NDP. While Tory support grew in the suburb/metropolitan areas, city folk understand how detrimental a tory government is for cities that have wholly different and unique challenges to face. With increased populations, issues such as immigration, transportation, housing and environmental impact due to increased consumption are demanding attention and are pressing on municipal/provincial/federal governments to stand up for cities. We now have a government that thinks nothing of any city not named Calgary, but in small part the cities prevented a majority.
2. The NDP made gains. These gains, if the Liberals can gain back support over the next few years (here's a hint, bring in TRUDEAU for leadership), they may well lose those gains quickly. The NDP's, like the cons, encroached into liberal territory and are now, for the time being at least, acting as a legitimate buffer and viable third option. The best story of the night was an NDP candidate getting elected in Edmonton, beating out tory incumbent Rahim Jaffer. Nevermind that Jaffer is a sellout to his people, the NDP did what the liberals haven't been able to do, namely win a seat in Alberta. In fact the NDP made great strides through the prairies and west and it is now Jack's job to make sure that the seeds thus far planted, are watered and grown.
3. Thank God for the non-Canadians, they helped stop a Tory majority. We can thank the peoples of Quebec and Newfoundland for this. Both these provinces have historically been wary of Ottawa and it showed last night. The other night, at the in-laws we were relayed a story about Newfoundlanders. Em's aunt told us she once taught a girl from Newfoundland ho had a thick newfie accent. This girl would get teased quite a bit and, Em's aunt took her aside one day to reassure her that the students were jesting. The young girl replied back, that's ok, when I tell my parents what the kids say at school, we just have a good laugh at the Canadians." Speaks volumes on how these provinces view our confederation. Isn't it ironic that perhaps we Canada was just saved by people's who are half-heartedly Canadian?
4. This was Our Dear Leader's chance. he had a majority in the grasp of his claws and let it slip. The most astute observation of this election happened last night on CBC by a comedian. He said (i'm paraphrasing) that Our Dear Leader found himself in the spotlight during economic turmoil. Our Dear Leader is an economist and flirting with a majority, this was his big moment to make a tory majority, to distinguish himself as an economist amidst a storm. In all, he failed. He gained seats, made progress in Ontario, but in the end failed. he lost Quebec (the key to his wished for majority) by making controversial arts cuts which struck at the core of Québecois culture and mistrust of Ottawa censorship. Popular support for the Tories stayed relatively even, meaning that Canadians by and large do not trust Our Dear Leader with the keys to a majority. They showed last night a desire to weather the storm but not give the ruling party a carte blanche. This must dismay Our Dear Leader. The public showed it does not have full confidence in an economist during a possible economic crisis.
So now Our Dear Leader has taken Dion's idea of having a ministers meeting on the economy and has drafted a six step plan (Dion had a five step plan and during the debates and Our Dear Leader blasted Dion for panicking when he offered this plan and meeting). He was handed ideas by all parties on how to gain popular support during the second term and manage an economic crisis. Quite Savvy. This while campaign has been an exercise in obdurate and recalcitrant behaviour from Our Dear Leader. The best thing is we are less than 18 months away from the Olympics in our country and you can bet dollars to tarsands that Our Dear Leader will want to be the leader during that showcase of the West. So there will be no more elections for 18 months (the usual standard for a minority government) unless popular support crashes and the Liberals can mount a strong challenge. For better and most likely worse, we are stuck. Expect new hard drug laws and copyright bills to pass soon, expect the downtown eastside in Vancouver to lose their methadone and addictions support centres very soon and expect a jolly if not false face to be put upon our dear dear country as we approach 2010. The True North Strongly Shackled indeed.
I leave you now with the wisdom of Pete Townshend, a man much wiser than myself.
Come meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
peace,love,FREEDOM,JUSTICE
-s
"This has been a non paid political message from the Free City. Never more Free than it is today."
