Jack Layton's message to youth

From his last letter to Canadians:

All my life I have worked to make things better. Hope and optimism have defined my political career, and I continue to be hopeful and optimistic about Canada. Young people have been a great source of inspiration for me. I have met and talked with so many of you about your dreams, your frustrations, and your ideas for change. More and more, you are engaging in politics because you want to change things for the better. Many of you have placed your trust in our party. As my time in political life draws to a close I want to share with you my belief in your power to change this country and this world. There are great challenges before you, from the overwhelming nature of climate change to the unfairness of an economy that excludes so many from our collective wealth, and the changes necessary to build a more inclusive and generous Canada. I believe in you. Your energy, your vision, your passion for justice are exactly what this country needs today. You need to be at the heart of our economy, our political life, and our plans for the present and the future.

Wearing orange for Jack

I went home at lunch to change. Apparently the only orange shirt I own is a Valdy & the Hometown band one that my dad got at a concert in the 70s. I think Jack would have approved, though.

RIP Jack Layton

For those of you who haven't yet heard, Jack Layton passed away this morning after a long struggle with cancer.

Jack, you were an inspiration. Leader of the NDP - and, for a short while, of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition - the most friendly and personable politician that Canada has seen in a long time. I always liked that you had a PhD but you never seemed to be part of the academic elite, you could sit down and have a beer with miners or steelworkers. I liked that you and Olivia were such an awesome kick-ass political couple, and I loved that you had such a great sense of humour. I hope that’s one of the things they remember about you, and all the awesome one-liners you had in that last leader’s debate this spring. You were always ready to stick up for the little guy, Jack. I loved your awesome mustache and the fact that you were friends with the guys from 90’s leftist comedy rock band Moxy Fruvous. It’s so tragic that you’ve been taken away just at this time, when you’ve led the orange tide to unprecedented heights.

I don’t care if I look like Halloween, I’m wearing orange and black. Rest in peace, Jack.

And now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain

So. It's been a good run. Over the course of the election, I wrote 100 posts (this is the 101st on this blog). And you know what? For all of our activism, the voter turnout only went up by 1%.

Where do we go from here? I could keep on blogging about Canadian politics but now that we're in a majority government situation, there's not likely to be a vote anytime soon so the title of this blog, at least might be a little irrelevant. Also I would have to start taking stances on policy issues not related to youth and student issues, something I've been trying to avoid doing this election because this blog was intended to appeal to youth voters of all political leanings (as long as they believe in the Westminster System...).

I haven't decided on my blogging future. I may just go back to my old blog on feminist issues. Or I may stop entirely.

As for the future of the country? Economists are pleased, claiming that the Harper majority will stabilize the economy. They talk a lot about how this majority means less uncertainty, but I'm not too sure.

Oh, I'm not all doom and gloom like the folks over at The Galloping Beaver.

There will be no sudden declaration of martial law or dramatic day when CPC stormtroopers surround Stornaway or round up dissidents in the night - there won't need to be. That nice, soft-spoken, Christian economist and hockey dad who just wants to protect us from the bad guys doesn't work that way. There will just be a steady drip of manufactured small crises that lead to privatization, deregulation, and "temporary" security measures, until we get back to the good old days of the robber barons.

I'm not that cynical. But I am nervous.

From my perspective, this majority means more uncertainty, not less. Is certainty measured in whether or not there is a clear leader in the House of Commons? One constant you will always see in a minority government is compromise. The parties compromise in order to run the country, which means things tend to run down the middle of the political spectrum, nothing much drastic happens to get either side too riled up. In other words, outside of Question Period, the country is calm. Change is slow and gentle. But majorities can do things--big things--drastic things. And often, in the past, they have surprised their electorate. I find much uncertainty in not knowing what the Conservatives will choose to do with their majority, and yet knowing that they CAN do whatever they choose.

