Cooperation between Political Partys

There has been much talk of 'cooperation' between partys since the close results in recent byelections and whilst I have in these pages urged such 'cooperation not confrontation' in the HoC I wonder exactly how long such common sense will last and what form it will take in a practical sense. I was pleased this week to see that my own local riding associations had banded together to send a common message to the incumbent Conservative MP one Larry Miller.

The local paper reports that “Kimberley Love of the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound federal Liberal association, Scott Maxted of the local Greens and Karen Gventer of the local NDP have co-authored a letter to Miller that refers to the 400-page Bill C-45 as an “abuse of power” and a tactic to prevent “the democratic scrutiny” of multiple changes to non-budgetary rules and regulations.”

Naturally Mr Miller has all but ignored their concerns saying “This is about them disagreeing with what we said we were going to do. And that’s OK, I respect that. They don’t like it. When we were in opposition, governments were able to do things that we didn’t like too. But they got elected to do it and the people will be the judge in three years,” Omnibus bills are just fine, we can do whatever we like for the next 3 years, the removal of thousands of rivers from the Navigable Waters Act has “no effect”.

The Green party leader Elizabeth May in particular has been very vocal about both the non democratic nature of Omnibus bills in general and the content of both Conservative Omnibus Budget bills in particular. The hundreds of amendments tabled by her and the other opposition partys have all be summarily rejected by the majority conservative regime. It is as Mr Miller alludes to, a dictatorship for a further three years at which time the people will have just one shot at removing this oligarchy from power.

So cooperation between the various opposition is, as so many observers have noted, important to ensure that the next time around the elections are held without such things as malicious robocalls affecting the turnout and results and that the voters are exercising their democratic right from a position of knowledge and not all the spin that this regimen continues to spew out. But will the cooperation go further?

How can we ensure that the majority of Canadians who prefer a government led by other than the current regime get their choice and not 'split' the vote under our flawed First Past the Post system. I really don’t know what is going to happen at voting time, will the gloves come off and the opposition partys start attacking each other rather that the real problem. Will they all commit to bringing in some kind of proportional voting system if elected, will they work together on an individual riding basis to reduce the chances of vote splitting, what form will such cooperation take if it lasts? I dont know, I just am glad to see at least one group of political opponents joining forces against a common enemy (and I do mean enemy) at a local level. Well done Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound opposition partys, keep it up and show us how to resolve this conundrum.

Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers

Oh Canada!

Many years ago I stood proudly with other newcomers to Canada and became a Canadian Citizen, of late I have not been so proud to be Canadian. The Canada that I became part of was, I thought, an open and accepting and diverse country governed as a parliamentary democracy and open to new citizens and new ideas. I begin to question where those Canadian values have gone, not that the people have changes significantly except perhaps being even more diverse, but our “leaders” be they be federal or provincial, union or business, city or corporate with a few notable exceptions seem to have been infected with some kind of “Me, me, me” syndrome. Only they have the answers, everybody else is wrong, only they are entitled to their entitlements, the rules do not apply to them but let us rule with a heavy hand over those 'beneath' us.
Recently a number of news items brought this into sharp focus for me, we all know that the Harper regime has had this disease for some time and the following includes some examples of that but it seems the syndrome is spreading. Here is a case where 'lead by example' is NOT a good way to go.

Lets start with the Ontario Elementry Teachers union who are now threatening to fine their members up to $500 a day if they dare to spend a little extra time actually helping the kids. This whilst spending thousands on dollars on radio ad's calling their employers (the government and by extension the Ontario taxpayers) 'undemocratic' and anti human rights for refusing to allow the union to hold the kids and their parents up for hostage in their annual demands for more compensation for less work.

There is our Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird's vociferous rant before the UN condemning Palestine for simply trying to become an 'observer state' in that organization, one of only 3 nations to speak to the motion and the only major nation to vote against it.
Then there is is lesser publicized vote in which Canada was one of only six nations in the UN General Assembly to vote against a resolution Monday that called on Israel to quickly open its nuclear program for inspection and that backed a recently cancelled conference to ban nuclear weapons from the Middle East.

Recent days have reinforced what we knew all along – that the government lied about the cost of the useless and as yet unbuilt F35 fighter jets the Harper regime decided upon without tender and is now rather belatedly reconsidering their choice. Once again our Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page is proved right! Remember the failure to produce documents on this one was a reason for a contempt motion and the subsequent early election in which many alleged irregularities took place, none of which have yet been fully investigated.
Whilst the F35s are 'on hold' so it seems are those promised SAR helicopters and the arctic icebreakers and deep water port promised back in 2005-8 this whilst the need to establish our sovereignty over those water increased each year due to the receding ice.

Even the proceedings in the HoC have gone down hill even more (is that possible) with Peter Van Loan, the regime’s House leader, storming across the floor to get into the face of the oppositions MP, Nathan Cullen and having to be restrained by his colleagues. Parliament is rapidly becoming a farce with Harper running the show via the PMO and PCO and neither the opposition or those citizens they represent can do anything about it.
All this taking place as the Harper regime rams trough the second over 400 page omnibus budget without consideration of any amendments offered by MPs from other party's. A budget which continues to attack our environmental protection laws, our scientific research and countless other fundamental issues that will no doubt come to light once the document is properly examined. According to a new report by the Polaris Institute, the nation's two largest pipeline companies Enbridge and TransCanada plus four other oil firms met with cabinet ministers 52 times between 2011 and 2012 just as the last budget was being dreamed up.

I could go on, but whats the point when all we can do is sit and watch as the Canada we know and love goes down the tubes. We can but hope that enough people sit up and start taking notice, start thinking about Canada before blindly following the leader in to the abyss, and start thinking about our fellow Canadians more and about self less. If we don’t then I fear for our future.






Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers

Elections Canada slow to investigate robocalls.

Perhaps that should read `Elections Canada fails to protect our voting system` or better yet EC protects wrong doers! Either way its pretty clear by now that they have been completely ineffective in investigating the many complaints from across the country regarding the 2011 election both before and after that date.

We wonder if it were not for the Council of Canadians and the citizens who are perusing the alleged interference with the voting process within a few riding’s in the courts if in fact anything would be done at all. It now appears that they are only just now attempting to get phone records regarding the malicious calls and it would also seem that EC was aware of a least some such calls to electors BEFORE the election and BEFORE such allegations became common knowledge. ``Emails between officials at the agency show the first complaints came on April 29 from Kitchener-Conestoga, Ont., and Saint-Boniface, Man. `` thats over 18 months ago!!

I am not going to belabor the point here, several others have been keeping on top of this story, most notably The Sixth Estate but also a few newspapers (links have been added to the LONG list on my Election Malfeasance page). I will merely say that my faith in our electoral system, and more particularly the agency charged with seeing that it is not subject to `cheating` from either the candidates or the electorate, has been severely compromised.

With the close results in the recent federal by-elections there is once again much talk of `cooperation`between the opposition parties to both defeat the Conservatives and to bring in electoral reform. Political parties in Canada `cooperating`! I will believe that when I see it. Electoral reform, thats a long process that requires decisions on a process to select the new system and a referendum to confirm that choice. I am not holding my breath on that one either, but wonder if Elections Canada can be trusted to oversee any new system given their apparent inability to oversee the current one!

Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers