Wednesday 13 April 2011

Critters

Critters are taking over the UW campus! The squirrels, chipmunks and occasional ducks outside our office window were today joined by this little fellow:


Did you know groundhogs have adorable wee ears? They do. Tres cute.
Meanwhile, the front steps to the building are under constant supervision by this gent:




Mama Goose laid her eggs on the awning over the doorway, you see, so Papa is on constant guard duty. He's feisty. And poopy too.

Monday 11 April 2011

The hole gets deeper

News today: The Harper Government has not only been accused of misleading parliament in regards to funding its anti-crime agenda and buying military aircraft. Today, a draft report shown to the Canadian Press indicates the Tories spent $50-million in one Tory riding during the G8 and G20 conferences. The money was spent on park upgrades, town beautifications, footpath improvements, public toilets, a lovely new gazebo.... in towns 100km way from the G8 host site.
The dropping of the writ prevented the final report from going to parliament (it's expected to do so after the election). I can only hope this leaked release, showing such blatant disregard for the people, taxes and the responsibilities of respectable governance, won't be ignored on May 2.

Wednesday 6 April 2011

Best ad so far

Election campaigns aren't exactly known for subtlety or humour, so it's awesome to see this little spot from the NDP. It might be in French, but its message is universal:

Tuesday 5 April 2011

Groundhog Day

As Jack Layton and Michael Ignatieff duke it out to prove themselves the legitimate alternative to Stephen Harper, one must wonder who they're really trying to serve. The NDP and the Liberals both claim they are the only party to stop Harper. They also both claim to be the only party working for the Canadian people. The truth is, if they really cared about the former, these parties would stop quibbling about the latter and join forces.

We're caught in an electoral groundhog day: The same parties are spouting the same lines as they have the last two elections, and they're bound to get the same results unless someone shakes up some serious change. The Liberals and the NDP either have to fight to the death, or form an amicable union.To continue this charade of both being viable options to stop the Conservatives is a sham, and these pained efforts to promise they won't form a coalition is ridiculous. It's the only way out of this mess, guys. Unite the left, and the country will finally be able to move beyond this stalemate and have a reasonable debate about the issues, instead of this tussle for class president (or is it class clown? It's hard to tell sometimes.)

Parliament Hill has been in gridlock for years, with too many parties clogging up the 308-seat House and churning up the airwaves during election campaigns. The Conservatives saw the writing on the wall years ago and merged the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance to create the Conservative Party of Canada. The left needs to do this too.

Unless it is ruled ineligible for federal party status due to a lack of national candidates, the Bloc Quebecois will always be the third, spoiler party of this two-party-based system. The Liberals and the NDP must sort out their differences and create a working, co-operative union of the left, just as Harper did on the right. That co-operation could then - gasp! - be carried into the House to create something other than this blocked, grasping, dysfuntional set-up with which we've been belaboured for the last five years. Only then can the House clean up the current messy state of denial that is hurting democracy and robbing Canadians of a viable, functioning government.

(NOTE: I can't vote, so don't have a stake in this. I also don't have a party loyalty. I just can't stand this ridiculous pounding of our collective heads against the same wall. Get your acts together, politicians!!!)

Sunday 3 April 2011

To vote or not to vote

Unlike Australia, where it's mandatory for people over 18 to cast a ballot, voting in Canada is voluntary. Watching this current election campaign unfold, Canada makes a bloody good argument for mandatory voting. The turnout for the last election, in 2008, was just shy of 60 per cent. The Conservatives got roughly 37 per cent of that vote. So, by my rough calculation, with the support of less than a quarter of the eligible voting population, Harper formed government.

This election is shaping up to be just as tight, but with much the same cast of characters to choose from as last time trotting out much the same tune, it's not exactly inspiring. And I suspect we'll end up in much the same situation as before the writ was dropped, facing the same dysfunction in Ottawa that will only be resolved by a dramatic shift in leadership, or a dramatic shift in the rules of the game.

What would be different if voting were mandatory?
The theory: Because people MUST cast a vote, they are inclined to get involved in the debate and pay attention to the issues. This enhances the level of debate because more people know and understand the issues. End result: A better, more meaningful campaign.
The practice: Media coverage remains saturated with breathless issue-of-the-moment coverage that fails to delve into matters of public concern. End result: Voters make decisions on gut feeling having scanned the latest headlines. 

To be fair, that's largely what happens now in Canada, so I figure mandatory voting would at least get more people paying slightly more attention, and would force the parties to actually engage the centre ground, instead of trying so hard to build up their partisan base so they can win what basically becomes a ground war of recruitment. 
Mandatory voting is not the solution, and by definition it's not purely democratic, but at least it might help nix this awful stalemate in Ottawa right now.  That or reform the Senate, but that's a whole different bag of ugly, smelly wrong.