Canadian Politics: All Hail the Conservatives!

Last week, Canadian Heritage Minister, James Moore, nominated to that position in the hopes of mending fences with Québec's cultural scene, among others, failed a pop quiz where he was asked to identify not only Québec cultural icons, some of them internationally known, but also famous Anglo-Canadian artists.

If this is unacceptable for someone holding a cultural portfolio, his colleague, Federal Science Minister Gary Goodyear, wins with his unwillingness to aknowledge he believes in evolution.

All of this puts a new spin on a funny video done by some Québec artists during the last federal elections, which I humbly contributed to spread among Anglo-Canadian medias by adding subtitles...



I don't consider myself particularly intelligent, so it emphasize how frustrating it is to have idiots run my country.

All This Has Happened Before, and This Will Happen Again

So, I went voting today...again!

This time it was a provincial election. Despite an uneventful campaign with uninteresting candidates, I was looking forward, as always, to go cast my vote. As I went out of the third age residence where I had to vote, I couldn't refrain a proud smile. No matter the lack of excitement for an election, there's always a huge feeling of achievement that comes with voting.

And no it's not lame, despite its flaws and sometimes being disappointing, democracy, remains the greatest system that was ever applied. And for once, a simple pencil mark on a piece of paper, what you have to say, will be read.

Piece them together, it makes for a great story.

Harper's words and Dion's reaction

Here's Prime Minister Stephen Harper allocution to the nation.

And here's Coalition Leader Stéphane Dion pre-recorded, but delayed reaction. (Warning: It hurts, on many levels)

I've read that the Liberals are pissed. An angry, anonymous Liberal said "Dion looked like the opposition leader of Zimbabwe".

"Someone should be fired, full stop" said Liberal blogger Warren Kinsella.

Or maybe someone should just resign...

Ambivalences

I'm not quite sure where I stand in regards to the current political crisis in Ottawa.

If I don't really like Harper, didn't vote for him and was upset by his decision to cut funding to political parties, I'm also not sure I want to go on the slippery slope that would be this idea of a coalition between the three parties of the opposition.

It seems like there's not enough precedents, and that it seems to give way too many powers to the Governor General. And if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that I'd be more than happy to get rid of any symbol of monarchy in Canada.


The Governor General of Canada, "Her Excellency The Right Honourable" Michëlle Jean.

It's not about the Bloc Québécois supporting the Government: First, I used to be a sovereignist (a separatist for my anglo friends) and even if I'm not sure it's a wise idea anymore, I do remain sympathetic to the cause. Many opponent to the possibility of a coalition must remember that the Bloc was democratically elected and fulfill its role givinf a voice to the Québécois population that elected them (A majority of Québécois are for a coalition government). Second, the Bloc's leader, Gilles Duceppe made clear he didn't want to have any ministry for his party, they offered to support the coalition for a limited time, and under conditions, so there wouldn't be any "separatists in the government".

It's not about the NDP. I voted orange and share most of their ideas and values, and I'm not surprised that they could form a coalition government with the Liberals and the Bloc. If the NDP is a little more left-leaning than the Liberals, they are very similar in ideology to the Bloc, Québec independance notwhitstanding, and the Liberals would make sure that they govern center-left, as almost any Leftist party would do.

It's about the Liberals. If I did respect some decisions made by the Liberals while they were in power, I've never been a big fan, and even less of actual, but demissionary party leader Stéphane Dion.


The leaders of the three opposition parties, Gilles Duceppe, Stéphane Dion and Jack Layton.

Here's the problem: How could a revoked leader that keeps the job in the interim, while the Liberal party elects his successor, could become Prime Minister? And how his replacement could pretend to have any legitimity, not having been chosen by the people and, probably, the result of a controversial decision by the Governor General?

Because that's the other main issue: The Governor General, Michaëlle Jean, has to follow the government's decisions, unless there's a vote of non-confidence. The Harper government wants her to prorogate Parliament to delay the non-confidence vote, an action she, according to traditions, she has no choice but to accept. But the opposition wants her to refuse the prorogation, claiming the government lost the confidence of parliament. The problem is, it hasn't happen yet, since we need a vote to confrim such an accusation.

So where do we stand? An affront to democracy, or an affront to democracy?

For more information on what's at stake:

David Frum's National Post column.

Globe and Mail article: The Governor General's options

Prime Minister Stephen Harper December 3rd address coverage on CBC.

New York Times article.

