Something amazing happened while I was sipping my coffee at a brand new coffee shop downtown where I work. As I watched the words flicker across the screen of the silent television placed above the installed gas fireplace in the lounge, an old song by Duran Duran came on called Wild Boys. Normally, I do not connect any of this to anything, but the song was typically suited to what just happened to our country's Parliament.
Its Official Opposition developed a backbone! It appeared from what I was reading across the screen, then the next day in the newspapers, that Stephen Harper tried to pull a fast one in his Economic Statement tabled on November 27, 2008, before the House. As with everything, including non-money bills, Harper has chosen to make this one as well a confidence vote. This time, it backfired!
I presume that Harper believed the Opposition would cave as it always had under Stephane Dion over the past two years, as his party battered the media with repeated negative attack ads and daring to force the Opposition to call an election. He took it for granted that Dion and his fellow Opposition Party leaders would either back down or split their votes on this one. He got more than he bargained for that Thursday afternoon at Parliament Hill.
The Opposition had been planning to form a "coalition" of sorts, which would include the Liberals and NDP in a type of joint government arrangement with the support of the Bloc Quebecois on all confidence matters. Why this came as a shock to Prime Minister Harper is beyond me ... people can only be stepped on for so long before they fight back! I was proud of the Opposition Parties that night and I thought that for once, maybe Canadians will see a change for the better in their government.
The next few days enshrined newsworthy clips of formalization of the "coalition" government-in-waiting, as Harper began to appear more and more desperate to cling to power. No, the Opposition Parties were not going to back down this time ... they were going to return to Parliament the following Monday, December 8, 2008, and vote the Harper government down. Instead of the Governor-General dissolving Parliament and calling another unwanted election, the "coalition" can then be asked to form the new government.
This event triggered a groundswell of Canadian response all over the web, largely those opposed to the idea of the "coalition" being Harper supporters or people who simply don't have a clue about how our Parliamentary system operates. The masses of the uneducated or under-educated Canadians are typical fodder for the right-wing when they want to convince them of anything. Those in favour of the Coalition understood this was a possibility and perfectly legitimate role for the Opposition in our constitutional system.
On December 1, 2008, the "coalition" parties signed a deal and sent it in a letter to our Governor-General Michaele Jean, who was then forced to cut a cross-European trip to "come home" to deal with this "crisis" as some media pundits referred to it as. To me, there was no "crisis". It was just the Opposition showing their backbone, like they should have done ages ago to rid our political system of the arrogance, partisan bickering and dysfunctionality that has typically marked the federal government for the past several years.
Debate on Face Book reached fever pitch with Harper supporters or others with no clue as to how Parliament works, accusing the Opposition of "stealing their votes", or "partaking in a coup d'etat" without "being elected" ... both assumptions of course are not true. Even if the "coalition" did get a chance to form government, nothing happens with anybody's local representatives that they had selected on October 14, 2008. Tories are still Tories, Liberals are still Liberals, and so forth, as well the party breakdown in the House remains exactly the same as it was when this new government was sworn in.
Further, the act of "taking power" has no relevance to Parliament under a constitutional monarchy, which Canada is. First, all of the members of the "coalition" parties were just as "elected" as the members of the Conservative Party. Secondly, the governing Conservatives lost the confidence of the House. The Conservatives were unable to get enough votes besides their own to push this Economic Statement and all its related partisan tactics, to pass the House. As this was a confidence vote, all Opposition Parties have the power and the right to vote this government down.
As for whether an election gets called or a "coalition" gets appointed, this is the choice of the Governor-General, not unprecedented in Parliament (and has actually taken place in many provincial legislatures). The role of the Governor-General becomes crystal clear here. Her choice is to allow election after election after election with no promise of long-term stability in government, or she can elect to invite the "coalition" to form a government (provided they give her a business case for a stable Parliament for a reasonable period of time).
The Prime Minister knows this, but would not allow Canadians to become educated on this possibility. First, he made a publicized press conference which showed itself to millions of Canadian viewers to tell them the Opposition Parties were trying to take power despite not being elected to do so, and that nobody asked Canadians about whether they wanted this "coalition government" either. On the other hand, I ask, did anybody ask Canadians if they wanted their government to act the way the Harper government has been doing in the past few weeks?
On Thursday, December 4, 2008, Harper then crosses the street to Rideau Hall to speak to Governor-General Jean to prorogue Parliament in order to prevent that all important non-confidence vote he already postponed to December 8, 2008. She granted his wish after what some reported was a two-hour meeting. Parliament will re-open on January 27, 2008, with the expectation that a budget would be tabled in the House.
While proroguing of Parliament is also a legal move, but it was used this time for the wrong reasons. Proroguing or "rising of the House" is done usually after a legislative session has ended and a full program announced in a throne speech, for example, has been achieved. It is a way for the government to re-group and consider what its next steps might be. This time, the proroguing of Parliament was simply used to avoid the inevitable non-confidence vote faced by Harper and his government and for no other reason.
Despite the prorogue of the House, online debates continued ... many of them mirroring the behaviour of Parliamentarians at their worst in the House. If one went to the anti-coalition site, which many pro-coalition supporters have "joined" in order to "observe", those asking questions or trying to get people to think beyond the lies they've been fed or their lack of education and understanding of Parliament, respond violently with ad hominem and angry attacks on the messenger.
I was one of the people going online with them to ask them questions. In no way did I criticize or attack anybody, but just asked questions. I wanted to actually hear an argument against the "coalition" that was not based on emotion or lack of information from this side of tracks. Unfortunately, despite their large numbers, not a single person responded with any intelligent answer. That doesn't surprise me - people tend to be married to their ideological beliefs - however they were acquired.
They don't like Dion. They argue Dion was never elected to be Prime Minister. Well, neither was Stephen Harper, another fact these folks have difficulty absorbing. They "voted for" a Harper government, not a "coalition" - yet on my ballot, there was never any choice given to me as to who I wanted to lead the country, just my electoral district. After several back and forth nonsense, I left, as it is apparent to me that right-wing governments would tell people the moon is made out of green cheese if this would help keep them in power.
After the dust has blown over, so to speak, the Liberal Party of Canada, decided that Dion was a liability. Again, this is another "optic" thing, as really nobody can actually tell if Dion would make a good Prime Minister or a bad one. We already seen Stephen Harper act arrogantly, pro-partisan and Machiavellian in his role as a minority Prime Minister, so we have an idea of what kind of leader he is. One can only imagine if he actually had a majority, and I know instinctively that if he were ever to get a majority, most Canadians would be begging for a change and fast!
Almost overnight, the long-term leadership battle for the Liberal Party between Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae and Dominic Leblanc, was resolved by fiat of the party's executive, much to disappointment of many grassroots Liberals. Both Leblanc and Rae resigned in concert over as many days. The party's executive crowned Ignatieff the "interim leader" with this appointment only to be formalized at the already organized policy conference in May 2009.
Ignatieff seems to be somebody with a bigger backbone who probably would not back down on attacks by the Conservatives, although his lengthy absence from Canada can be deemed an issue. Some might say he dropped from the sky in 2005 to suddenly be a candidate for the Liberal leadership in their 2006 contest that eventually crowned Dion in the first place. However, many Liberals would say he proved his mettle in caucus and has developed his own strategies for forcing the Conservatives to govern in the national interest.
Almost as soon as he was placed in the leadership suite, Ignatieff brought the Liberal Party's ratings to 31%, while the Conservatives dropped to 37% of voter support. Ignatieff personally had the support of 28% of the voters as their preferred leader, while Harper had the respect of 27%. Under Dion, his ratings were 25% and 23%, respectively. Harper has not mentioned this sudden comeback of his Opposition, although he is no doubt aware that his chances of even winning a majority if an election were called today have all but disappeared. Therefore, Harper took his next step.
Remember, Parliament is prorogued. The doors are locked and Parliamentarians are not working. However, Stephen Harper, who at one time decided that Senate Reform was one of his major priorities, is suddenly taking advantage of that very institution that he hates. He decided that before Christmas, he is going to stuff the Senate with at least eighteen (18) partisans to get his party a "working majority" in the Red Chamber. Even though the Liberals and others still far outnumber Conservatives, his new appointees will likely be more active than those appointed well before.
Stuffing the Senate was an allegation that he made as the leader of the Canadian Alliance and then later as the leader of the Official Opposition when the Liberals governed. Should I publish Harper's many quotes on this subject that he stated to the House during these also very rocky periods? However, either his mind changed or something in the drinking water at the ruling side of the House has caused him to deem this is now an acceptable practice. To me, this is obvious that Harper fears still losing power, particularly now with a formidable opponent in Michael Ignatieff.
So, as time crawls by during the prorogue period ... Canadians have a wide open opportunity. The door has been opened by Michael Ignatieff, one might say. Ignatieff did say he cannot properly vote against a budget that he has not yet read, which makes sense. He has also left the ball in Harper's court to make sure that the budget is in the national interest. So, I would expect all national organizations that are concerned with cuts to the court challenges program, cuts to programs for persons with disabilities, changes to EI program, and so forth, should be FLOODING Parliament Hill with their requests for pre-budget consultations, saying if Harper doesn't do it - they will push the "coalition" to consider these proposals. Lobbying firms are probably busy right now.
Stephen Harper put his own foot in his own mouth by the Economic Statement, and by assuming the Opposition will remain lame duck and always back down, fearing obliteration by an election. Foot in mouth disease is relatively common among politicians of all political stripes. This battle cry by the Opposition is just the medicine this Parliament needed to excite Canadians, make them hope once again, for their own Obama. As Americans voted out the right-wing in droves and installed in place the first Black American as President, Canadians are looking south for this kind of hope ... to me, this is what the "coalition" did.
I am not saying I support or do not support any one or all of the Opposition leaders, but all I can say is that night in the coffee shop, I actually had some hope that something might change for Canadians, who unfortunately are still largely caught up in the myths that tax cuts, shrinking government, privatization of health care, and so forth would make their lives better. I always tell people to look south and ask the masses who voted for Obama if eight straight years of laissez-faire economics did their families any good. It should not take an economic crisis the size of that in the United States to make Canadians better understand that we can make change, and we can expect better. Why not now?
Showing posts with label Stephane Dion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephane Dion. Show all posts
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
BACK TO SQUARE ONE FOR HARPER ...
One three hundred million dollar election later and what did we learn? As I predicted at the very start, Stephen Harper came back with yet another minority government. Yes, he will once again have to face a dysfunctional Parliament and get engaged in more partisan bickering the voters are frankly getting sick and tired of ...
