The five-week campaign for Prime Minister is to start next week. That means five weeks of political bashing. Five weeks of lies and empty promises. Five weeks of unimportant dribble being spouted out by parties in every spectrum of the political elite. I for one am done with it.

I can no longer sit back and take this abuse of political power any longer. Millions of dollars spent on advertisements bashing a single proponent of the opposition’s case seems more like a highschool “he said, she said” battle than a political campaign. I would like to, instead see some real issues raised. Things like the Liberals in Ontario being as much to blame for the catastrophe of the G20 as Steven Harper.  Or maybe the lowest corporate tax for foreign corporations in any developed nation (sitting at approximately 16% at the moment). Or better yet, the lack of protection for Canadian businesses and the foreign investment (or ownership – however you want to think about it) being pushed then barely scrutinized by governmental offices who are supposed to govern it. Or, the coup d’etat, the potential merger of the TSX with the LSX – and who says we are free from colonialism?

There are a number of different ways to look at these issues. I, for one, would feel a lot more at ease if one – just one – party took the time to face these issues head on. Instead they will likely loom over the usual suspects: tax-cuts, environmental issues, and the economy. But let’s be honest here, the GDP does not – by any means – represent whether or not our country is doing well. It is instead a number, disconnected from the strifes of the common men and women of our country, that does not necessarily matter to anything but the business end of the world. Now it’s time to face the human end of things.

All these politicians keep talking about the future, so how about we do the same? University and college students cannot find decent summer jobs – fact. Student debts continue to rise, along with tuition, with little or nothing else to show for it – fact. It is now near impossible for graduated students to find decent jobs in their field with an undergrad – fact. Colleges and universities are operating more like a company with their billboards and advertisements than a place for higher learning (the classes even reflect that) – fact. Artists – the back bone of any civilization which are single handedly responsible for the origins of a country’s identity – are being destroyed with cuts to funding – fact. Foreign companies are being protected far more than any Canadian country – two acquisitions of over 10,000 of which have been stopped (remember Potash Co.?) – fact.

These are just a few problems that I – as a film student who would not write a script due tomorrow until I finished writing this – can point out in my everyday life. Whatever my issues may be, I know many others have their own. The one thing I can point out is that no politician or political party has any answers to my queries, nor do they have the respect for me to even begin to care about them – and I assume the same goes to you. So what do we do as caring citizens of Canada? Simple. Vote.

I have always followed politics and find it is the civic duty of any citizen of a democratic state to do the same. So, let my own lack of a voice be heard. I will go to the polls with my paper work and hand in an empty ballot. There is not one party that begins to represent any of my beliefs – and same with many of my family and friends’. I will no longer vote for the lesser of evils. I will no longer “throw my vote away”. I will no longer have the hope in empty promises, lies, or stretching of truths. I will show that I am distraught with the lack of true democracy and choice in this nation. I will stand up and not speak when told to – my lack of a voice will say more than any check-mark made in the ballot box.

I have hijacked my vote until my demands are met. Until they are, I have a message to Ignatieff, Harper, and Layton: Your millions spent on advertisements will not sway this voter, only the real issues will.

Photo Courtesy of The National Post

How you doing? Sniffly? Sneezy? Got a frog in your throat or a crick in the neck? Do you feel, to use the vernacular, like you want to barf up a lung?

Nope. “Fine.” That’s good to hear. And on that account, I say told you so.

With spring springing and the arrival of longer, warmer days and the promise of fun and excitement in the great outdoors, it’s time to take accounting of the pandemic flu season that just past. Or perhaps that should be non-demic.

I was serving on the Community Editorial Board of my local daily, The Guelph Mercury, this time last year. As the coming swine-flu-pocalypse was starting to break, I waxed sarcastically about the media’s attention to hysteria, and how when all the beans are counted, common medical sense will bear out and all the worry will have been for not.
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Harper: Playing Hardball Credit: Art Threat

In an earlier posting, I had discussed why certain politicians are more successful than others and the influence of Machiavelli on modern politics. Stephen Harper was cited as one of those successful politicians: someone concerned primarily about his own interests and someone willing to do what it takes to succeed. The recent treatment of Helena Guergis for the missteps that she and her husband Rahim Jaffer are alleged to have committed implies self-centered and tough behaviour on the part of Harper. Harper decided to take merely the word of a semi-anonymous source to justify the call for a police and ethics probe and for turfing her from caucus. Although the allegations could be true, clear evidence does not appear to have been presented. Furthermore, at no time does it appear that Harper asked Guergis for her side of the story nor did he inform her about the nature of the allegations. This behaviour seems to bolster earlier descriptions of Harper as a cold opportunist, and someone not particularly fond of women. Many journalists have pointed out that this behaviour allows Harper to remove unequivocally a difficult cabinet minister from Government and from a relatively safe seat that the Tories will probably win again without Guergis.
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Machiavelli: Tutoring Canadian Politicians. Photo Credit: Din Merican

“Great men are almost always bad men.”
- Lord Acton

Fortune is a woman, and if you wish to conquer her, you must beat and coerce her. And she always smiles upon the
young man, because he commands her with the greatest audacity.