And even if the economy initially stabilizes due to perceived lack of uncertainty--the economy is largely a psychological beast after all--with the strength of the NDP, union party par excellence, how can there not be striking?

A friend of mine, a recent graduate of business school, thinks the country is going to hell in a handbasket. She's appalled by the Conservative majority, hating their social conservatism, and possibly even more appalled by the strength of the NDP and their left-wing economics. Where is my centrist party? she asks.

Another friend sees the rise of the NDP as a positive development. The polarization of opinion in this country is a good thing, according to her, because the parties can differentiate themselves more. Centrist parties and special interest parties like the Bloc have no place in the current ideological landscape.

Can we reconcile all our opposing views? I don't know anymore. We're moving farther and farther away from the conciliatory style, all about compromise and attempted consensus, championed by early prime ministers like Laurier, and more and more towards the down-and-dirty uber-partisan uncompromising two-party republic along the lines of the US. Some people think this is a good thing, and others want to move to Australia.

But maybe my favourite prediction for the future is this. "Stephen Harper is going to pull a Brian Mulroney," said my Awesome Housemate last night. "He's going to do all this crap, and then everyone will hate him, and at the next election he'll lose everything and the NDP will win."

Oh, my inner instincts are warring between delight at the political games and sadness at what this will mean for the parliamentary system I love so dearly...

Results: My Jaw, It has Dropped

Elizabeth May wins her seat; Gilles Duceppe loses his. Tories a majority, Dippers official op. Bloc completely destroyed and Grits nearly destroyed.

Once again. Who said this election wasn't going to change anything?

Ontario, West propping potential Tory majority, Quebec picking NDP even when candidates are horrible

On the NDP rush in Quebec: Bloc Quebecois "past their best before date," Jack Layton the first NDP leader to become Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. "You know what, nobody's born a cabinet minister."

My friend found a small NDP frisbee (probably from the last election) while packing. I wonder if it would be fun to take it and fling it dramatically at people's heads while screaming, "ORANGE CRUSH!"

Now they're predicting a Conservative majority, which Andrew Coyne refers to as "a majority coalition of the West and Ontario," unlike Brian Mulroney's attempt to cobble together a Conservative majority with the West and Quebec.

That NDP candidate who was in Vegas for part of the campaign and doesn't speak French is winning in her Quebec riding!

BC numbers are starting to come in. Peter Mansbridge predicts the NDP might hit triple digit seats.

Thinking up clever titles is just so exhausting

Well-known, long-time Liberal MPs are trailing in their ridings--this is NOT a good election for the Liberals so far. It's great for the NDP, they're doing better than they ever have before, even taking the lead in ridings where their candidates didn't put up much of a campaign. If this isn't a sign that people are voting more for the party than the candidate this election, I don't know what is.

Nearly a third of ridings are far too close to call right now, just to keep everything in perspective.

Once again, the #deadpmelxndesk is the best part of the coverage. @PMJAMacdonald: "As the leader of the Liberal-Conservative Party, I'm a bit ambivalent about these results."

Things are Progressing

The room Michael Ignatieff is sitting in (his living room, maybe?) is SO BEIGE. Like, the couches are brown on beige and the walls are beige on beige and the curtains are beige and the lampshades are beige. Jack Layton and Olivia Chow's place is classy, lots of plants.

He's currently "trailing in his riding," that is 21 votes to 13. I'm sure he's frightened. Oh wow, NDP just passed Liberals in leading/elected seat count! Oh, never mind, Libs are back ahead. Bloc is doing terribly.

So amused by the super-long riding names. Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, anyone?

LOCAL RESULTS TIME! I CAN'T LOOK!

I love the CBC

Oh, Don Cherry and Rex Murphy. Peter Mansbridge: "If you were wondering, they're actually the same person, which is why they keep saying such complimentary things about each other."

On the one hand, people are posting election results on Twitter illegally. On the other hand, these results are far from unexpected.

Peter McKay just said "forged a beachhead, if you will." I don't know what that means but it sounds very Peter McKay.

The colour keeps on going in and out on my TV. At some point I need to give up the rabbit ears and spring for cable, I can't see the colours of the parties...

It's Election Night!

I'm watching the CBC and will be blogging sporadically and on Twitter. Right now: the Dragons from CBC's The Dragon Den with their election predictions. I love the Dragons! Kevin O'Leary: "I would never run for prime minister, the job simply doesn't pay enough. I should be prime minister, though, I would clean this whole mess up."

George Strombouloupoulous on the best social media moments of the election! Jack Layton's hashtag fail, Michael Ignatieff's Rise Up speech and the YouTube mashups, VOTE MOBS, Stephen Harper the Facebook creeper, VIntage Voter. Who wins the Internet?

Electoral Politics: Going Places

Citizen Engagement: Going Up (say this in an elevator voice)

Thanks to social media campaigns and the uprisings in the Middle East, Canadian voters are super engaged this election. But we already knew that, didn’t we?

Everyone is particularly impressed that young people seem to be so engaged.

Montreal-based Apathy Is Boring, one of several non-partisan organizations that have sprung up to promote increased voting in this federal election, hailed the busy advance polls as a harbinger of hope for Canadians’ interest in the political process.

“WE. ARE. DOING IT,” the group boasted after the Easter weekend numbers came in.
“Let’s keep turning up in record numbers to prove that young Canadians care about democracy, and that apathy is boring.”

Coalitions: Going Down

While Stephen Harper is ratcheting up his coalitions-are-scary-things rhetoric, and more and more Canadians seem to believe him, coalitions are both normal and stable in other parts of the world.

“We’ve have been forming coalition governments at the national and state level for a long time,” says Norman Abjorensen, a leading political commentator and professor at the Australia National University in Canberra. “And the sun has always risen the following day.”

The typical pattern in Australian federal politics, says Abjorensen, is either a leftish Labour government or a coalition of right-of-centre Liberals and rural Nationals.

“We change governments rarely here,” he says. “Only six changes in more than 60 years. No coalition has fallen except at the ballot box or on the floor of the house when in a minority in 1941.”

Western democracies such as Canada and the United Kingdom are behind the times, argues London School of Economics political scientist Jonathan Hopkin.

Not that Canadians haven’t thought about it:

A few days after Trudeau’s comeback victory in the 1980 federal election, he invited NDP leader Ed Broadbent to his office.

“I had a surprise for him,” Trudeau, who had just led his Liberals to a majority government, recalled in his 1993 book Memoirs.

“In an attempt to negotiate some sort of alliance with his party, I offered him and his colleagues some senior positions in our cabinet,” wrote Trudeau, explaining that his scanty take in Western Canada — just two seats, both in Manitoba, out of 143 Liberal MPs — had left him craving some of the widespread western representation of the NDP.

National unity, Trudeau believed, “would be strengthened if we could consolidate our forces.” He noted that there had been similar Liberal-NDP collaboration talks “on and off since (Lester B.) Pearson’s day,” but that Broadbent, who feared that his party would lose its power and credibility, quickly declined the offer.

Women in Politics: Going Nowhere

I mean that two ways: women who are in politics aren’t leaving anytime soon, but women are making very few gains in politics right now.

Anita Neville, a Liberal Member of Parliament and former minister for the status of women, agrees that more needs to be done to recruit women, and that the tone of Canadian politics is a barrier to that goal.

“I don’t think any of the parties have done a great job recruiting candidates,” she said at a campaign rally in Winnipeg, Manitoba last week.

“The rancor and nastiness of the political discourse turns off” many women, Neville said, adding that the atmosphere before the last election was “a really ugly Parliament.”

