Shawn Graham and Jean Charest announce the proposed sale of New Brunswick Power

In the past few weeks New Brunswick has been lucky enough to enjoy a break from the regularly scheduled swine flu hysteria. Thanks to Premier Shawn Graham we have been jolted from our H1N1-induced torpor. While everyone’s attention was focused on fighting over vaccines, Premier Graham and Quebec Premier Jean Charest were working out a deal that would see New Brunswick give up total control of its power assets by selling NB Power to Hydro Quebec. In spite of Premier Graham’s mantra of “self-sufficiency” for our little have-not province, he is selling out our energy future and doing it for a fraction of what the assets are actually worth. The vast majority of rate cuts will benefit only large industrial users, cutting small businesses and residential users off from the spoils, all by government design.
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The Canadian government's bureaucracy is hiding the ineffectiveness of our current political system.

My esteemed colleagues here at InformedVote.ca have done an amazing job over the last week bringing to light non-publicized, yet incredibly important facts and figures normally lost in the massive bureaucratic vacuum that is organizing and leading this country of ours down the road to…where? I no longer know what to think. What are we achieving as a country? Delinquent on our promises to reduce emissions, maintain economic integrity, fight terrorism and protect social services, it’s becoming obvious to me that Canadians as a whole have lost their idealism. We can blame our politicians all we want, but the sad fact is that these public figures we’re so quick to criticize are elected by us, the Canadian public.

Once every few years, a steadily declining number of us don our thinking caps, pay attention to a few of the insults thrown back and forth between political parties, and decide to grant stewardship of this great nation to the group that appears to be the least ignorant, arrogant and threatening.
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During the 2008 US elections I was living in the United States. I saw countless ad campaigns that disparaged the speaker’s opponents with allegations of every kind, on both federal and state levels. Some of these allegations were true, though exaggerated, and others were wildly fallacious. One could hardly help but notice how infrequently the candidates actually spoke about themselves or where they stood on issues.

I rapidly realized that in a country where few voters would take the time to seek out the truth about how their chosen candidate had voted or the changes he or she had made in the positions they currently held, these short television ads were going to be the basis of the decisions they made. These campaigns were no longer about who had the best ideas, the best track record or the most promising history. It was about who had the nicest suit, the fullest head of hair and the most entrancing manner of speaking. It was all a show.
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First of all, I want to thank InformedVote for giving me the medium to express my thoughts.

So I thought I’d start off by introducing myself a little bit. I’m a 24 year old student living in the greater Toronto Area. I’ve always been interested in politics since the day I have been able to read the newspaper. The one thing I have learned about politics is that I have absolutely no idea what is going on. Nobody does. Not even the politicians. I intend my blog to be a place where people can go to find unique and humorous opinions on a broad range of political subjects. Please feel free to send me your emails when you have an opinion you’d like to share with me.

So for my first blog, I thought I`d share with everybody my wish list for changes I`d like to see to the Canadian Political System:
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These days, Canadian politics is dominated by a surge of regionalism. None of the four major parties have a convincing nation-wide support to enable an oncoming majority government in the foreseeable future. The media is in part responsible for this trend in two different but equal areas of impact.

The first area is media coverage of the parties to inform the public. During an election (and even off-election times) the media rushes over to the various party campaigns and flocks to the leaders. What ensues is usually a popularity contests based on the personality of the politicians and not what he/she stands for. Sometime during the election campaign, each of the parties gives the media a scent of their respective vulnerabilities by releasing a policy book. It is literature in which the said party declares what it truly stands for and offers its solutions to impending political and economic problems the country is facing. If it is the media’s responsibility to inform Canadians of their political choices then a comprehensive understanding of these policies need to be understood and relayed to the public. Instead, the media has been satisfied to follow each campaign looking for some memorable quotes, criticisms, and banter from the leaders. This suits the politicians as well because they do not have to answer tough questions on their own policy when they can easily criticize the other guy.
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I’m confused.

After years of experiencing the slow, muddling governments of Ontario and the swashbuckling antics of British Columbia politicians, I’m baffled by the laissez-faire provincial ministrations in Quebec. Mind you, I’ve only lived here since 2001. I’m part of the first wave of a growing English migration moving into the province – for futures sake.

Let me say straight off, as a writer, that moving to Montreal has been one of the better decisions of my life. This is a truly wonderful, welcoming and creative city – with a brightening future. This despite being about two generations behind the rest of Canada in some ways – thanks to previous political upheavals.

As a new arrival in sexy Montreal, you are handed a medical card, drug card, a cheap rent apartment and access to numerous free access socialized services like swimming pools, skating rinks and libraries. And you don’t even have to speak French all that much any more. Certainly less than 2001. Though it sure helps if you want a real job.
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