The economy is fine... I promise!

I think Harper must be dizzy from all the turning around he has been doing about the economy. Harper had been saying for weeks and weeks that the economy was fine – both before and after the election. Then part way into November, he stopped and headed in the other direction, announcing that this is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The next natural step would be to have his finance minister announce a sound economic plan to stimulate the economy to try and lessen the impact of this crisis. However, it appears that Harper, in his dizzy state, turned around once more and decided that the situation is not as bad as it seems.

This leaves Canada with no stimulus package in what is projected to be a very serious global recession. This has also left Canada with millions of angry individuals who are scared they might lose their jobs or may not be able to support their families. Included in those millions are a few important people such as the members of the Liberal, NDP, and Bloq Parties.
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Every candidate attempts to obtain 4 levels of commitment from voters through the running of their campaign:

i) A vote for the candidate
ii) A commitment to “soft” campaigning for the candidate (speaking with friends, family)
iii) A commitment to “hard” campaigning (volunteering for the campaign: fundraising, going door to door, putting up signs)
iv) Financial support (donations)

Based on the recent Federal election, it would appear that candidates in Canada are having a hard time getting the first commitment out of Canadians.Tamir Birk reminds us that at 59.1%, the 2008 Federal election had the lowest voter turnout in Canadian history.
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper & Finance Minister Jim Flaherty

On Thursday, November 27th, the Conservatives are expected to announce a plan that would slash public funding for political parties beginning next year. Jim Flaherty, Canada’s Finance Minister, will make the announcement in his fiscal update – a proposal that is seen as a declaration of war to opposition parties.

Currently, all political parties receive a public subsidy of $1.75 per year for each vote they receive in the most recent general election. This subsidy has cost taxpayers approximately $28-million in the past year.
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Stephen McNeil, Nova Scotia’s Liberal leader, thinks the province should lower the legal voting age to 16 in an attempt to increase youth participation at the polls. He claims there are no fundamental reasons 16 year olds should not be allowed to vote. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there are!

Firstly, compared to a typical adult, most issues that define elections don’t affect this age group.
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Wasn’t it just one year ago that the Harper government was telling us we would receive more tax cuts due to the large surplus?

However, on November 19, 2008, Michaelle Jean (our Governor General) strongly hinted that Canada would be facing a deficit in the short term.

“Ongoing, unsustainable deficits are quite rightly unacceptable to Canadians. These structural deficits must never return. At the same time, in a historic global downturn, it would be misguided to commit to a balanced budget in the short term at any cost…”

The excuse is that we are in a global financial crisis and thus a deficit can not be avoided, but wasn’t it just recently (in his election campaign) that Harper promised Canada would not be affected. I guess one month after being elected is a long enough wait before breaking the promises that likely swayed a lot of voters on Election Day.

Let’s just examine some of the things Harper told us before the election:
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On November 22nd, APEC leaders vowed not to raise trade barriers over the next 12 months to the delight of PM Steven Harper. For the past few weeks, Harper has been discussing the issue with world leaders in an effort to keep free trade alive during the economic downturn. He’s also managed to sign a free trade agreement with Colombia just this week. Harper maintains the leading cause of the Great Depression was a result of bad decisions made by policy-makers, one of which was shutting down borders to trade in order to protect domestic jobs.

So how will the Obama administration react when in takes office in under 2 months time? It’s no secret that throughout the 2008 election campaign, Obama promised to restrict free trade agreements which he blames for the loss of US jobs due to outsourcing. He also mentioned renegotiating major trade agreements such as NAFTA. At the same time, currently serving President Bush advocates the exact opposite – keep borders open and allow free trade to continue.
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Who are you going to vote for? Here is a list of the major political parties and some information to help you make your voting decision. Happy voting!

Jean Charest, the current leader of the Liberal Party, is hoping to achieve another victory in Quebec. Last election, he barely held onto his Sherbrooke seat as he has been dubbed the “most disliked leader in Quebec’s history.” Charest has been focusing on the economy and how his party will be able to tackle the world financial crisis. The other major issue is the fact that there are many new immigrants who do not know French and the French language is losing its place in the province. Charest welcomes the new immigrants and diverse languages and will not reopen the language debates.

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The tragedy that occurred on Election Day still bugs me to this day – Canada recorded the lowest voter turnout rate in history with only 59.1% of eligible Canadians casting their ballots. According to Elections Canada, a total of 13,832,972 votes were cast nationally of the 23,401,064 registered electors. This is undoubtedly a huge blow to Canadian democracy that can’t be overlooked.

Another similarly tragic record was also set on Election Day. A political party received the highest number of votes in a federal election without claiming one seat in parliament. That, of course, was the Green Party, which received just under 1 million votes and 6.8% of the overall popular vote.

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The Big Three

Just a month and a half after the financial sector in the United States received a $700 billion bailout package, the U.S. auto industry is begging for it to be their turn. U.S. auto executives are seeking $25 billion to save an industry on the brink of collapse. And Canada wants in. Industry Minister Tony Clement will be traveling to the United States to try and set the framework for a joint deal. But is another bailout plan using taxpayer’s money really justified? I’m not fully convinced.

There’s a lot of data that seems to indicate a bailout plan for the automotive industry is an absolute necessity. GM, Chrysler and Ford employ nearly 250,000 people in the United States, and affect nearly 4 million other jobs including suppliers, dealers and rental companies. Up to 70,000 of these people are Canadians, as automobile parts often cross back and forth through our border up to 7 times prior being installed into a vehicle. A filing for bankruptcy by any one of the Big Three could have catastrophic consequences for our already fragile economy. These facts seem to suggest that a bailout of the industry is crucial and an absolute must.
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Welcome to InformedVote.ca

Hello and welcome to InformedVote.ca. My name is Daniel Levine. I am, along with Tamir Birk and Michael Sheps, co-founder of InformedVote.ca.

We launched InformedVote in October 2008, shortly before the Canadian Federal Election. We started simply as a means to share research we had compiled on each major Canadian political party and their views on major election issues. When we posted the information online, we were both surprised and elated to see thousands of page views and the praise of many Canadians in just a few days.

This was the moment InformedVote was truly born.

Our primary goal is to provide unbiased, non-partisan, accurate and timely information regarding major elections in Canada. We want to make sure every Canadian is fully informed when they go to the ballot box to perform their civic duty. As average citizens, we run this website for ourselves, just as much as we do for our readers.

When we’re not preparing comprehensive comparative information we’ll be blogging about political issues, specifically those which concern Canadians.

With a group of writers representing a large spectrum of political ideology, we hope to spawn discussion and debate with the ultimate goal of increasing all of our knowledge on a multitude of political subjects.

We’ll do our best to be the most accurate, most interesting and most informed Canadian political destination anywhere.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Let us know if you disagree, find an error, want to tell us you love us, or maybe even write your own blog. Go ahead and contact us.

Thanks for reading, we hope you enjoy.

Daniel Levine, co-Founder
and the rest of the InformedVote.ca team!