The New Democratic Party said April 11 it had set an “historic first” by having women as 40 percent of its nominated candidates. Still, Equal Voice said on its website that only 31 percent of NDP candidates in what it gauges are winnable ridings are women. That figure compares with 27 percent for the Liberals and 22 percent for the Conservatives. The Conservative Party did not respond to requests for comment yesterday about this issue.

Post-Vote Brain Break

The polls are just about to open in ET, CT, and MT, another half hour for PT, and they're already open in the Maritimes and Newfoundland. So you should go out and vote, and then come back and read this brain break.

Are any of the leaders going to have a good day today? Watch the outreach of my investigative journalism as I check with the experts—also known as, reading their horoscopes.

In the process of doing this I discovered that all of the leaders were born sometime between April 30th and July 22nd. Is that weird or is that weird? Why are they dominating one quarter of the year? Both the Amazing Housemate and I also have birthdays between April 30 and July 22, does this mean we are destined to be in politics?

Anyway, this means that several of the leaders share signs, which sounds like it would make things more boring, but actually is really interesting when you look at WHO shares signs.

Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff—Taurus

Your workload will increase dramatically over the next few days, so make sure you get your chores out of the way as quickly as possible. If you fall behind now it may be a long time before you catch up again, so get it done.

That it will… that it will…

No matter how modest your goals are today, there will be some foggy energy or friendship dramas that could interrupt things and make major forward movement difficult right now. But do not worry! You will have a realistic awareness of what you can and cannot accomplish, so this will help keep things in perspective -- and you in a positive frame of mind. So save what you can't get done today, and deal with it another day -- it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Ha. Hahaha. “You will have a realistic awareness of what you can and cannot accomplish.” “Deal with it another day—it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.” Hahaha.

Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe—Cancer

If you force yourself to do something when your heart isn’t in it it’s unlikely you will make a very good job of it. Maybe it would be better to put it off until you are in a more receptive frame of mind.

Ohh. Hidden meaning?

Regarding your current struggle or debate, you should know that there are more people on your side than aren't ... and the people who aren't don't have much pull with the powers that be. Keep pushing for what you want, and keep talking to the people who can help make it happen. You're gaining real momentum, and you could reach an exciting tipping point today. Whatever has been holding you back is long gone -- and it's not coming back! Stay with this positive frame of mind.

You can tell this is Jack Layton’s horoscope because it has the words “gaining momentum” in it. I don’t see how it applies to Gilles Duceppe, though… but then he’s a borderline case, maybe he’s really a Leo. Let’s see what the Leo horoscopes are…

You seem to be holding back from taking risks, even quite small ones, and that's a shame because if you push yourself hard today chances are it will pay off in a big way. Don’t just think about it – do it!

Yep, that’s more like Duceppe…

Try not to confuse a growing sense of responsibility with a growing sense of guilt. The associations you are making with other people right now are a sign of your growth. You are more connected with a few people and it is effecting your sense of duty -- these people rely on you, and this may be a new feeling. Give yourself a chance to get used to it. But if you keep following your own goals and making decisions based on your own priorities, there is nothing wrong with that.

Is this about his association with the PQ?

Elizabeth May—Gemini

If you allow a feud to linger on much longer the results could be disastrous, so get to the root of it today and either agree to be friends or agree to stay out of each others way. Is a compromise solution really so hard?

I feel like this would have been more appropriate (or more hilarious) as Harper and Ignatieff’s horoscope.

After a spontaneous conversation with a casual acquaintance today, you could gain greater insight into the things that have been troubling you lately. The key is to listen intently and be ready to hear some things that may make you a little uncomfortable -- new ideas are not always palatable. If you ignore the realities of the external world, you won't get very far. You will have to face up to reality and pay more attention to the things that really matter.

Well, this isn’t too applicable. Except maybe the “face up to reality” part?

Anyway. If you've read this before voting, you can now vote already knowing the future!

TIME TO VOTE! THAT MEANS YOU! YES, YOU, READING THIS RIGHT NOW!