I worked for the elections again this year. I usually do when I am available to do that. My husband and I took a poll at my son's high school. All together, there were eight polls, each with their own Deputy Returning Officer and Poll Clerk, as well as other polling station staff, such as an Information Officer, two Registration Clerks and a Central Polling Supervisor. Working for the elections for the uninitiated is a very LONG day ... starting out relatively early, usually about 8 - 8:30 a.m., depending on your state of readiness.
I arrived and immediately set up my polling station and the part of the table where my Poll Clerk was going to work. It was already set up so that my ballots were in consecutive order, each ballot booklet numbered on the front and several of them initialed at the back. Some other DRO's, I hear, did not choose to do this ... oh well, voting started at 9:30 a.m. Greeting voters is a very interesting job. People are in a for a quick, relatively painless experience at the polls. The feds imposed heavier ID requirements, but people were okay with this ... I would rather see people out voting than being discouraged by bureaucratic barriers. Many new voters registered; these people are voting for the first time.
Some interesting things happen on polling day. One fellow was given his ballot. He went behind my voting screen and voted, then he proceeded towards the front door with it ... until he was stopped by other polling staff. I had him come back to put his ballot in the ballot box, explaining it would not do a lot of good for him at home. Another woman was in such a rush to vote, she moved behind the voting screen and forgot to take her ballot with her, which I was holding out waiting for her to return. I suppose she wondered what she had to do behind there, when she had no ballot to mark. People are interesting once they return their ballots, get the strip off the side torn off, then they deposit it into the box.
Some were clearly indicating who they were voting for. Others joked about whether they were going to throw the bums out, or put new ones in. Others had questions. A few had come to the wrong polling station or were unsure of where they were supposed to vote. I watched older voters, younger voters, disabled voters, frail voters as well as ethnic voters all come and go all day to their various polling stations to vote. It is always interesting trying to guess how these people are thinking, because we are not supposed to know how they voted until we count the aggregate samples in each of the polls.
One of the things the uninitiated discover is that we are not allowed to leave the building during the day until our polls are closed up for the day. We can go to the bathroom or accept deliveries of food or drink, but we cannot leave our polling stations for too long at any given time. I discovered the best time to get take-out delivered is before the dinner hour ... as between 5 - 7:30 p.m., there is usually non-stop voting. It is still busy after that but it does dwindle after that until it trickles to a dull roar about 9:00 p.m. Therefore, polling staff have to eat on the run, eat fast, portable foods and sneak medications or other fluids in during lulls in voting patterns.
At the end of the day, I add up the unused and used ballots by matching the ballot strips and subtracting the last ballot number used from the final ballot number issued from the unused stack and if they match up, then the ballot box is opened. Scrutineers from various political parties and candidates come throughout the day to collect information on who voted (so they can continue to bother those that didn't to go to vote). At the end of the day, many of them stick around and assist with the count. Even after knowing how each candidate fared in our eight polls, it is only part of the broader picture.
You know when you sit at home and watch the election returns, there are "elected and leading" figures under each party across the country ... some of them are only "leading" because not all the polls have been reported. There are things that can happen at a polling station that can slow things up. For example, an unnamed DRO who is probably reading this was unable to balance his Statement of Vote. He was still struggling after I assisted another group to close up and was ready to go myself. His Poll Clerk wanted to go home ... After working with the two workers, we learned there were some missing ballots that were soon recovered and we were able to re-enter the Statement of Vote. These are the situations you see on TV with "8 polls still needing to report", etc. The report is called in almost immediately and once delivered, the formal Statement of Vote that is signed is handed directly to the Returning Office, along with re-sealed ballot boxes (in the event of a recount).
Anyways, all across the country, we had over 160,000 polling stations and other staff working at both the Advance Polls and Voting Day Polls, as well as the candidates, their volunteer campaign teams, as well as paid advisors at the party level, and 308 returning offices to report ... and $300 million dollars later, after people get paid, printing bills are paid, halls are rented, etc. ... Stephen Harper is returned to Parliament with yet another minority!!! Harper argues it is a stronger mandate than he had last time. True, he had more seats, but he still secured approximately 38% of the vote ... less than 20% of the eligible voters voted for Harper this time around.
It is now time when the main political parties decide what to do. Every party lost this election, as far as I am concerned. The Conservatives failed to get their coveted majority. The Liberals failed to get more than 77 seats. The NDP, while they increased the number of seats, failed to increase them beyond the number they sought when they first set out and Jack Layton announced he was running for Prime Minister. The Green Party lost as it failed to get ANY seats despite the doubling in its popular support. Perhaps, the only party that can claim "victory" in any way is Bloc Quebecois, as this party single-handedly prevented a Conservative majority. Is this all that elections have become? Sadly, it is true.
Of course, approximately 59.1% of eligible voters even bothered to cast a ballot. We don't have the demographics of the voting public yet, but I am hoping it has increased among the young and the low-income populations, both of whom tend to vote less. Nevertheless, this low turnout was subsequently bemoaned by all political leaders, wondering what can be done to increase the voter turnout. This has been a chronic problem, possibly due to our first past the post system which really does not turn out results that are truly reflective of voter opinion. Also, one wonders about the impact of all the finger pointing and negative campaign ads. To me, parties should be forthright and attempt to sell themselves directly to voters, as opposed to giving us lots of reasons why not to vote for the other guy.
I worry about how this Parliament is going to conduct itself. I have a certain respect for Stephen Harper, but not for his partisan meanderings or any of the partisan meanderings of the other parties as well. The other thing that bothers me is right after the election, one can almost predict with crystal clear accuracy of how fast and against whom the knives will come out. Stephane Dion is suddenly under attack. He apparently spent several days away from the media, possibly feeling hurt and under attack for not doing as well as he should have. I am not so sure it was entirely Stephane Dion's fault. I think it was the carbon tax or "Green Shaft" as it eventually became known that had turned off voters. As former Prime Minister Kim Campbell once said, elections are not the right time to discuss complicated issues.
People felt kind of safe with Steven Harper because he played it cool during much of the campaign and did not go to extreme steps in pushing new taxes or complicated policies that voters are not likely going to understand, or may even fear for that reason. Despite Harper's "cool" campaign with little new announcements other than a few small steps targeting industries that are in trouble, etc., he mentioned very little about what he might actually do regarding health care, jobs, environment and poverty alleviation - the big four, according to all major political opinion polling companies. It may well be that Harper would prefer to leave these things to the provinces and simply hand out money, but the more sinister among us are concerned that there is a creeping privatization of health care that needs to be retrenched by enforcing certain provisions of the Canada Health Act, as an example.
On the other hand, voters did not feel confident enough to give Harper or any political party the full reign of majority rule. In reviewing comments about minority versus majority, people associated a "majority government" with a dictatorship, regardless of who was at the helm. People are still too close to remember Liberal scandals, HRDC-gate, sponsorgate, etc. and many voters are also quick to point out that the Conservatives have gone through some scandals of their own. No party can be trusted at the helm of a majority, it seems. This campaign was a big ABC movement all over, although people were reluctant to toss Harper out on his ear.
As an interested voter and political observer, I often point to electoral reform as at least part of the solution. Reforms are in place in the majority of democratic countries of the world that more closely tie voter preferences to seat composition. Ontario attempted to have a referendum for its last election as to whether or not this province would change the way votes are counted, but it once again was rejected by the voters ... I don't think the voters were given a good education on the proposed reforms and the way they were explained to people almost scared them, sort of like the idea of a "Green shaft" scared many voters in this election. However, BC is hosting its second referendum on electoral reform at its next provincial vote, so all might not be lost.
As a cynic, I also wonder if Stephen Harper knew the stock market was about to tank like it did, or knew that Barack Hussein Obama was going to do so well in the U.S. (where voters seem to have a taste for change), before he set this vote. Unfortunately, his urgency to go to the polls backfired on him in a sense that he did not get the majority mandate that he wanted and Parliament will once again be returned to what he thought was a "dysfunctional state" before he called this election in September.
Several people are talking about the possibility of the Opposition Parties, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc uniting under some type of Coalition against Harper's government, perhaps to give rise to a vote of non-confidence and then lobby the Governor General to ask the leader with the next highest number of seats to form a coalition government. It happened in 1926 with the King Byng affair and again, in Ontario, in 1985 when the Liberals and NDP joined together to vote the then recently re-elected Conservative government under Frank Miller to form what was then an "historic Liberal-NDP accord" which kept the government stable for two years in response for passing mutually accepted legislation.
While the idea seems appetizing for some, it is unlikely especially because the Bloc would have to be part of this Coalition. While Bloc Quebecois is progressive in its political perspectives, it is also a separatist party that has somehow gained the right to run candidates in federal elections (and subsequently collect Canadian pay cheques and Canadian pensions after they serve two terms in office). Would two essentially federalist parties be able to work with a separatist party for long enough without this becoming an issue? For those that fear separatist flames, the whole idea of the Bloc holding the "balance of power" in any such coalition is scary.
However, one thing is true. In about eighteen months to two years, we will be talking once again about a federal election, as at some point either Stephen Harper decides Parliament is too dysfunctional, or perhaps Parliament itself decides that it is ... and sends voters back to the polls. One thing that is nice about that is that I can look forward to once again sitting behind the counter as a polling official for Elections Canada, as this is one type of job I do enjoy doing as it contributes to the operations of democracy in Canada.
Your thoughts?
I worked for the elections again this year. I usually do when I am available to do that. My husband and I took a poll at my son's high school. All together, there were eight polls, each with their own Deputy Returning Officer and Poll Clerk, as well as other polling station staff, such as an Information Officer, two Registration Clerks and a Central Polling Supervisor. Working for the elections for the uninitiated is a very LONG day ... starting out relatively early, usually about 8 - 8:30 a.m., depending on your state of readiness.
I arrived and immediately set up my polling station and the part of the table where my Poll Clerk was going to work. It was already set up so that my ballots were in consecutive order, each ballot booklet numbered on the front and several of them initialed at the back. Some other DRO's, I hear, did not choose to do this ... oh well, voting started at 9:30 a.m. Greeting voters is a very interesting job. People are in a for a quick, relatively painless experience at the polls. The feds imposed heavier ID requirements, but people were okay with this ... I would rather see people out voting than being discouraged by bureaucratic barriers. Many new voters registered; these people are voting for the first time.
Some interesting things happen on polling day. One fellow was given his ballot. He went behind my voting screen and voted, then he proceeded towards the front door with it ... until he was stopped by other polling staff. I had him come back to put his ballot in the ballot box, explaining it would not do a lot of good for him at home. Another woman was in such a rush to vote, she moved behind the voting screen and forgot to take her ballot with her, which I was holding out waiting for her to return. I suppose she wondered what she had to do behind there, when she had no ballot to mark. People are interesting once they return their ballots, get the strip off the side torn off, then they deposit it into the box.
