as I live a few more questions

Harper Watch

I had an idea yesterday, and well gosh darn it, somebody's already beat me to it. The four scariest words in the English language are "Prime Minister Stephen Harper", as far as I'm concerned.

Accch, don't get me started; I can rant about the Conservatives for hours and not repeat myself. I have decided to vote strategically (à la Buzz Hargrove) to do my little bit make sure that my riding doesn't elect a (non-Progressive) Conservative.

"The heck with the courts, eh? You know, one of these days we in this country are going to stand up and say, 'The politicians make the laws and the courts do not.' The courts interpret that law. And if we don't like that interpretation, there's the notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which the Liberal government has never invoked and said they will not use. I believe we'll see that with us in the House of Commons because enough is enough of this stuff..."

-- Conservative MP Randy White, in a May 19 2004 interview for a documentary on same-sex marriage.

Found via In Their Own Words: Quotes By And About Canada's Conservatives

And these are the people who are poised to take over the federal government, in either a minority or a (shudder) majority win on January 23rd.

Can I return it?

Oh, and did I mention I'm getting a federal election for my birthday?

No, really, you shouldn't have....

This is the first campaign I remember where the newspapers carry not only where in Canada each of the four party leaders is working the crowd, but also the temprature outside in that location. heh heh

Other than following the rule of ABC (Anybody But the Conservatives), I still haven't decided how I'll cast my ballot. But I will do so. If you don't vote, then you forfeit the right to complain later :-)

Yippee!

I got my dream Parliament tonight: a Liberal Party minority government, with the balance of power held by the New Democratic Party. You can bet that the NDP will hold the Liberals to their promises, including a national day care program. It's also the best possible result for same-sex marriage and GLBTQ equal rights. Yippee!!

Plain Layne as Teacher; Get Out And Vote!

My 1&1 plan has a limited amount of free bandwidth per month, and so the new Plain Layne redirect target page/FAQ list needs to be set up very soon. I'm still looking for questions for the FAQ, by the way.

If there's one thing I've (re-)learned through this whole imbroglio, it's that it's impossible to please everybody, and that some people are gonna bitch at you and question your motives, no matter what you do. Most people can just shrug this off, but that's a very, very painful lesson for an emotionally-driven, people-pleasing, able-to-read-others-but-blind-to-the-self Social Enneagram Two to learn, because in any group they rather automatically fall into the role of "Everybody's Friend" (that's the term used by Riso/Hudson to describe the Social Two) and want to "help" people (even if help wasn't asked for). It's one lesson I have learned in real-life "meatspace", but now I find I have to learn it at the cyberspace level :-) and I just find that ironic. You keep learning the same lesson, but in different arenas, and at different levels.

I'll take a crack at pulling the redirect page together this evening, while I'm watching TV with the rest of Canada, waiting for the federal election results to roll in (I predict it's going to be a very long night, with a lot of federal riding races so close as to require recounts). If you are a Canadian citizen, get out and vote today! This is going to be one of those elections where every vote counts. And if you don't vote, you don't get to complain about the next government.

"If this is wrong..."

This pointed commercial (MPEG, 4,524KB) for Canadians for Equal Marriage will run during the final week of campaigning for the federal election. (thanks, Chris)

"We are a nation of minorities"

Every time I think about the upcoming federal election, I get depressed. It's the one black cloud in my otherwise blue sky lately.

Get Your Canadian Politics Questions Answered Here

A truly excellent summary of Canada's federal government system, and the upcoming federal election, for you non-Canadians (and less-than-up-on-it Canadians too). Make sure you read through the comments as well; several of them illuminate the issues raised in the article even further. Via the ever-informative kuro5hin.org.

Make Your Vote Count!

The Canadian federal election has become too close to call, with name-calling and mud-slinging on all sides. Got this email from my friend Chris today; it's so good I decided to repost it verbatim:

Pinning Homeless Deaths on Paul Martin

The Canadian election campaign has already taken a nasty spin, with New Democratic Party head Jack Layton essentially accusing Prime Minister and Liberal leader Paul Martin of the murder of homeless people due to cutbacks in federal government assistance to housing programs. As the CBC evening news made it clear, there's a lot of blame to go around for this, mostly from previous Conservative and Liberal governments; to pin all this on Paul Martin is simply mudslinging.

Note to Jack: Look, I like you (I've even voted NDP provincially). You seem like a affable, dynamic guy who at least has some different ideas and isn't afraid to voice them. But if you keep pulling stunts like this, you're going to lose serious credibility. Now smarten up before the electorate bitchslaps you to below official federal party status again.

Oh, and my God, who did the NDP Web site — bright orange and fluorescent green!?! It looks like a branch of ING Direct (WARNING: Scary Picture of ING Direct Spokesman Holding Orange: Not Safe For Work)

Doug Saunders on Stephen Harper

I'm reading through the last of the Saturday papers at a downtown caf�, waiting for a friend, rain pouring down, when I come across an article by Doug Saunders in The Globe and Mail:

What is different this time, and what makes this election quite distinct from any of the past generation, is that Mr. Harper really is conservative... Never before in modern Canadian history has an ideological conservative led a major national political party in a federal election (the Canadian Alliance, whatever its pretentions, was never more than a regional party).

Saunders goes on to talk about how there really hasn't been the same sort of socially conservative movement that exists in the States (see: Bush, George W.).   Why?

"What distinguishes us from our southern neighbours is the Christian right—here, they make up 10 percent of the population; in the United States, the number is at least triple that much."   So says Neil Nevitte, the University of Toronto professor... "There are socially conservative people who vote Liberal, who vote NDP—it's never fallen along party lines here..."

(Source: Saunders, Doug. 'So, our Conservatives aren't progressive any more...', The Globe and Mail, May 22nd, 2004, p. F3.)