VOTING TIME!!!!!!!!!



Here is a useful election FAQ if you're unsure about how long voting will take, how to vote if you wear a face covering, or what kind of ID you can bring.

Still undecided? Here's one more platform-comparing tool.

And now go vote! And to awesome people like my Awesome Housemate who are working the polls this election: you guys are awesome. You are like millions of hand across the country holding the democracy tent over our heads.

Okay, awkward simile time is over. Time to vote!

Coast-to-Coast with Editorials

So this is pretty neat. It’s a collection of abridged editorials from across the country. I, of course, cannot refrain from adding my commentary.

From the Vancouver Sun:

…the Conservatives should be returned to Parliament with a majority. A minority government will be unstable at a time when we need stability. Without a majority, Canadians will have no idea who their leader will be. The fact is that the opposition could defeat the government on the budget within a matter of weeks of the next sitting of Parliament. Then, either Ignatieff (or possibly his successor, whoever that might be) or Layton could ask the Governor-General to invite one or the other or both of them to form a government.

. . . Canada can't afford an election that delivers a result with so much uncertainty.

. . . Despite the Tories' flaws, however, a Conservative majority is the only path that at this time leads us to a Canada that will remain the prosperous, peaceful and predictable country in which we are fortunate enough to live.

False. We are not a republic. Not knowing who the leader of our government will be doesn’t really change much. The prime minister is the leader of the party that forms the government. Let’s not inflate the position with too much importance.

Honestly, majorities are scarier because they’re the closest this country can legally get to a dictatorship. Minorities have to compromise, not be reckless—be predictable. Majority governments have historically been the most unpredictable, and passed the most bills that weren’t in their platforms.

And you know what? No matter what happens in the House of Commons, the core of the civil service remains stable, with just a few changes at the upper bureaucratic levels. Civil servants will be peeved if the upper administration keeps changing on them like that, but the people who actually do the stuff to run our country are going to be here doing the stuff that runs the country regardless of the situation in the House.

From the Winnipeg Free Press:

That the country even talks about coalitions composed of weak parties focused on buying votes, instead of focusing on the fragile economic recovery, is all the evidence Canadians should need to conclude that seven years of minority government, of the posturing and name-calling and brinksmanship that results when no one ultimately is in charge, must end. Canada must get more serious about its present predicaments and future prosperity. That leaves only the Conservatives.

To be sure, Conservatives over the past five years, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper in particular, have contributed much to the rancour that today sours our polity. But just as surely, over the past five years no political party or leader has shown more disciplined commitment to the engine that makes all else possible — the economy. For all the talk of a hidden, right-wing agenda, none has emerged over five years and there is no evidence it will over the next four.

Oh, please. Our economic recovery is hardly fragile, little thanks to the Conservatives. It was Paul Martin’s banking regulations that left us in such a good place to being with. And as I mentioned earlier, no one ever is “ultimately in charge.” The prime minister’s powers are supposed to be fairly limited, to a leadership role over his own party, and the ability to appoint people and recommend things to the governor general. In fact, the Speaker of the House is far more “ultimately in charge” of the House of Commons.

Of course a “hidden, right-wing agenda” hasn’t emerged over the last five years—that kind of thing is really difficult to have with a minority government. The fact that we haven’t seen a hidden right-wing agenda doesn’t mean there isn’t one (not that I’m saying there is).

From the Halifax Chronicle Herald:

Voting intentions have moved to the poles as we have got closer to the polls, turning this into an effective contest of the NDP left and the Tory right.

You can peg this partly on Prime Minister Stephen Harper being a polarizing leader. And also on his strategy of eking out a majority by winning over targeted demographic groups in a few marginal ridings instead of aiming to make the Tories a bigger-tent party.

That left a lot voters essentially disengaged. But they have decided they want to be heard in this election. And they've been jumping to Jack Layton to do that . . .