On a sidenote, I find this image very funny, with the Bloc Québécois light blue colours included in a Canadian maple leaf symbol...somewhat ironic(but not at the same time, since maple trees grow in Eastern Canada, from Nova Scotia to Southern Ontario, passing by Québec, and are absent from the rest of the country, dominated by the conservatives...):



_____________________________________________________

Is Canada Becoming a Digital Ghetto?

Good question!

Here are three things that suck about being Canadian right now:

1. Last week the CRTC sided with Bell against a group of small Internet Service Providers who want to offer their customers unthrottled connections where what they download is their own business and not subject to interference.

2. In last week’s throne speech the Conservative government renewed their intention to “modernize” Canadian copyright law. Their effort to do so last session was Bill C-61, a woefully unbalanced and retrograde piece of legislation that led to the greatest citizen backlash to any proposed bill in recent memory. Yet there has been no indication from new Industry Minister Tony Clement that a much-needed public consultation will take place. The best he has offered is the possibility of a “slightly different” version of the bill.

3. Twitter has just announced that they are killing outbound SMS messaging in Canada due to exorbitant and constant rate hikes from Canadian cell providers (former Industry Minister Jim Prentice vowed to get tough on SMS price gouging, then backpeddled). Cell phone rates in Canada are among the highest in the world, and the result is that mobile penetration is pathetically low and that emerging new cultural platforms like Twitter are being hobbled.

This growing list of backwards policies is already creating a sense of digital isolation: Canadians can’t stream the videos Americans stream, download the files Americans download, remix the media Americans remix, or tweet the way Americans tweet.

With the election of Barack Obama, digital culture in the U.S. hit a tipping point, where a robust online public sphere proved itself capable of changing the world. Meanwhile, here in Canada we’re approaching our own tipping point, where a series of ignorances and capitulations threaten to turn our country into a digital ghetto.

Let's Hope They Can't Go Any Lower...

This is not only disgusting, it is plainly anti-democratic.

I am speechless.

So, bearing in mind that the Conservatives are a minority government, they might submit this project as a confidence vote. If it's accepted by the other elected parties, they, among with all the minor parties that get votes but no seats, will lose substential funding. The Conservatives would lose the most siginificant amount of money, but it represents less than 40% of their funding. Other parties are counting on this method to a bigger degree. For exeample, the Liberals accounts are funded at 63% by this methof.

If they refuse, we're going back in elections, again. And, apart from the Conservatives in power, almost no party has any money to go back to the popular vote for a fifth time since 2000. Furthermore, the Liberal party is looking for a new leader.

The federal funding to political parties is a program that was established by Jean Chrétien in 2004, copying Québec's own program, created by the late René Lévesque. It consists of $1.95 per year per vote to a political formation. Chrétien's program, opposed by the Conservatives' predecessors, the Reform party, also limited corporate and personal donations by imposing a cap. Ironically, the Conservatives adapted by establishing a strong network of small private donations, while the Liberals, counting on large donations from corporate sponsors, had a hard time adapting to their own program.

Let's just say the timing sucks big time, and the conservatives are laughing their asses off.

Not the population though...

EDIT: There's a possibility that a confidence vote defeated by the opposition could put a Liberal-NDP coalition government in power. But this is still a premature supposition.

Interesting...

Here We Go Again...

In case you're just not sick of elections yet.

Elections overdose for some, withdrawal, at the end, for some others...

Hope Returns

Geekiness candy:

History in the Waiting...

A Quebecker in Chicago's Grant Park tonight:

"It's a rock show ambiance. It's like waiting for U2! Everybody's wearing Obama t-shirts. When you get to the park, in the streets around, there's a lot of items for sale: t-shirts, buttons, CDs of Obama speeches. Everybody smiles! But security is very, very present. I had to go through four checkpoints, showing my ticket, my ID, they searched me, went through the metal detector...

(...)

Every US flag you'll see on TV, wavered by the crowd, was given by the Obama campaign."

McCain Upsets the Maverick Family

As translated from Montreal's La Presse


AGNÈS GRUDA
La Presse

Not easy to hold a name that becomes a political or social slogan. After the upset caused by the French Bougons against the European country's adaptation of the famous Québec TV series, it's now the American Mavericks who are protesting against the use of their patronym to describe the political style of the Republican candidate John McCain.