Some were clearly indicating who they were voting for. Others joked about whether they were going to throw the bums out, or put new ones in. Others had questions. A few had come to the wrong polling station or were unsure of where they were supposed to vote. I watched older voters, younger voters, disabled voters, frail voters as well as ethnic voters all come and go all day to their various polling stations to vote. It is always interesting trying to guess how these people are thinking, because we are not supposed to know how they voted until we count the aggregate samples in each of the polls.
One of the things the uninitiated discover is that we are not allowed to leave the building during the day until our polls are closed up for the day. We can go to the bathroom or accept deliveries of food or drink, but we cannot leave our polling stations for too long at any given time. I discovered the best time to get take-out delivered is before the dinner hour ... as between 5 - 7:30 p.m., there is usually non-stop voting. It is still busy after that but it does dwindle after that until it trickles to a dull roar about 9:00 p.m. Therefore, polling staff have to eat on the run, eat fast, portable foods and sneak medications or other fluids in during lulls in voting patterns.
At the end of the day, I add up the unused and used ballots by matching the ballot strips and subtracting the last ballot number used from the final ballot number issued from the unused stack and if they match up, then the ballot box is opened. Scrutineers from various political parties and candidates come throughout the day to collect information on who voted (so they can continue to bother those that didn't to go to vote). At the end of the day, many of them stick around and assist with the count. Even after knowing how each candidate fared in our eight polls, it is only part of the broader picture.
You know when you sit at home and watch the election returns, there are "elected and leading" figures under each party across the country ... some of them are only "leading" because not all the polls have been reported. There are things that can happen at a polling station that can slow things up. For example, an unnamed DRO who is probably reading this was unable to balance his Statement of Vote. He was still struggling after I assisted another group to close up and was ready to go myself. His Poll Clerk wanted to go home ... After working with the two workers, we learned there were some missing ballots that were soon recovered and we were able to re-enter the Statement of Vote. These are the situations you see on TV with "8 polls still needing to report", etc. The report is called in almost immediately and once delivered, the formal Statement of Vote that is signed is handed directly to the Returning Office, along with re-sealed ballot boxes (in the event of a recount).
Anyways, all across the country, we had over 160,000 polling stations and other staff working at both the Advance Polls and Voting Day Polls, as well as the candidates, their volunteer campaign teams, as well as paid advisors at the party level, and 308 returning offices to report ... and $300 million dollars later, after people get paid, printing bills are paid, halls are rented, etc. ... Stephen Harper is returned to Parliament with yet another minority!!! Harper argues it is a stronger mandate than he had last time. True, he had more seats, but he still secured approximately 38% of the vote ... less than 20% of the eligible voters voted for Harper this time around.
It is now time when the main political parties decide what to do. Every party lost this election, as far as I am concerned. The Conservatives failed to get their coveted majority. The Liberals failed to get more than 77 seats. The NDP, while they increased the number of seats, failed to increase them beyond the number they sought when they first set out and Jack Layton announced he was running for Prime Minister. The Green Party lost as it failed to get ANY seats despite the doubling in its popular support. Perhaps, the only party that can claim "victory" in any way is Bloc Quebecois, as this party single-handedly prevented a Conservative majority. Is this all that elections have become? Sadly, it is true.
Of course, approximately 59.1% of eligible voters even bothered to cast a ballot. We don't have the demographics of the voting public yet, but I am hoping it has increased among the young and the low-income populations, both of whom tend to vote less. Nevertheless, this low turnout was subsequently bemoaned by all political leaders, wondering what can be done to increase the voter turnout. This has been a chronic problem, possibly due to our first past the post system which really does not turn out results that are truly reflective of voter opinion. Also, one wonders about the impact of all the finger pointing and negative campaign ads. To me, parties should be forthright and attempt to sell themselves directly to voters, as opposed to giving us lots of reasons why not to vote for the other guy.
I worry about how this Parliament is going to conduct itself. I have a certain respect for Stephen Harper, but not for his partisan meanderings or any of the partisan meanderings of the other parties as well. The other thing that bothers me is right after the election, one can almost predict with crystal clear accuracy of how fast and against whom the knives will come out. Stephane Dion is suddenly under attack. He apparently spent several days away from the media, possibly feeling hurt and under attack for not doing as well as he should have. I am not so sure it was entirely Stephane Dion's fault. I think it was the carbon tax or "Green Shaft" as it eventually became known that had turned off voters. As former Prime Minister Kim Campbell once said, elections are not the right time to discuss complicated issues.
People felt kind of safe with Steven Harper because he played it cool during much of the campaign and did not go to extreme steps in pushing new taxes or complicated policies that voters are not likely going to understand, or may even fear for that reason. Despite Harper's "cool" campaign with little new announcements other than a few small steps targeting industries that are in trouble, etc., he mentioned very little about what he might actually do regarding health care, jobs, environment and poverty alleviation - the big four, according to all major political opinion polling companies. It may well be that Harper would prefer to leave these things to the provinces and simply hand out money, but the more sinister among us are concerned that there is a creeping privatization of health care that needs to be retrenched by enforcing certain provisions of the Canada Health Act, as an example.
On the other hand, voters did not feel confident enough to give Harper or any political party the full reign of majority rule. In reviewing comments about minority versus majority, people associated a "majority government" with a dictatorship, regardless of who was at the helm. People are still too close to remember Liberal scandals, HRDC-gate, sponsorgate, etc. and many voters are also quick to point out that the Conservatives have gone through some scandals of their own. No party can be trusted at the helm of a majority, it seems. This campaign was a big ABC movement all over, although people were reluctant to toss Harper out on his ear.
As an interested voter and political observer, I often point to electoral reform as at least part of the solution. Reforms are in place in the majority of democratic countries of the world that more closely tie voter preferences to seat composition. Ontario attempted to have a referendum for its last election as to whether or not this province would change the way votes are counted, but it once again was rejected by the voters ... I don't think the voters were given a good education on the proposed reforms and the way they were explained to people almost scared them, sort of like the idea of a "Green shaft" scared many voters in this election. However, BC is hosting its second referendum on electoral reform at its next provincial vote, so all might not be lost.
As a cynic, I also wonder if Stephen Harper knew the stock market was about to tank like it did, or knew that Barack Hussein Obama was going to do so well in the U.S. (where voters seem to have a taste for change), before he set this vote. Unfortunately, his urgency to go to the polls backfired on him in a sense that he did not get the majority mandate that he wanted and Parliament will once again be returned to what he thought was a "dysfunctional state" before he called this election in September.
Several people are talking about the possibility of the Opposition Parties, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc uniting under some type of Coalition against Harper's government, perhaps to give rise to a vote of non-confidence and then lobby the Governor General to ask the leader with the next highest number of seats to form a coalition government. It happened in 1926 with the King Byng affair and again, in Ontario, in 1985 when the Liberals and NDP joined together to vote the then recently re-elected Conservative government under Frank Miller to form what was then an "historic Liberal-NDP accord" which kept the government stable for two years in response for passing mutually accepted legislation.
While the idea seems appetizing for some, it is unlikely especially because the Bloc would have to be part of this Coalition. While Bloc Quebecois is progressive in its political perspectives, it is also a separatist party that has somehow gained the right to run candidates in federal elections (and subsequently collect Canadian pay cheques and Canadian pensions after they serve two terms in office). Would two essentially federalist parties be able to work with a separatist party for long enough without this becoming an issue? For those that fear separatist flames, the whole idea of the Bloc holding the "balance of power" in any such coalition is scary.
However, one thing is true. In about eighteen months to two years, we will be talking once again about a federal election, as at some point either Stephen Harper decides Parliament is too dysfunctional, or perhaps Parliament itself decides that it is ... and sends voters back to the polls. One thing that is nice about that is that I can look forward to once again sitting behind the counter as a polling official for Elections Canada, as this is one type of job I do enjoy doing as it contributes to the operations of democracy in Canada.
Your thoughts?
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
ELECTION TIDES ARE A CHANGING ...
When Prime Minister Stephen Harper walked into Rideau Hall to ask the Governor General to dissolve Parliament and issue the writ of election this past September 7, 2008, he was smug enough to believe he could transform his uncomfortable and "unworkable" minority situation to a stronger majority.
But, not so fast, Stephen Harper!
Canadian voters are stupid, but they are not THAT stupid. Calling the election a year early is Harper's idea ... full, front and center. So, if his party self-destructs as a result of calling this election at the worst time, guess who is going to carry the blame?
As the election moves along, other news we read about in the papers involves numbers outside of those pesky political election polls: these numbers are jobs being tossed out by the thousands as company after company decides to spurn Canada for the greener pastures of Mexico or even the southern U.S. As the country continues to bleed jobs, Harper struts along as he continues to "go the course". Dion calls it "doing nothing". Layton calls it "giving his buddies at Exxon and the banks a $50 billion gift".
As Harper landed and exited his campaign UFO in Niagara Region lately, he likely had no idea where he landed ... he began to talk about regulating the sale of chocolate cigarettes, something that he condemned as being marketed to children. This was here, in the Region of Niagara, where thousands of jobs just left the Region and workers recently given the pink slips were not even allowed to cross Harper's barricade to bring the Prime Minister up to date on this reality.
As he left the discussion about cigarettes, he reassured us folks in Niagara that our economy is producing more jobs than it is losing and for us to be reassured that our economy is doing very well, thanks to his government's policies ... well, tell that to our folks that were pushed out of jobs that paid $25 - $30 an hour and are now working at jobs that pay $10 an hour. The push to drive wages down has been in force for quite some time, although the two major political parties never talk about it.
So, as one part of the news highlights further and further job losses and bigger and longer dips in the TSX and Dow Jones, the Conservatives' popularity numbers appear to be following. I am not naive enough to suggest that there is a lot the government can do about the stock market, but there are steps they can take, in conjunction with the private markets, to ease the blow. As Dion suggested time and time again, Harper's answer to this problem is to "do nothing".
It is said the Dion was the winner of the French language debate last week and for the English debate, the victory was split between May, Layton and Duceppe. While the Conservatives continue to portray Dion as being a "weak leader", I watched him speak today before the Canadian Club in Toronto and boy ... if I was a Liberal supporter, I would be wow-ed back into his camp! If I were a tentative Conservative voter, I may be as well. No, Dion is not a "weak leader" ... he was called that in order to lead the weakest minds among Canadian voters to follow the blue brick road to the Conservative camp.
The unfortunate thing about this election is that it started off being about nothing ... other than Stephen Harper's allegation that Parliament has been dysfunctional (despite passing over 63 pieces of legislation, two budgets and one economic statement). Harper was getting impatient and no longer wanting only a piece of the pie. He wanted the whole pie.
So, he starts off on the attack ... long before an election was called. Somebody should do a Freedom of Information request to find out how much of our tax dollars were spent on pre-election ads and where this money came from. Elections Canada might like to know. For me, I could not care less about the attack ads. It took almost to the eleventh hour of this election for Harper to even release a platform, let alone answer any questions ...