It's an astonishing result when most people, at heart, are probably still somewhere in the middle, not looking either for a big expansion of government, or a drastic shrinkage of the social safety net, but simple competence in managing the economy and public finances and in ensuring crucial public services like health care are there when needed.

True that. Truuue that.

Voters Today: Not All Bad

Low voter turnouts may mean that more of the people who show are informed voters, but this isn’t necessarily the case—especially since only about 20% of the electorate “votes well” (that is, for the common good). And despite everybody freaking out, voter turnout today is not that much less than it has been historically since Confederation:

According to Elections Canada, voter turnout from 1867 to the present has hovered at approximately 70 per cent, but more recent elections have shown erosion from there. About 64 per cent of voters cast a ballot in 2006 and 58.8 per cent voted in 2008.

Voter turnout has actually been in decline since the 1980s, according to Elections Canada, but political scientists have only recently been able to verify this.

Voter turnout figures were based on calculating the number of votes cast against lists of eligible voters. The problem was that lists were sometimes incomplete, error-filled or non-existent. Voter turnout rates were calculated using incomplete data for decades after Confederation in 1867.

In 1997, the national registry of electors was developed, a permanent list that kept track of every eligible voter in Canada. For years until then, political scientists weren't sure whether the perceived downturn in voter turnout was more a myth than reality.

You know, I don’t understand why people persist in thinking that we’ve degenerated from the 1860s. I mean, in the 1860s we still didn’t have secret ballots (those weren’t around until 1874 for federal elections and even later for provincial ones), so you had to stand on the hustings and proclaim your vote, and you got heckled, and the candidates were sitting there watching you proclaim your vote, and people would try to bribe you and because it wasn’t a secret ballot they would know if you didn’t vote the way they wanted and come and beat you up after.

So… yeah. Voting: in better shape than the 1860s even if the voter turnout is about 10% lower.

Harping on Harpers Hypotheticals

Yesterday was Stephen Harper’s 52nd birthday, and he celebrated by getting his sycophants to boo a CBC reporter asking a legitimate question.

I’m sorry, was that too bitter and uncalled-for?

Okay, okay, I modify. He celebrated by rebuffing talk of government 'hypotheticals', and then his supporters rebuffed this talk further by booing Terry Milewski when he tried to ask the question again.

The whole thing is fairly ridiculous.

But when pressed by reporters about what he would do if the next-biggest party was asked to form a government, Harper said he would not speculate about "hypothetical" scenarios following the election.
"We're in this to win, I believe we're going to win; a lot is at stake, every race is close," Harper said.

"What we're doing now is speculating on hypothetical scenarios. We're putting before Canadians the choice that they have, a Conservative government that will keep taxes low and keep the economy moving forward, or an NDP government that will raise taxes, stall our recovery, and set Canadian families back."

The CBC's Terry Milewski faced supporters' boos when he attempted to ask Harper the question again.

In an interview with the CBC's Peter Mansbridge earlier in the campaign, Harper said said he would not attempt to form a government if another party won the most seats in the election and his party came in second place.

When Mansbridge said the other parties have a right to try to form a government if the Tory government failed to gain the confidence of the House, Harper replied: "That's a question of debate, of constitutional law."

Well, actually, it’s not. That is how things work in a parliamentary democracy. Remember the Westminster System? I’ve been harping on that for a while. (haha, harping on Harper…) If Stephen Harper is like, “Screw parliamentary democracies, I want to make our system more like a republic,” that is one thing. But when he’s like, “Oh, no, all the rules you’ve ever known about the Westminster system are not at all set in stone and I’m just going to flout them individually one by one,” that’s when I get angry.

And people believe him!

Guys, I think the answer is obvious. Clearly, I must run for a federal seat, and fix democracy myself, since none of the supposedly intelligent people we elect seem to know how to do it.

Also. “We’re in this to win,” “I believe we’re going to win,” “A lot is at stake,” and “Every race is close” are all four different complete sentences with very different meanings, and their juxtaposition here into all one long sentence is a bit confounding. Just saying.