John McCain likes do define himself as a "maverick"; a sharp-shooter, a free man with independent thoughts. He is an "absolute maverick", as Vice-President candidate Sarah Palin dared to say during her debate with democrat counterpart Joe Biden. according to the New York Times, she said it at least six times.

What is a maverick? The word entered the American political lexicon thanks to Texan Sam Maverick who, at the beginning of the 19th century, went against the flow by refusing to brand his cattle. Since then, the word is used to describe people who are not afraid to voice their opinions, despite all odds and no matter who is against them.

But a grand-daughter of Sam Maverick thinks that John McCain doesn't deserve to hold to her family name to promote his candidacy.

"How does he dare to say he's a maverick when he voted for Bush in 90% of cases?" outrages Terellita Maverick, an 82 years-old lady that we contacted in San Antonio, Texas.

"The word inspired by our name describes someones without owner or master. It is not the case of John McCain", added Mrs. Maverick.

Maverick or not, John McCain won't be able to count on the vote of this retired teacher, who is resolutely democrat. "I will vote for Barack Obama, absolutely. He will win, the future is ahead of us" she exclaimed.

The abuse of this noun derived from the name of a Texan family was, of course, not missed by Barack Obama's campaign. "He was so independant that he almost always voted with Bush" constantly repreated the democrats. A maverick can have a boomerang effect...

Being Racist Against a Nation is Okay... as Long as They Are Not a (Free) Nation

This is low, wrong and in the end, the accuser is guilty as well! (But there's actually no crime, at all! Not even anything morally reprehensive!)

Since when working with a Palestinian ACTIVIST and SCHOLAR is a bad thing?

Be it McCain or Obama, since when being Palestinian is a sin? Should we all put them in a huge reservation or concentration camp?

Oh yeah, true... they already are!

The World is Their Battleground...

Meh, fuck national sovereignty and international law, we're going in!

What would the US do if another country would do the same in their country? We're not talking about job-seekers here...

When You Have Friends Like This...

McCain's vietnamese torturer supports his campaign.

Crazy World...

Strangely enough, this might not help Obama WITHIN the USA...

Politicunts: Canadian Elections, Part V

In the spirit of the Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart, and by recent news that they are invited to not answer questions from national media journalists, here's a flowchart I've done to help Conservative Party candidates when they are dealing with the medias:

(click on image to enlarge)

Vote Story

I have a friend who's on Québec's version of Big Brother, ineptly called, like France's version, Loft Story. There's another person on the roster that I know a little. I'm not bragging here, these people are actually the only reason why I'm watching the show and I'm currently talking about it, but don't expect me to reveal their names, post embarassing pictures or tell juicy stories. One's a good friend, the other's a friend's friend and friends don't do that kind of shit, I think. I'll cheer for them though, even if the show is sometimes, I must admit, somewhat insufferable.

But I just wanted to talk about this show in regards to a politically related, albeit trivial, point. Out of the 14 participants, only one, Arcadio, made an issue of the incoming elections and his worries about not being able to vote. The show's host gave him an absentee ballot form. This is admirable, and it doesn't mean the others won't vote, maybe they were just not as vocal about their citizen's right, but I sincerely doubt it. I still need to publish another Youth Voices post, but a lot of messages I received tell me young voters are generally disheartened by politics.

It cost some money to cast a vote on the show, and they'll still get thousands of votes, some people even going as far as doing fundraisers to get more votes for their favourite. Federal elections are free, if not, nobody would vote. Those kids want people to vote for them, but they probably won't vote for anybody themselves. I've heard one say that they were "models", I think that would have been a good place to start...

There's a favourite bar of mine closing down tonight, I plan to be there for the last call.

Big Brother

I love calling the government. I had to make sure my name was on the electoral district list as I was living in a different one in the last federal election. It was quite the adventure.

First, I called Elections Canada and I was greeted by a wonderful IVR (Interactive Voice Recognition) system. Don't get me wrong, I have worked with those systems for years and I have no problem using it as they are usually faster when it comes to basic operations or information requests. The problem with that one was that it actually didn't recognize my voice. Now, I do have the pretention to think I speak decently well in both french and english, but the IVR system made me doubt myself.

After many attempts that would invariably send me back to the main menu after every swear word, I was told by the IVR that I needed to call my local office. After trying to get a local phone number with the directory assistance (They said they usually get a number during an election, but not this year...), I called back my new friend, IVee, and finally got to speak to an agent that recognized that they had a lot of comments on the limitations, to be polite, of their IVR system. He also understood every word I said, which is pretty cool! But he told me I didn't call the right place as I had to call my local elections office.