The Conservative election platform is a 41-page document which includes 22 pages of glossy colour pictures of himself, some of which include that lovely sweater he started off this campaign with ... others of his kids. How cute. The sad part of this whole affair is that I do like Stephen Harper as an individual ... he has two young children, both of whom he walks to school. He does not come from big money like many former PMs have. He is an economist, but is also not a lawyer or from Quebec, which gives Canadians a breath of fresh air. He also takes in stray cats ... something on its own makes me feel for the man.
Stephane Dion is more of an intellectual with a background as a university professor. He is married and has an adult stepchild, as well as a dog named Kyoto. The fact that he named his dog Kyoto makes me wonder about this man, not that he is not allowed to name his dog anything he wants ... but he takes pride in the fact that he helped create the Kyoto Accord, which Harper came in and rapidly unraveled.
Jack Layton is a controversial individual. He was a professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, as well as at one point operating a type of environmental consultancy. He is married to Olivia Chow, also an NDP MP from the Toronto area. Neither came from money; in fact, Layton's fortunes probably grew after the two of them became city councillors for the City of Toronto. Both are known to travel by bike as well as public transit, something you will never see happen in Niagara with ANY of its politicians, no matter how humble their beginnings.
While I will probably be voting for the NDP this time around, I still have considerable issues with this particular party. I might personally prefer the Green Party, but I might want to see their party and organization grow first. My concern right now is to get people to vote for the candidate who is most likely to keep the Conservative candidate out. It is nothing against Stephen Harper; in fact, if I could vote for my local candidate and Prime Minister separately, I would definitely vote for Stephen Harper as the Prime Minister. I just don't like a lot of his underlings.
Now down to the point of this entry ... a recent opinion poll has placed the Conservatives at 31% of the vote, Liberals at 27% and the NDP at 24%. I smell a minority government of a different type. Maybe there might be enough NDP votes to keep a minority Liberal government in place. The best interests of this country would be served by a minority government of any stripe at this time, as it forces the parties to work together ... as opposed to one party imposing its own ideas, hell or high water, on everybody ...
The election campaign started with Harper well ahead of the Liberals, at one point his party was at 41% ... there was a lot of talk about a Conservative majority. There was even talk about who will be picked to be in his Cabinet. At the same time, many people are fearing a Conservative majority ... apparently now, enough of them to prevent one from happening. Dion seems to be taking his votes back, probably because he isn't spending much time babbling about the Green Shift, which his advisors probably realized is too complex to talk about during an election.
Instead, Dion speaks about a 30-day economic plan following his election as Prime Minister, something Harper appears to lack, even AFTER the release of his 41-page platform. His focus is on finding ways to alleviate Canadians' fears about the stock market which is now in a free fall, talks of the "Great Depression" are intercepting news reports on the $700 billion bailout in the United States (another unfortunately necessary measure, though controversial). People want to hear about jobs, their savings and their incomes.
All this talk about chocolate cigarettes didn't work, Mr. Harper.
However, I don't vote for political parties anymore. I vote for local candidates. After all, these are the people I will be darkening the doorsteps of in order to push my own agendas, as well as the people who will be taking issues of the people in Niagara to Ottawa. Sometimes, I want to vote for the person whose lens it is that will be interpreting what I tell them, as opposed to a party and/or a platform (which as it demonstrated during this election, can change at a whim).
On October 14, 2008, my husband and I will probably be working at the election. I do this, not for the money, but for the support of democracy. This is an institution that is very important to me ... although I am not a Liberal either, but there are reports of people with Liberal signs on their lawns in three Toronto ridings and in Niagara Falls, who are getting their car brake lines cut, their homes vandalized and are getting threatening telephone calls telling them to take their signs down. This to me is reminiscent of Third World elections, where people are made to feel fearful of expressing their opinions or support for particular candidates.
In this country, we should have nothing to fear when we speak out or show our support for any particular candidate. People in Canada should be safe to put ANY sign on their lawns, voice unpopular opinions and even join pressure groups to influence public policy. This is a part of our democracy that I feel strongly about ... and this is what I am sometimes fear we are losing.
Educate yourself, my friend. Learn about all of your local candidates and vote with your mind and your heart and turn up at the ballot box on October 14, 2008.
But, not so fast, Stephen Harper!
Canadian voters are stupid, but they are not THAT stupid. Calling the election a year early is Harper's idea ... full, front and center. So, if his party self-destructs as a result of calling this election at the worst time, guess who is going to carry the blame?
As the election moves along, other news we read about in the papers involves numbers outside of those pesky political election polls: these numbers are jobs being tossed out by the thousands as company after company decides to spurn Canada for the greener pastures of Mexico or even the southern U.S. As the country continues to bleed jobs, Harper struts along as he continues to "go the course". Dion calls it "doing nothing". Layton calls it "giving his buddies at Exxon and the banks a $50 billion gift".
As Harper landed and exited his campaign UFO in Niagara Region lately, he likely had no idea where he landed ... he began to talk about regulating the sale of chocolate cigarettes, something that he condemned as being marketed to children. This was here, in the Region of Niagara, where thousands of jobs just left the Region and workers recently given the pink slips were not even allowed to cross Harper's barricade to bring the Prime Minister up to date on this reality.
As he left the discussion about cigarettes, he reassured us folks in Niagara that our economy is producing more jobs than it is losing and for us to be reassured that our economy is doing very well, thanks to his government's policies ... well, tell that to our folks that were pushed out of jobs that paid $25 - $30 an hour and are now working at jobs that pay $10 an hour. The push to drive wages down has been in force for quite some time, although the two major political parties never talk about it.
So, as one part of the news highlights further and further job losses and bigger and longer dips in the TSX and Dow Jones, the Conservatives' popularity numbers appear to be following. I am not naive enough to suggest that there is a lot the government can do about the stock market, but there are steps they can take, in conjunction with the private markets, to ease the blow. As Dion suggested time and time again, Harper's answer to this problem is to "do nothing".
It is said the Dion was the winner of the French language debate last week and for the English debate, the victory was split between May, Layton and Duceppe. While the Conservatives continue to portray Dion as being a "weak leader", I watched him speak today before the Canadian Club in Toronto and boy ... if I was a Liberal supporter, I would be wow-ed back into his camp! If I were a tentative Conservative voter, I may be as well. No, Dion is not a "weak leader" ... he was called that in order to lead the weakest minds among Canadian voters to follow the blue brick road to the Conservative camp.
The unfortunate thing about this election is that it started off being about nothing ... other than Stephen Harper's allegation that Parliament has been dysfunctional (despite passing over 63 pieces of legislation, two budgets and one economic statement). Harper was getting impatient and no longer wanting only a piece of the pie. He wanted the whole pie.
So, he starts off on the attack ... long before an election was called. Somebody should do a Freedom of Information request to find out how much of our tax dollars were spent on pre-election ads and where this money came from. Elections Canada might like to know. For me, I could not care less about the attack ads. It took almost to the eleventh hour of this election for Harper to even release a platform, let alone answer any questions ...
The Conservative election platform is a 41-page document which includes 22 pages of glossy colour pictures of himself, some of which include that lovely sweater he started off this campaign with ... others of his kids. How cute. The sad part of this whole affair is that I do like Stephen Harper as an individual ... he has two young children, both of whom he walks to school. He does not come from big money like many former PMs have. He is an economist, but is also not a lawyer or from Quebec, which gives Canadians a breath of fresh air. He also takes in stray cats ... something on its own makes me feel for the man.
Stephane Dion is more of an intellectual with a background as a university professor. He is married and has an adult stepchild, as well as a dog named Kyoto. The fact that he named his dog Kyoto makes me wonder about this man, not that he is not allowed to name his dog anything he wants ... but he takes pride in the fact that he helped create the Kyoto Accord, which Harper came in and rapidly unraveled.
Jack Layton is a controversial individual. He was a professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, as well as at one point operating a type of environmental consultancy. He is married to Olivia Chow, also an NDP MP from the Toronto area. Neither came from money; in fact, Layton's fortunes probably grew after the two of them became city councillors for the City of Toronto. Both are known to travel by bike as well as public transit, something you will never see happen in Niagara with ANY of its politicians, no matter how humble their beginnings.
While I will probably be voting for the NDP this time around, I still have considerable issues with this particular party. I might personally prefer the Green Party, but I might want to see their party and organization grow first. My concern right now is to get people to vote for the candidate who is most likely to keep the Conservative candidate out. It is nothing against Stephen Harper; in fact, if I could vote for my local candidate and Prime Minister separately, I would definitely vote for Stephen Harper as the Prime Minister. I just don't like a lot of his underlings.
Now down to the point of this entry ... a recent opinion poll has placed the Conservatives at 31% of the vote, Liberals at 27% and the NDP at 24%. I smell a minority government of a different type. Maybe there might be enough NDP votes to keep a minority Liberal government in place. The best interests of this country would be served by a minority government of any stripe at this time, as it forces the parties to work together ... as opposed to one party imposing its own ideas, hell or high water, on everybody ...
The election campaign started with Harper well ahead of the Liberals, at one point his party was at 41% ... there was a lot of talk about a Conservative majority. There was even talk about who will be picked to be in his Cabinet. At the same time, many people are fearing a Conservative majority ... apparently now, enough of them to prevent one from happening. Dion seems to be taking his votes back, probably because he isn't spending much time babbling about the Green Shift, which his advisors probably realized is too complex to talk about during an election.
Instead, Dion speaks about a 30-day economic plan following his election as Prime Minister, something Harper appears to lack, even AFTER the release of his 41-page platform. His focus is on finding ways to alleviate Canadians' fears about the stock market which is now in a free fall, talks of the "Great Depression" are intercepting news reports on the $700 billion bailout in the United States (another unfortunately necessary measure, though controversial). People want to hear about jobs, their savings and their incomes.
All this talk about chocolate cigarettes didn't work, Mr. Harper.
However, I don't vote for political parties anymore. I vote for local candidates. After all, these are the people I will be darkening the doorsteps of in order to push my own agendas, as well as the people who will be taking issues of the people in Niagara to Ottawa. Sometimes, I want to vote for the person whose lens it is that will be interpreting what I tell them, as opposed to a party and/or a platform (which as it demonstrated during this election, can change at a whim).
On October 14, 2008, my husband and I will probably be working at the election. I do this, not for the money, but for the support of democracy. This is an institution that is very important to me ... although I am not a Liberal either, but there are reports of people with Liberal signs on their lawns in three Toronto ridings and in Niagara Falls, who are getting their car brake lines cut, their homes vandalized and are getting threatening telephone calls telling them to take their signs down. This to me is reminiscent of Third World elections, where people are made to feel fearful of expressing their opinions or support for particular candidates.