The Prince
By Niccolo Machiavelli

Because the great English historian had written extensively about liberty and federalism, it should not be surprising that Prime Minister Trudeau had read Lord Acton’s work. And because Machiavelli had written his political books in the early part of the 16th century, it should not be surprising that his work contained sexist and offensive passages such as the foregoing one. What might surprise some readers is the fact that Pierre Trudeau and other prominent political and military leaders have consulted Machiavelli’s books throughout the centuries for their sage advice.
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Photo from www.draplin.com

Seemingly lost amidst the Olympic shuffle last week was an announcement by the Harper government on reaching an agreement with the United States that allowed for Canadian exceptions to the highly contentious “Buy American” regulations. The regulations, imposed last-year by the U.S. government, blocked Canadian manufacturers from bidding on almost $800-billion worth of contracts tied to stimulus spending by the U.S. government.

Given the high-profile nature of the spat and the political capital such an agreement should generate, it seems strange that the Harper government would downplay the announcement by burying it amidst Olympic fever. A closer look at the details of the agreement, however, indicate why this might be the case.
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Photo Credit: media.canada.com

I read with some interest in the Globe and Mail recently of the quashing of a grassroots challenge to a sitting Conservative MP. As reported by Steven Chase, the governing body of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) took over control of Calgary West riding association a few days ago in order to do damage control. What was the damage you ask? The riding association was going to ask its members if it wanted to challenge sitting MP Rob Anders’ appointment as a candidate for the next election. Back in the spring of 2009 the national body of the CPC ruled that they would not allow any challenges to be put forth against any of its sitting MPs, stifling any dissent in the process. Upset by this tacit betrayal of classic Reform dogma, the Calgary West riding was on a path to potentially run a candidate nomination process against Mr Anders. No sooner it seems was this considered than the high ups in the CPC swooped down from their headquarters and stopped the riding association dead in its tracks.  When asked about what appears to be internal strife within the party, national council president John Walsh commented “I am not interested in commenting on internal party matters.” Case closed.
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Photo Credit: blog.nz-online.de

Am I the only Canadian that wishes Barack Obama could be my leader? Politics aside, the man can speak. When he gives a speech, people listen. When Stephen Harper gives a speech, people fall asleep, or at least I do. From the moment Obama took office and said that he would “unclench his fist and extend an open hand,” I was hooked on the man and stopped really listening to whatever it is Stephen Harper says. I paid a hell of a lot more attention to Obama’s most recent State of the Union address than I did to Harpers speech at the World Economic Forum. As I said earlier, I fall asleep staring at his grey head of hair.
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Photo Credit: media.canada.com

I am going to use John Baird as an example for this, since he is “openly” (debatable) gay, but also a member of a party that we associate being ideologically opposed to homosexuality. Ideologies are kind of like really old philosophical theories: They are based on a few central ideas, and then the ideas are applied to a huge variety of situations. Some central Conservative (not necessarily the party) ideas: preservation of society, minimal interference with society/small government, and allowing institutions to create stability.

Of course, none of those would be an election platform, but they become one once you apply them to certain issues. Using institutions to create stability could mean strengthening the justice system, preserving religion, or solidifying the education system. Minimal interference could mean lower taxes, legalizing drugs or prostitution, or eliminating human rights commissions. While many of these conflict (example: preserving society + legalizing currently illegal substances), all of these issues could easily be part of Conservative Party platform in another country for very valid reasons. And what exactly does this have to do with John Baird?
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Photo Credit: Canwest News Service

On January 18, the Harper government announced the appointment of a new chair to the Commission for Public Complaints about the RCMP (CPC) – the organization tasked with conducting investigations into complaints about our national police force. Ian McPhail, a lawyer specializing in wills & real estate and a long-time contributor to the Conservative Party was appointed to the position despite having no previous experience in criminal law. In an interview with Colin Freeze of the Globe & Mail, Mr. McPhail told Freeze “you probably know more about the background [of the CPC] than I do”.

Paul Kennedy, the outgoing chair of the CPC expressed concern over McPhail’s qualifications, as well as the seemingly partisan nature of the appointment. Both he and Shirley Heafey, the previous CPC chair, had extensive experience working with federal security and regulatory bodies before taking on the role as chair of the CPC. McPhail’s only experience working with a federal security agency was his week long appointment as vice-chair of the CPC just prior to the January 18th announcement.
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Photo Credit: Hamilton Spectator

The PM, proving to be quite uncreative when it comes to governance, has again suspended parliament. As The Economist put it (7 Jan 2010), “Stephen Harper is counting on Canadians’ complacency as he rewrites the rules of his country’s politics to weaken legislative scrutiny.” But the “gathering storm of media criticism” they forecasted is fading from the horizon, as Harper surely assumed. The PM is undoubtedly counting on (or planning) something else to fill up screens over the next months (Olympics, more shimmering stimulus projects, etc.). It is no coincidence that the he will drop the budget the day after parliament reconvenes on 3 March, sure to be filled with so many exciting goodies that we’ll go into a fiscal sugar coma, and the prorogation will hardly be a memory.
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