Back to step one. "Wait, do you have the number?"

"Sure, what's your postal code."

I gave him my postal code, he gave me a number. I called that number.

Wrong number. "This is the office for the Hochelaga district, your postal code tells me you are in Rosemont-Petite Patrie."

"Yep, I knew that, do you have the number?"

"No, sorry."

Calling IVee back. "For French..."

"French"

"To..."

"Elector's card"

"If you..."

"Register"

Speaking to a human being again, I explain that I need the number for Rosemont-Petite Patrie.

"What's your postal code"

I gave him my postal code.

"Oh, well, we don't have any listings, that's probably why you were referred to the wrong number before."

"You refer people to wrong numbers when you don't find them?"

"Well, not really, it was probably an educated guess..."

"Educated, eh?"

Then, he gave me a number. I called that number.

"Hi, I want to make sure I'm on the list."

"Were you on the list in the previous election?"

"Yes, in a different district."

"Well, you'll have to show up at our office to make the changes, we can't do them by phone."

"I guess I can do that on election day?"

"Yes, but I hope not everybody will do that, could be long"

"Oh well, with the participation rate, shouldn't be too much of an issue..."

Then, I had to call a provincial medicine insurance plan for some athlete's foot medication reimbursement, as I'm currently eligible, being unemployed (but not on unemployment benefits, I want to add). Here's another IVR:

"Please know the exact date when you became eligible for our plan"

I hung up...enough shit for a day.

P.S.: Bonne fête Stéphane!

Canadian Columnist Pisses Off the American Right, Fox News Leads the Charge

Fox News, and all conservatives on this continent, the Canadian equivalent included, are pissed about this column:

The Alaskan who went 'outside'
Heather Mallick

I was born in a northern Canadian settlement so small it was accessible most of the year only by a Bombardier, a sort of huge military tank built for passengers. It was like a transport plane, a big iron bulb with caterpillar tracks. I swear we had a paddle-steamer for supplies in the summer.

Take that, Sarah Palin. The place was six times smaller than Wasilla, Alaska, the town that birthed John McCain's strange vice-presidential "soulmate", as weird as that disconnected eerie smile that floats on his face as he stands next to her.

My credentials are solid; Palin cannot out-hick me. Until I fled at 18, I never lived in a northern town of more than 12,000 people. My towns were full of Sarah Palins. These types are fine, such as they are, until they leave town and turn fraudulent. They label themselves "the salt of the earth". It's when they try to make that a qualification for a greater glory that things turn unpleasant.

I never claimed a higher moral standing for coming from a great big empty on the map. Small towns are places that smart people escape from, for privacy, for variety, for intellect, for survival. Palin should have stayed home.

Canada has lots of hockey moms. They're called Fran and Nancy. They have cruel haircuts and their voices shake the rafters of the rink as their rink-rats play. How can I translate the hearty, jollying-along Palin for British audiences? She's a working class Joan Hunter Dunn. It's those volleyball shoulders and field-hockey thighs, the energy, the bullying, and the utter self-confidence in every lie she tells.

Salt-of-the-earthers don't lie! But Palins do. I watched Palin last night, my mouth open, my eyeballs drying out, my hand making shaky notes. I read them aghast.

Did she really joke, "You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick."?

Did she just blow kisses to the audience?

Did she just say, "We need to produce more of our own oil and gas. Take it from a gal who knows the North Slope. We've got lots of both."?

Yes, she did lie about billion-gallon slurps of oil and gas available for Americans to blow, about her support of Alaska's notorious pork-barrel "bridge to nowhere", about which particular citizens will see tax increases under Obama (only the richest, and she knows that).

She also lied when she slobbered over small-town folks (an American version of British farm life, except British farmers have a point). The granite honesty of hicks is a cliche, a fantasy, a meme of American life, as much as the working-class solidarity of Tony Blair was in 1997, and where did that get anyone?

But most of all, she lied about the north and the virtues it supposedly confers on citizens. Canadians watch this with horror. To us, Alaska is the back of beyond. Americans feel the same way. Alaskans are a bunch of Ted Stevens, that enraged screaming old senator who explained that the internet was not a big truck, it was more like a "bunch of tubes". He was arrested and charged with taking bribes, but handily won the August senatorial primary.