In this country, we should have nothing to fear when we speak out or show our support for any particular candidate. People in Canada should be safe to put ANY sign on their lawns, voice unpopular opinions and even join pressure groups to influence public policy. This is a part of our democracy that I feel strongly about ... and this is what I am sometimes fear we are losing.
Educate yourself, my friend. Learn about all of your local candidates and vote with your mind and your heart and turn up at the ballot box on October 14, 2008.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
FEDERAL ELECTION ON ITS WAY: HO-HUM!
Prime Minister Stephen Harper finally pulled the plug!
This was several weeks after projecting commercials about himself sitting by a fireplace wearing a comfortable sweater portraying himself as a family man, as well as another one where paid stooges were put on film to say they will be voting for Stephen Harper. Well, the pain of waiting is over ... the plug is finally pulled and the pain of waiting is over.
This election is predictable as anything else. Harper's team started a website called notaleader.ca and on another site, portrayed a video of Stephane Dion standing in front of what appears to be a chalk board, until a flying puffin blows by and poops on his shoulder and disappears. Dion's team struck back with their own scandalpedia outlining the innumerable gaffaws by the Conservatives during their relatively short reign of minority rule. What does this have to do with the price of bread, one may ask?
Political parties continue to believe that Canadians are stupid. They think Canadians will rush to vote Conservative because they see Stephen Harper portrayed as a "family man" before the hearth talking with glowing terms about playing cards with his son, Ben, and his daughter, Rachel. Congratulations, Stephen! I'm so glad that you have a family. But this does not take away from the fact that Stephane Dion, Jack Layton and Elizabeth May also have families, and they likely enjoy spending time with them too. But does this make him the best choice for a Prime Minister? God only knows.
Because nobody seems to know what policies any of these people have. All we are seeing are flying puffins, attack ads, comparisons of Harper to George Bush in the U.S., and so on. All of that means nothing to me as a voter. A survey was done of voters and it was found that the majority of them did not feel that the party in power made a difference in how well their lives went. That is probably true, but I also believe the big issues are important ... which is why we should be voting and studying the political parties' positions.
Pollsters are estimating that the Conservatives will win. Okay, so why bother voting, if we already know what is going to happen? Publishing these stupid polls is probably what bothers me the most. The pundits are pointing to a likely minority government headed by Stephen Harper again; it is like we ran out the back door, only to enter the same house through the front door all over again. Whoopie doo! Nevertheless, the ABC groups are being set up all over the web, citing "anybody but Conservative". I am still looking for the group that attracts the flying puffins.
In between these irrational election ads are commercials pushing vehicles, often with hard rock music that tends to attract the elder portion of the baby boomers, e, g. those with money. The latter group doesn't have any. I am still eagerly awaiting clear cut information about what each of the party leaders plan to do to further screw up our country and when I do finally vote, I will hold my nose and put my X beside the name that offends or nauseates me the least. Maybe one or two candidates might even provide petroleum jelly before they start their country screwing tactics, for example.
The Conservative party has not once spoke a word about how it intends to reduce poverty. Perhaps, they are part of the community that believes there is no poverty, much like my region's politicians believe. They talk about the wonder of tax cuts, which do absolutely nothing for low income people, but then again, some voters will be fooled. The Liberals promise a plan to reduce poverty, but at the same time they want to create more of it through their proposal to create a carbon tax, which Harper rightly describes as "a tax on everything". NDP Leader Jack Layton told his supporters the day the election was called, "The Prime Minister quit his job today. I am now applying for his job." Yeah, right. Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party, is finally allowed to participate in the Big Debates, which I will probably watch if only for that reason ... usually that would be an exercise in where best to place the barf bag.
Elections are viewed by most Canadians as something we must tolerate every so often, like it is such a burden on our privacy and an invasion of their busy lives. Perhaps, we should stop having them and then watch everybody scream about dictatorships and authoritarian governments. Canadians are stupid bunch anyways; I can never understand them. The media whines about summer elections, while summer elections wouldn't make a difference to me anyways. I am in the same place during the summer as I am during the spring, winter and fall ... working, probably until I am put in the ground.
The media whines about winter elections, whining about how Canadians would rather be in Florida getting some sun. Must be nice to have money to go to places like that, but I'm still here like I am the other 364 days of each year. The media whines about elections during or too close to holidays, like as if ALL Canadians just spend quiet time with their families ... assuming all Canadians have families to spend quiet time with.
But the thing that pisses me off the most is that when they raise so-called "pocket book" issues, it assumes that all Canadians have "disposable income" - a foreign concept in many people's lives. They talk about reducing taxes, but many of my clients don't pay income taxes. They need an income to pay taxes on. If some of them got the good jobs that other Canadians seem to have, they can join the same bitching rounds as everyone else about how high their taxes are. Wouldn't that be nice!
However, as the so-called middle class goes the way of the do-do bird, and less and less people have the "disposable income" to pick up a cup of coffee, let alone buy flat screen TVs, computers and new clothes, ANY government of any stripe will be scratching their heads to figure out what happened ... as they literally wiped out taxes on wealthy families and are quickly going into a deficit to cover basic operating costs, maybe we need to start thinking about doing politics differently.
Wealthy and upper middle echelon people often think of taxation as "theft". To me, if they truly believe that, they should all move to some island somewhere that has no government, no rules and no infrastructure to be taxed for ... let it be man against man, pitting life against life, lest only the strongest survive. They want to stop paying for health care because after all, they are healthy and even if they aren't, they can afford out-of-pocket medical care. They want to get rid of welfare and leave the less fortunate at the mercy of charity, and both you and I know what charities don't do -- they certainly don't do any better than the government, in fact a lot worse, at dealing with the problems plaguing the disadvantaged.
These are the same people who will tell a homeless man that needs glasses to go the Lion's Club to pick up a used pair, regardless of what his requirements are ... or to go to the welfare dental clinic and get his teeth pulled and then slap him in the face if he doesn't find a job. They are roundly criticized if they have a cell phone, lest they waste the money "taxpayers" give to them ... but then we somehow expect them to magically be in touch with employers to find work. The logic of these people is sorely lacking, as I see the results of this logic every day in my legal practice.
And these people think we pay too many taxes right now ... just wait until we open more prisons, hire more police officers, fill more hospital beds with patients with conditions that could have been treated had they been eating healthy and had enough funds to stay warm in the winter. Poverty is expensive. Our country cannot afford another ounce of it.
But then again, I am yearning for politicians who are true leaders for this country. This is something I think all Canadians miss. We no longer have the Sir John A. MacDonalds, the Diefenbakers, the Pearsons, even the Trudeaus ... we are stuck with the Harpers, who pay as much for their "image consultants" as twelve of my client's families pay for their entire expenses over the entire fiscal year. We have the Dions who can't communicate his "green shaft" plan in either English or French, not much better than one of his predecessors that spoke from both sides of his mouth. Then we have Jack Layton, who is probably closest to being "an ordinary Canadian" among them all, but yet so politically correct, he squeeks. I don't know enough about Elizabeth May, except that she practised law at some point, but then again ... aren't 99.9% of politicians over-represented by lawyers and wealthy business interests?
Some suggest a "none of the above" option on the ballot. It sounds like a good idea until it is implemented and I know for sure what will happen ... what happens, for example, if "none of the above" gains a majority in Parliament? Does it mean we have to start all over again and bother our vote-weary Canadians in going back to the polls to pick from yet another equally incompetent group of losers?
I don't know the answers, but I would at least like to see some way of reflecting a proportional representation so that people can stop twisting their voting strategies into pretzels and off-track betting proposals in order to prevent certain parties from getting in, as opposed to choosing a candidate of one's choice. During the provincial election, there was a lot said about bottles of Visine being used to "get the red out" and how voters could have done the same on October 10, 2007, by getting rid of Liberals ... but it seems that the Selsun Blue needs to go, but nobody seems to know how. I love you Harper, and I know you are a good person, a good family man, a hockey fan, a man of my heart ... but I just don't know what you have up your sleeve and how it will affect my constituency.
As you know, my constituency comes first and I intend to educate them in a non-partisan way, because I really don't "support" any political party ... I go for specific candidates, some of whom are Conservative, others are from other parties. I trust those that I know, regardless of political stripe. But if Stephen Harper came to my door tomorrow to tell me what he will do for my constituency and could convince me on how it will improve their lot, he might have half a chance. I might even send him a few flying puffins.
Anyways, I *will* be voting. I don't know for who yet ... but it should be a blast. See you at the ballot box folks, where we can all "throw the bums out!"
This was several weeks after projecting commercials about himself sitting by a fireplace wearing a comfortable sweater portraying himself as a family man, as well as another one where paid stooges were put on film to say they will be voting for Stephen Harper. Well, the pain of waiting is over ... the plug is finally pulled and the pain of waiting is over.
This election is predictable as anything else. Harper's team started a website called notaleader.ca and on another site, portrayed a video of Stephane Dion standing in front of what appears to be a chalk board, until a flying puffin blows by and poops on his shoulder and disappears. Dion's team struck back with their own scandalpedia outlining the innumerable gaffaws by the Conservatives during their relatively short reign of minority rule. What does this have to do with the price of bread, one may ask?
Political parties continue to believe that Canadians are stupid. They think Canadians will rush to vote Conservative because they see Stephen Harper portrayed as a "family man" before the hearth talking with glowing terms about playing cards with his son, Ben, and his daughter, Rachel. Congratulations, Stephen! I'm so glad that you have a family. But this does not take away from the fact that Stephane Dion, Jack Layton and Elizabeth May also have families, and they likely enjoy spending time with them too. But does this make him the best choice for a Prime Minister? God only knows.
Because nobody seems to know what policies any of these people have. All we are seeing are flying puffins, attack ads, comparisons of Harper to George Bush in the U.S., and so on. All of that means nothing to me as a voter. A survey was done of voters and it was found that the majority of them did not feel that the party in power made a difference in how well their lives went. That is probably true, but I also believe the big issues are important ... which is why we should be voting and studying the political parties' positions.
Pollsters are estimating that the Conservatives will win. Okay, so why bother voting, if we already know what is going to happen? Publishing these stupid polls is probably what bothers me the most. The pundits are pointing to a likely minority government headed by Stephen Harper again; it is like we ran out the back door, only to enter the same house through the front door all over again. Whoopie doo! Nevertheless, the ABC groups are being set up all over the web, citing "anybody but Conservative". I am still looking for the group that attracts the flying puffins.
In between these irrational election ads are commercials pushing vehicles, often with hard rock music that tends to attract the elder portion of the baby boomers, e, g. those with money. The latter group doesn't have any. I am still eagerly awaiting clear cut information about what each of the party leaders plan to do to further screw up our country and when I do finally vote, I will hold my nose and put my X beside the name that offends or nauseates me the least. Maybe one or two candidates might even provide petroleum jelly before they start their country screwing tactics, for example.
The Conservative party has not once spoke a word about how it intends to reduce poverty. Perhaps, they are part of the community that believes there is no poverty, much like my region's politicians believe. They talk about the wonder of tax cuts, which do absolutely nothing for low income people, but then again, some voters will be fooled. The Liberals promise a plan to reduce poverty, but at the same time they want to create more of it through their proposal to create a carbon tax, which Harper rightly describes as "a tax on everything". NDP Leader Jack Layton told his supporters the day the election was called, "The Prime Minister quit his job today. I am now applying for his job." Yeah, right. Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party, is finally allowed to participate in the Big Debates, which I will probably watch if only for that reason ... usually that would be an exercise in where best to place the barf bag.
Elections are viewed by most Canadians as something we must tolerate every so often, like it is such a burden on our privacy and an invasion of their busy lives. Perhaps, we should stop having them and then watch everybody scream about dictatorships and authoritarian governments. Canadians are stupid bunch anyways; I can never understand them. The media whines about summer elections, while summer elections wouldn't make a difference to me anyways. I am in the same place during the summer as I am during the spring, winter and fall ... working, probably until I am put in the ground.
The media whines about winter elections, whining about how Canadians would rather be in Florida getting some sun. Must be nice to have money to go to places like that, but I'm still here like I am the other 364 days of each year. The media whines about elections during or too close to holidays, like as if ALL Canadians just spend quiet time with their families ... assuming all Canadians have families to spend quiet time with.
But the thing that pisses me off the most is that when they raise so-called "pocket book" issues, it assumes that all Canadians have "disposable income" - a foreign concept in many people's lives. They talk about reducing taxes, but many of my clients don't pay income taxes. They need an income to pay taxes on. If some of them got the good jobs that other Canadians seem to have, they can join the same bitching rounds as everyone else about how high their taxes are. Wouldn't that be nice!
However, as the so-called middle class goes the way of the do-do bird, and less and less people have the "disposable income" to pick up a cup of coffee, let alone buy flat screen TVs, computers and new clothes, ANY government of any stripe will be scratching their heads to figure out what happened ... as they literally wiped out taxes on wealthy families and are quickly going into a deficit to cover basic operating costs, maybe we need to start thinking about doing politics differently.
Wealthy and upper middle echelon people often think of taxation as "theft". To me, if they truly believe that, they should all move to some island somewhere that has no government, no rules and no infrastructure to be taxed for ... let it be man against man, pitting life against life, lest only the strongest survive. They want to stop paying for health care because after all, they are healthy and even if they aren't, they can afford out-of-pocket medical care. They want to get rid of welfare and leave the less fortunate at the mercy of charity, and both you and I know what charities don't do -- they certainly don't do any better than the government, in fact a lot worse, at dealing with the problems plaguing the disadvantaged.
These are the same people who will tell a homeless man that needs glasses to go the Lion's Club to pick up a used pair, regardless of what his requirements are ... or to go to the welfare dental clinic and get his teeth pulled and then slap him in the face if he doesn't find a job. They are roundly criticized if they have a cell phone, lest they waste the money "taxpayers" give to them ... but then we somehow expect them to magically be in touch with employers to find work. The logic of these people is sorely lacking, as I see the results of this logic every day in my legal practice.
And these people think we pay too many taxes right now ... just wait until we open more prisons, hire more police officers, fill more hospital beds with patients with conditions that could have been treated had they been eating healthy and had enough funds to stay warm in the winter. Poverty is expensive. Our country cannot afford another ounce of it.
But then again, I am yearning for politicians who are true leaders for this country. This is something I think all Canadians miss. We no longer have the Sir John A. MacDonalds, the Diefenbakers, the Pearsons, even the Trudeaus ... we are stuck with the Harpers, who pay as much for their "image consultants" as twelve of my client's families pay for their entire expenses over the entire fiscal year. We have the Dions who can't communicate his "green shaft" plan in either English or French, not much better than one of his predecessors that spoke from both sides of his mouth. Then we have Jack Layton, who is probably closest to being "an ordinary Canadian" among them all, but yet so politically correct, he squeeks. I don't know enough about Elizabeth May, except that she practised law at some point, but then again ... aren't 99.9% of politicians over-represented by lawyers and wealthy business interests?
Some suggest a "none of the above" option on the ballot. It sounds like a good idea until it is implemented and I know for sure what will happen ... what happens, for example, if "none of the above" gains a majority in Parliament? Does it mean we have to start all over again and bother our vote-weary Canadians in going back to the polls to pick from yet another equally incompetent group of losers?
I don't know the answers, but I would at least like to see some way of reflecting a proportional representation so that people can stop twisting their voting strategies into pretzels and off-track betting proposals in order to prevent certain parties from getting in, as opposed to choosing a candidate of one's choice. During the provincial election, there was a lot said about bottles of Visine being used to "get the red out" and how voters could have done the same on October 10, 2007, by getting rid of Liberals ... but it seems that the Selsun Blue needs to go, but nobody seems to know how. I love you Harper, and I know you are a good person, a good family man, a hockey fan, a man of my heart ... but I just don't know what you have up your sleeve and how it will affect my constituency.
As you know, my constituency comes first and I intend to educate them in a non-partisan way, because I really don't "support" any political party ... I go for specific candidates, some of whom are Conservative, others are from other parties. I trust those that I know, regardless of political stripe. But if Stephen Harper came to my door tomorrow to tell me what he will do for my constituency and could convince me on how it will improve their lot, he might have half a chance. I might even send him a few flying puffins.
Anyways, I *will* be voting. I don't know for who yet ... but it should be a blast. See you at the ballot box folks, where we can all "throw the bums out!"
Sunday, August 31, 2008
IS A FEDERAL ELECTION IMMINENT?
There are lots of clues in the air that a federal election will soon be called. First, Stephen Harper himself flies to the Arctic to make an appearance in the far northern community, only to speak to the media about the possibility of sending Canadians to the polls. Further, a television commercial featuring a number of "ordinary Canadians" who speak highly of Stephen Harper and their intent to vote for him in the next election has already been put on the air, despite the fact no writs have actually been dropped.
There were threats of plunging Harper's minority government into an election for the past couple of years, but nothing ever materialized. Harper's Government actually tendered and passed an election bill that would set future election dates, namely the next one, which was supposed to be set for October 2009, and not this year. The only exception to this specific date is if the Government fell to a non-confidence vote. So, why is he going to the polls now?
I am hearing from people who feel that calling the election now would certainly be a breach of Harper's first promise, which was to not call an election himself until October 2009, which in itself was enough to steer some people away from his party and government. Further, Harper indicated that he felt that Parliament was dysfunctional and difficult to govern, given the minority situation, so an election call was valid ... nevertheless, Harper himself admitted we might just put another minority back into Parliament again, given the polls showing Harper's governing party and the opposition Liberals to be neck and neck in popularity.
At the same time, this is a minority Parliament and it appears that all parties have attempted to make minority government work. Thirteen bills have been passed into law, as well as three budgets have been implemented since the election of this government. Henceforth, it is certainly not as dysfunctional as some might suggest. Further, the appetite of Canadian voters appears to lean towards minority governments, which can force parties to work together on proposals, as opposed to ramming their own through despite massive public opposition.
Do I want another federal election? I personally could not care less, although I tend to participate in the public debate around issues in the election, write letters to the paper and attend meetings, if possible, as well as cast my vote as I did since I was old enough in every federal, provincial and municipal election. I might even work on voting day at the polling stations, something my husband and I have done for years.
However, to me, real issues are hardly ever discussed in elections. When the then Right Honourable Kim Campbell was campaigning to return to her job as Prime Minister, she set the standard that an election was not the time to discuss issues. However, to some extent, it is. In the last election, for example, the Conservatives focused heavily on 'accountability' and 'transparency' in government. Unfortunately, this has not translated into action, particularly when the same organizations continue to get the same funding and are mandated to carry on the business of serving people, when these organizations don't seem to have accountability of their own. But then again, who am I?
I observe that elections get sillier and sillier as time goes on. Politicians want you to vote for them not on the basis of their own policies, but on the policies they want you to dislike of other politicians. To me, this doesn't make a lot of sense, as I prefer to vote for a candidate with the best policies from my perspective. I want to know what they want to offer me, and I don't care why they dislike the other guy. This is too much like going into a car dealership, where the man trying to sell you a Toyota spends all his time with you berating GM products and not telling you why you should buy a Toyota.
So, if an election is going to be held, and by the looks of things, it probably will - it is likely the Tories will put out ads depicting Stephane Dion as a bad leader, particularly given Dion's broken English (which again tells me nothing about Dion's policies or his leadership). The Liberals will probably put out ads about how they feel the Tories are a bunch of right-wing zealots that are going to sell us down the river to the United States, if they haven't already. The NDP will try to attack the Liberals, while unknowingly at the same time, boost the Tory votes. The Green Party will simply be taking a swipe at NDP votes, so these two parties can compete for third party status. The Bloc Quebecois will continue to run on the same agenda they always had, that Quebec should be given nation status and get out of Canada, all the while continuing to collect paycheques with the Canadian flag on them.
Cynical as my observations are, people reading this will know this is truthful. Virtually none of the parties will provide a clear message to voters as to why we should vote for them; just why we should not vote for the other guys. To me, all the political parties have positives in their platforms, as well as negatives. I would rather have each political party roll out their platforms, stick only to key promises and provide arguments to back each of them up. Then, let us as voters decide what party and platform we as Canadians like the best.
The Tories haven't really done anything to piss me off, but then they haven't done a whole lot to endear me either. I am sure that like any politician, they are subject to the whim of lobbyists and interest groups and have to respond to situations as they come up during their electoral term and frankly, most political leaders do try their best with these things. In the US, as Hurricane Gustav threatens to outdo Hurricane Katrina from three years ago, almost to the date, presidential candidates from both parties are doing their Sunday best to speak to the nation as leaders, while attempting to sidestep as many political differences they have at this time to allow the nation to deal with this new potential disaster.
I don't know if it is because it is an election year, or because the fallout from Hurricane Katrina gave the current administration such a big whopping when it did, but I notice the emergency response to Hurricane Gustav is much more organized and is ensuring that any citizen that wants to get the heck out of the way of Gustav can and will be safely housed until this storm literally blows over. There are also key steps being put into place to protect the property of citizens from those who decide to stick around to become looters, something not unheard of when disaster strikes.