We love our own north to the point of covering our eyes and humming as it melts (yesterday the BBC headlined the collapse of Canada's ice shelves; Canadian papers and websites missed the story) but Alaska is different from our north. We share a 1,500-mile border with a frontier state full of drunks and crazy people, of the blight that cheap-built structures bring to a glorious landscape. Canadian firms invest billions in the place and mine its ores. One hundred thousand Canadians visit Alaska every year, and we like to pass by in cruise ships. But it never goes further than that. Alaska is our redneck cousin, our Yukon territory forms a blessed buffer zone, and thank God he never visits. Alaska is the end of the line.

Palin got her first passport last year. (Americans didn't need a passport to enter Canada until recently). She seems to have visited us precisely once, not surprisingly since Alaskans regularly refer to the rest of the world as "outside". We are so foreign to her, this woman who might become US president.

What is native to her is smugness, her certainty that what's good for Wasilla is good for the world in all its infinite variety. It's a variety that Palin will never begin to grasp.

Since it was released in the US, she was subjected to various death threats and message boards were flooded with reactions, insults and the usual and repetitive anti-Canadian ramblings, which are sometimes funny.

Let's agree she went too far, and there's a fair share of "redneckness" on the Canadian side of the border, but the core of the subject remains; Palin is not "presidential", vice or not.

Also, the right has to stop using the small-town values as a symbol of virtue. Small towns are fled by people who can't share the town's "core" values because they would never fit in, being marginalized for being different.

It's not that the values themselves are fundamentally wrong, just that the population is smaller, the jobs variety more limited, hence limiting the diversity of lifestyles, and, by extension of point-of-views and values. Therefore, ending with a more uniformed, one size-fits-all set of values, it kicks the "odd ones" to the "wicked life" of the cities, where sheer population size and actual diversity in lifestyles, jobs and origins will allow people to find others that share their views and interests.

There's nothing basically wrong with city virtues, the same way there's nothing basically wrong with small town ones, but neither can pretend to any actual form of moral high ground. People will be people, no matter where they are from, no matter where they fit best, for better or for worse.

Politicunts: Canadian Elections, Part III

This video, titled Culture en Péril (Culture in Danger) was created by a few Québec artists and posted on YouTube to denounce the cuts in cultural funding by the Conservative governement, led by Stephen Harper.

When Beau Dommage's Michel Rivard visits a newly formed governmental committee overseeing cultural financing, language gaps and cultural misunderstandings abounds, mostly when Rivard plays his classical song, "La Complainte du Phoque en Alaska" (The Complaint of the Seal in Alaska)...

I think its relevant for Anglo-Canadian and US audiences as well. I added english subtitles to facilitate the understanding of this sketch. Hope it remains faithful and funny!

Canada Votes: Youth's Voices, Part I

I asked a bunch of friends and aquaintances about their views, thoughts, worries and opinions on the current Canadian election.

Here's a sample of what they told me (comments in french were translated in english, with the original text in parentheses):

"I am only scared of one thing; a Harper/Conservative majority government. Where I live a conservative or liberal is going to win. Consequently, I am more likely to help stop a conservative majority if i vote liberal. I probably will vote liberal dispite the fact that I usually vote NDP or Green party. It looks like the liberals are doing poorly though so it might be another few years of unbridled right wing agenda served with fake smiles and bad sweaters."
-Dan

I'm sorry, but I'll sound like a little rebellious punk: Politics suck, because it's administerd by technocrats anyways...Better to work heart to heart! (J'suis desolée, mais j'vais avoir l'air dune p'tite punk revoltée: La politique c'est d'la marde , parce que, d'une manière ou d'une autre, c'est géré par la technocratie...better to work heart to heart)
-Catherine

Let's just say that I'm not too preoccupied with politics and the current campaign, always promises that politicians won't keep. (Disons que ça me préoccupe pas trop, la politique et la campagne actuelle, toujours des promesses que les politiciens ne tiennent pas.)
-Danick

I think people need to look passed the messenger and see what the message really is...who cares if Dion can't relate intimately with people, he is a brilliant man, with good ideas. Harper scares the hell out of me, and has some really dubious plans for Canada, and Canada's role in the world. Also, allowing May into the debates was the right thing to do...it should not been seen as a favour to anyone, but the RIGHT thing to do.
-Jesse

It's shit, one or the other, it ends up the same(C'est de la marde
un ou l'autre c'est du pareil au même)
-Yannick

Cynical, the kids? Let's not jump to conclusions, it's a small sample, but it's interesting. Please, keep the emails coming!