But in many ways, our own country is going to Hell in a handbasket and Nero continues to fiddle while Rome burns; therefore, I want to know what our political leaders want to do about it. What do they want to do about the environment? What do they want to do about increasing poverty, instability of the labour market and massive layoffs in the manufacturing sector? What will they promise in terms of accountability and transparency, so that taxpayers can be assured that their monies are spent appropriately and in the best interests of all Canadians?
Canadians are getting more cynical about politicians, and not without reason ... particularly when promises are made and not kept, or politicians seems to get involved in scandal after scandal and later, vote themselves double digit increases and gold-plated pension plans the rest of us can only dream of. Politicians really need to understand this cynicism and do something about the root causes of it if they want to increase participation in elections, as well as increase popular support for the right reasons ... as I once asked, what would happen to our government if nobody voted?
Well, if the None of the Above Party gets into power, chaos would ensue. At the same time, government needs decisive direction based on consensus building, that is based on core values held by most Canadians. Unfortunately, we don't get this. We get vague promises never kept, while our country's suffering continues ... this is certainly not a treatise to tell people not to vote, as I do feel strongly that people should vote. However, our responsibility as Canadians does not end there. We must also hold our politicians to account, even after they return or newly get elected to office.
Among those reading this blog, what do you feel most strongly about at the federal level that must be addressed? Your thoughts?
There were threats of plunging Harper's minority government into an election for the past couple of years, but nothing ever materialized. Harper's Government actually tendered and passed an election bill that would set future election dates, namely the next one, which was supposed to be set for October 2009, and not this year. The only exception to this specific date is if the Government fell to a non-confidence vote. So, why is he going to the polls now?
I am hearing from people who feel that calling the election now would certainly be a breach of Harper's first promise, which was to not call an election himself until October 2009, which in itself was enough to steer some people away from his party and government. Further, Harper indicated that he felt that Parliament was dysfunctional and difficult to govern, given the minority situation, so an election call was valid ... nevertheless, Harper himself admitted we might just put another minority back into Parliament again, given the polls showing Harper's governing party and the opposition Liberals to be neck and neck in popularity.
At the same time, this is a minority Parliament and it appears that all parties have attempted to make minority government work. Thirteen bills have been passed into law, as well as three budgets have been implemented since the election of this government. Henceforth, it is certainly not as dysfunctional as some might suggest. Further, the appetite of Canadian voters appears to lean towards minority governments, which can force parties to work together on proposals, as opposed to ramming their own through despite massive public opposition.
Do I want another federal election? I personally could not care less, although I tend to participate in the public debate around issues in the election, write letters to the paper and attend meetings, if possible, as well as cast my vote as I did since I was old enough in every federal, provincial and municipal election. I might even work on voting day at the polling stations, something my husband and I have done for years.
However, to me, real issues are hardly ever discussed in elections. When the then Right Honourable Kim Campbell was campaigning to return to her job as Prime Minister, she set the standard that an election was not the time to discuss issues. However, to some extent, it is. In the last election, for example, the Conservatives focused heavily on 'accountability' and 'transparency' in government. Unfortunately, this has not translated into action, particularly when the same organizations continue to get the same funding and are mandated to carry on the business of serving people, when these organizations don't seem to have accountability of their own. But then again, who am I?
I observe that elections get sillier and sillier as time goes on. Politicians want you to vote for them not on the basis of their own policies, but on the policies they want you to dislike of other politicians. To me, this doesn't make a lot of sense, as I prefer to vote for a candidate with the best policies from my perspective. I want to know what they want to offer me, and I don't care why they dislike the other guy. This is too much like going into a car dealership, where the man trying to sell you a Toyota spends all his time with you berating GM products and not telling you why you should buy a Toyota.
So, if an election is going to be held, and by the looks of things, it probably will - it is likely the Tories will put out ads depicting Stephane Dion as a bad leader, particularly given Dion's broken English (which again tells me nothing about Dion's policies or his leadership). The Liberals will probably put out ads about how they feel the Tories are a bunch of right-wing zealots that are going to sell us down the river to the United States, if they haven't already. The NDP will try to attack the Liberals, while unknowingly at the same time, boost the Tory votes. The Green Party will simply be taking a swipe at NDP votes, so these two parties can compete for third party status. The Bloc Quebecois will continue to run on the same agenda they always had, that Quebec should be given nation status and get out of Canada, all the while continuing to collect paycheques with the Canadian flag on them.
Cynical as my observations are, people reading this will know this is truthful. Virtually none of the parties will provide a clear message to voters as to why we should vote for them; just why we should not vote for the other guys. To me, all the political parties have positives in their platforms, as well as negatives. I would rather have each political party roll out their platforms, stick only to key promises and provide arguments to back each of them up. Then, let us as voters decide what party and platform we as Canadians like the best.
The Tories haven't really done anything to piss me off, but then they haven't done a whole lot to endear me either. I am sure that like any politician, they are subject to the whim of lobbyists and interest groups and have to respond to situations as they come up during their electoral term and frankly, most political leaders do try their best with these things. In the US, as Hurricane Gustav threatens to outdo Hurricane Katrina from three years ago, almost to the date, presidential candidates from both parties are doing their Sunday best to speak to the nation as leaders, while attempting to sidestep as many political differences they have at this time to allow the nation to deal with this new potential disaster.
I don't know if it is because it is an election year, or because the fallout from Hurricane Katrina gave the current administration such a big whopping when it did, but I notice the emergency response to Hurricane Gustav is much more organized and is ensuring that any citizen that wants to get the heck out of the way of Gustav can and will be safely housed until this storm literally blows over. There are also key steps being put into place to protect the property of citizens from those who decide to stick around to become looters, something not unheard of when disaster strikes.
But in many ways, our own country is going to Hell in a handbasket and Nero continues to fiddle while Rome burns; therefore, I want to know what our political leaders want to do about it. What do they want to do about the environment? What do they want to do about increasing poverty, instability of the labour market and massive layoffs in the manufacturing sector? What will they promise in terms of accountability and transparency, so that taxpayers can be assured that their monies are spent appropriately and in the best interests of all Canadians?
Canadians are getting more cynical about politicians, and not without reason ... particularly when promises are made and not kept, or politicians seems to get involved in scandal after scandal and later, vote themselves double digit increases and gold-plated pension plans the rest of us can only dream of. Politicians really need to understand this cynicism and do something about the root causes of it if they want to increase participation in elections, as well as increase popular support for the right reasons ... as I once asked, what would happen to our government if nobody voted?
Well, if the None of the Above Party gets into power, chaos would ensue. At the same time, government needs decisive direction based on consensus building, that is based on core values held by most Canadians. Unfortunately, we don't get this. We get vague promises never kept, while our country's suffering continues ... this is certainly not a treatise to tell people not to vote, as I do feel strongly that people should vote. However, our responsibility as Canadians does not end there. We must also hold our politicians to account, even after they return or newly get elected to office.
Among those reading this blog, what do you feel most strongly about at the federal level that must be addressed? Your thoughts?
Thursday, August 28, 2008
IS THE CARBON TAX THE WAY TO GO?
Everybody wants to save the environment these days. People are going out in droves to purchase "environmentally friendly" products, just because they are labeled "green" or even decorated with pretty green packaging. A marketing ploy, if you ask me ... as at least one environmental research group determined that many of these "environmentally friendly" products are in fact no better than the products they are replacing.
Nevertheless, politicians are picking up from the "green" movement in waves. We even have a Green Party, in addition to all the other Parliamentary noise that some people call political parties. All of them in some sense are now jumping on the environmental bandwagon. In return for the Conservative's repudiation of Kyoto, they want to promise different incentives for people who go "green": tax breaks for people that use the bus, rebates for people who buy a hybrid car, refunds for people that do "green" renovations to their homes, etc.
The Liberals under the leadership of Stephane Dion now want to introduce a carbon tax, copying their right wing cousins in British Columbia who also jumped on a similar bandwagon about a year ago. The NDP has a foggy plan to "make polluters pay"; however that gets implemented, I supposed that will all come out in the wash. However, because Dion seems to be dragging people over to the Liberals' side with his proposed carbon tax, all the other parties decided to oppose it. To me, I am uncertain because there are too many unanswered questions about it ... henceforth, virtually all of these policies have unanswered questions until the party in question gets elected and does even more to screw things up than they already are. I feel the carbon tax might just fit that bill, if there ever was one.
A carbon tax is supposed to tax consumption, as opposed to income. The more one consumes, the more one will have to pay. Henceforth, this is not some vague 'pie in the sky' promise to tax people who are doing the pollution, but a way of making consumers pay MORE to use almost anything, eat most foods, heat their homes, drive their cars, etc. Those crazy people that protest gas price hikes will really be in a frenzy with the proposed carbon tax, as the cost of fuel will be increased even more and as such, any goods that are transported this way.
Hey, Dion, have you ever heard of this term called "energy poverty"? Obviously not, or he would have thought this through before pushing for the same. His only answer to this concern is to provide a deep income tax cut in return for raising the prices on almost anything we use and the food that we eat. The key issue here is that low-income and poor people do not pay a lot of income taxes, so an income tax cut for this group is useless to them as they get hit with higher and higher prices.
Since the provincial Liberals got into power in Ontario, the price of heating fuels and electricity more than doubled for the average consumer, while we all had to listen to endless platitudes about how we can buy "energy efficient" appliances, insulate our home, use less, etc. to cut our costs ... but, of course, Dalton McGuinty and his gang also forgot one thing: low-income people do not have the capital to purchase "energy efficient" appliances, re-insulate their homes or do other "green" changes to their homes to save money -- and this is just for the homeowners. At the same time, nobody gets any assistance in paying their skyrocketing bills either, as energy costs eat up more and more of our meagre incomes.
Many tenants are forced to pay their own utilities, yet they cannot force their landlords to do the above changes and are in turn, stuck paying higher and higher costs just to keep a roof over their heads. If they don't pay their own utilities, the Landlord and Tenant Board will only be too pleased to grant an above guideline increase to landlords stuck with paying higher costs just the same. It has already gotten bad here in Ontario WITHOUT a carbon tax to go with it, so why do we want to pay higher prices for the same thing? Is the government going to give low-income people a substantial increase in wages and social assistance? I doubt it.
For example, my utilities and bills are more than my monthly mortgage and property taxes combined. By the time I finish paying for my mortgage, taxes, utilities and other related housing bills, I am broke. This is the same Premier who promises to help small businesses and to turn around this bad economy. Yeah, right. When I am busy paying more and more for utilities, I have even less left to cover "discretionary" expenses. So, people like me and many thousands more alike, have to apologize to the small business community because we don't have any "discretionary" income left. I suppose that is okay, as this government wants everybody on welfare anyways.
Income taxes don't interest most low-income, poor and even most middle class people ... taxes have been cut and cut and cut over the past couple of decades and all we have seen are cuts to public services in return. In return for the last round of income tax cuts, people have found themselves out of pocket more at the doctor's, at the pharmacy, at the optometrist and even paying for more municipal services that used to be provided for free. The last I checked, our educational system is also paid for through taxes, but due to the 'death by a thousand cuts' over the past decade and a half, parents are expected to pay for more and more for their children's education, including basic items such as textbooks and class supplies. If you can't afford them, you are supposed to go crying poor to the school so some damned charity can look after you ... something that is supposed to be confidential, but we all know how confidential these things are when your children's peers begin to notice things, regardless of how much "help" they get.
So, now the air we breathe is going to be taxed as well? I suppose the low-income families can "cut back" by not turning on their heat in the middle of January or walking across town back and forth each day because they could no longer afford the bus and certainly cannot afford a car! In the summer, the poor and low-income are supposed to swelter in the heat, regardless of how it makes them feel. Only the rich deserve any comfort.
So, will this carbon tax work? Absolutely not! Think of it yourself. If you are presently in a financially comfortable position -- maybe not rich, but at least middle class -- you may grumble about the price of gas, or the increased cost of hydro, but you still pay it, right? You can still pay these bills without having to forgo some other luxury like food, for example. Therefore, you probably do not feel a great need to cut back or get "energy efficient" appliances (unless you can be convinced of finding a deal or getting enough of a rebate to 'pull' you in that direction). You will just keep right on using your dishwasher, your washer and dryer and drive your SUV to the corner store, as long as the costs don't go too high ...
... and that's exactly what will happen. People will pay this carbon tax as the cost of doing business. Wealthy people that have bigger homes, bigger cars and bigger bank accounts wouldn't care less if they had to pay a little more for heating their twelve mansions and their summer cottage by Algonquin Park. Even the middle class will continue to pay ... Some may cut back some, but not in a substantial way as to reduce their overall carbon footprint. For example, they may opt for a "staycation" as opposed to going to the cottage for three weeks in the summer. Low-income people have NOWHERE ELSE TO CUT BACK. More and more of them will have to choose to feed the family or pay their heating bills. Like, when are these well-intentioned politicians going to learn that what they propose does not work for the poor?
My guess is as good as any. First, the poor are rarely consulted about anything. Programs and services are created by people who will never need them. People paid to run these programs and services are well compensated and certainly will not want to see their programs cut for lack of effectiveness, so the incentive here is to "create" results, as opposed to producing them. These same people are the same folks clamouring for more tax cuts, thinking that only if they paid several thousands of dollars less a year in taxes, they can always give more to the food bank, the homeless shelter and soon, the charity hospitals once our health care is privatized enough to satisfy some of these right wingers.
One of my previous posts shows how the charitable sector is not created by and for the poor. Eighty percent of monies allocated to the poor benefit the "middle class" and the crumbs left over hardly help those intended to be served by the same. Those operating charities hardly ever ask those they serve what they need; they just impose ... and assume that what they do is "doing good" when in fact they are just perpetuating the poverty the person is in. I assume more people upon learning about the energy poverty that will be succumbing more and more families as a result of this carbon tax will assume more donations to the food bank will help ...
No, the poor want to be given a hand UP and then be left alone. It is so interesting when one or more of these right wingers ever have to go to the other side of tracks through "no fault of their own", they will finally discover the true effect of their earlier good intentions and why and how they went wrong. Before it is too late, Stephane Dion, talk to a few of us who can see through your sudden interest in the "environment" and challenge you to reduce poverty too ...
I want this issue to be one of the key election issues if there is a federal election held this fall, which it seems there will be because Stephen Harper appears to want to give up the ghost early instead of waiting until next year for the election date he originally promised. Oh well, life goes on.
Nevertheless, politicians are picking up from the "green" movement in waves. We even have a Green Party, in addition to all the other Parliamentary noise that some people call political parties. All of them in some sense are now jumping on the environmental bandwagon. In return for the Conservative's repudiation of Kyoto, they want to promise different incentives for people who go "green": tax breaks for people that use the bus, rebates for people who buy a hybrid car, refunds for people that do "green" renovations to their homes, etc.
The Liberals under the leadership of Stephane Dion now want to introduce a carbon tax, copying their right wing cousins in British Columbia who also jumped on a similar bandwagon about a year ago. The NDP has a foggy plan to "make polluters pay"; however that gets implemented, I supposed that will all come out in the wash. However, because Dion seems to be dragging people over to the Liberals' side with his proposed carbon tax, all the other parties decided to oppose it. To me, I am uncertain because there are too many unanswered questions about it ... henceforth, virtually all of these policies have unanswered questions until the party in question gets elected and does even more to screw things up than they already are. I feel the carbon tax might just fit that bill, if there ever was one.
A carbon tax is supposed to tax consumption, as opposed to income. The more one consumes, the more one will have to pay. Henceforth, this is not some vague 'pie in the sky' promise to tax people who are doing the pollution, but a way of making consumers pay MORE to use almost anything, eat most foods, heat their homes, drive their cars, etc. Those crazy people that protest gas price hikes will really be in a frenzy with the proposed carbon tax, as the cost of fuel will be increased even more and as such, any goods that are transported this way.
Hey, Dion, have you ever heard of this term called "energy poverty"? Obviously not, or he would have thought this through before pushing for the same. His only answer to this concern is to provide a deep income tax cut in return for raising the prices on almost anything we use and the food that we eat. The key issue here is that low-income and poor people do not pay a lot of income taxes, so an income tax cut for this group is useless to them as they get hit with higher and higher prices.
Since the provincial Liberals got into power in Ontario, the price of heating fuels and electricity more than doubled for the average consumer, while we all had to listen to endless platitudes about how we can buy "energy efficient" appliances, insulate our home, use less, etc. to cut our costs ... but, of course, Dalton McGuinty and his gang also forgot one thing: low-income people do not have the capital to purchase "energy efficient" appliances, re-insulate their homes or do other "green" changes to their homes to save money -- and this is just for the homeowners. At the same time, nobody gets any assistance in paying their skyrocketing bills either, as energy costs eat up more and more of our meagre incomes.
Many tenants are forced to pay their own utilities, yet they cannot force their landlords to do the above changes and are in turn, stuck paying higher and higher costs just to keep a roof over their heads. If they don't pay their own utilities, the Landlord and Tenant Board will only be too pleased to grant an above guideline increase to landlords stuck with paying higher costs just the same. It has already gotten bad here in Ontario WITHOUT a carbon tax to go with it, so why do we want to pay higher prices for the same thing? Is the government going to give low-income people a substantial increase in wages and social assistance? I doubt it.
For example, my utilities and bills are more than my monthly mortgage and property taxes combined. By the time I finish paying for my mortgage, taxes, utilities and other related housing bills, I am broke. This is the same Premier who promises to help small businesses and to turn around this bad economy. Yeah, right. When I am busy paying more and more for utilities, I have even less left to cover "discretionary" expenses. So, people like me and many thousands more alike, have to apologize to the small business community because we don't have any "discretionary" income left. I suppose that is okay, as this government wants everybody on welfare anyways.
Income taxes don't interest most low-income, poor and even most middle class people ... taxes have been cut and cut and cut over the past couple of decades and all we have seen are cuts to public services in return. In return for the last round of income tax cuts, people have found themselves out of pocket more at the doctor's, at the pharmacy, at the optometrist and even paying for more municipal services that used to be provided for free. The last I checked, our educational system is also paid for through taxes, but due to the 'death by a thousand cuts' over the past decade and a half, parents are expected to pay for more and more for their children's education, including basic items such as textbooks and class supplies. If you can't afford them, you are supposed to go crying poor to the school so some damned charity can look after you ... something that is supposed to be confidential, but we all know how confidential these things are when your children's peers begin to notice things, regardless of how much "help" they get.
So, now the air we breathe is going to be taxed as well? I suppose the low-income families can "cut back" by not turning on their heat in the middle of January or walking across town back and forth each day because they could no longer afford the bus and certainly cannot afford a car! In the summer, the poor and low-income are supposed to swelter in the heat, regardless of how it makes them feel. Only the rich deserve any comfort.
So, will this carbon tax work? Absolutely not! Think of it yourself. If you are presently in a financially comfortable position -- maybe not rich, but at least middle class -- you may grumble about the price of gas, or the increased cost of hydro, but you still pay it, right? You can still pay these bills without having to forgo some other luxury like food, for example. Therefore, you probably do not feel a great need to cut back or get "energy efficient" appliances (unless you can be convinced of finding a deal or getting enough of a rebate to 'pull' you in that direction). You will just keep right on using your dishwasher, your washer and dryer and drive your SUV to the corner store, as long as the costs don't go too high ...
... and that's exactly what will happen. People will pay this carbon tax as the cost of doing business. Wealthy people that have bigger homes, bigger cars and bigger bank accounts wouldn't care less if they had to pay a little more for heating their twelve mansions and their summer cottage by Algonquin Park. Even the middle class will continue to pay ... Some may cut back some, but not in a substantial way as to reduce their overall carbon footprint. For example, they may opt for a "staycation" as opposed to going to the cottage for three weeks in the summer. Low-income people have NOWHERE ELSE TO CUT BACK. More and more of them will have to choose to feed the family or pay their heating bills. Like, when are these well-intentioned politicians going to learn that what they propose does not work for the poor?
My guess is as good as any. First, the poor are rarely consulted about anything. Programs and services are created by people who will never need them. People paid to run these programs and services are well compensated and certainly will not want to see their programs cut for lack of effectiveness, so the incentive here is to "create" results, as opposed to producing them. These same people are the same folks clamouring for more tax cuts, thinking that only if they paid several thousands of dollars less a year in taxes, they can always give more to the food bank, the homeless shelter and soon, the charity hospitals once our health care is privatized enough to satisfy some of these right wingers.
One of my previous posts shows how the charitable sector is not created by and for the poor. Eighty percent of monies allocated to the poor benefit the "middle class" and the crumbs left over hardly help those intended to be served by the same. Those operating charities hardly ever ask those they serve what they need; they just impose ... and assume that what they do is "doing good" when in fact they are just perpetuating the poverty the person is in. I assume more people upon learning about the energy poverty that will be succumbing more and more families as a result of this carbon tax will assume more donations to the food bank will help ...
No, the poor want to be given a hand UP and then be left alone. It is so interesting when one or more of these right wingers ever have to go to the other side of tracks through "no fault of their own", they will finally discover the true effect of their earlier good intentions and why and how they went wrong. Before it is too late, Stephane Dion, talk to a few of us who can see through your sudden interest in the "environment" and challenge you to reduce poverty too ...
I want this issue to be one of the key election issues if there is a federal election held this fall, which it seems there will be because Stephen Harper appears to want to give up the ghost early instead of waiting until next year for the election date he originally promised. Oh well, life goes on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