You may not have realized this, but I am actually not an ice cream cone

So there was this thing called "election-themed flavour of the week, and was like, "Oh, I wonder what that is? Perhaps a selection of the most popular stories of the week!" My Awesome Housemate was like, "The flavour of the week should be orange crush!" And then we clicked on it and it is neither of those things. Instead it's a collection of pictures of attractive female candidates. Can I be appalled? The "sexiest election candidate" was one thing, because it was equal-opportunity and also you knew what you were getting into when you clicked on the link. And this one also has little blurbs underneath the pictures that half the time sounds like a personals ad… you know, "enjoys mountain biking with that special someone!" SO disgusted right now. Women are not ice cream cones. "Flavour" of the week, pah.

Getting Ready for the Big Day

I made an election playlist on YouTube of all the most epic, empowering, pro-political engagement songs. If I've forgotten one that is key to your empowerment, comment here or drop me a line at voteagainstapathy[at]gmail.com.

Also preparing election results drinks! I'm watching the results come in with my Awesome Housemate after she comes back from her Awesome Job as a poll clerk. At a polling station. See, these are just the kinds of people I hang out with so you can understand how I'm confused about this apparently low youth voter turnout...

Andrew Coyne explains why he's voting Liberal.

If we return the Conservatives with a majority, if we let all that has gone on these past five years pass, then not only the Tories, but every party will draw the appropriate conclusions. But if we send them a different message, then maybe the work of bringing government to democratic heel, begun in the tumult of the last Parliament, can continue. And that is why I will be voting Liberal on May 2.

Are you still undecided? Apparently, undecided voters are more likely to vote for someone who looks like them. So, you know, if you're a white guy, you've probably got lots of choice.

Chantal Hébert says that the real winner in this election is democracy. Well, I'm paraphrasing a bit, but mine sounds more epic. Actually, she says that the winner is citizen engagement.

The populist mood that could result in a dramatically realigned Parliament on Monday changed the face of municipal politics in Calgary and Toronto last fall, bringing a left-leaning mayor to Alberta’s energy capital and a right-wing one to the home of Canada’s caviar Left.

The wave that could carry Jack Layton and the NDP to a historical finish next week has tapped into the same powerful desire for change but it is different from the one that propelled Rob Ford to the Toronto mayoral office in one significant regard.

In Quebec, where the so-called orange wave originated, the surge of support for the NDP is borne out of more hope than anger.

In spite of the best efforts of Conservative Leader Stephen Harper to claim the role for himself, it is Gilles Duceppe who has emerged as the angry man of the campaign.

The more the Bloc Québécois leader has raised his voice over this campaign, the less his call for a seventh strike vote against the rest of Canada has resonated.

To a lesser degree the same could be said of the Conservative and Liberal campaigns.

If anything, the developments of the past five weeks have shown that there is a lot more appetite for a discourse based on hope than one based on fear.

Hear, hear!

This week the Young Liberals released Angry Bairds, which is exactly what it sounds like.

Saturday Morning Catch-Up

Some news stories from the past few days I haven't gotten around to yet.

1) What would a Harper majority look like? To me, scary, but I think that this author is intentionally trying to be terrifying:

While parties in modern Canada rarely ask for a majority expressly to do big things, it endows them with unfettered authority. A majority as prime minister allows you to summon and dismiss Parliament, set election dates and name the governor general, senators and judges, among other appointments.

By and large, you are — borrowing a line from Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson — a "friendly dictator."

So what would Stephen Harper do? While he may pay lip-service to social conservatives, he is unlikely to reopen the debate on abortion, same-sex marriage and capital punishment. He knows that's playing with fire.

What he is more likely to do, though, is what he is doing already: appoint more conservative judges, deny funding to liberal-minded non-governmental organizations like Planned Parenthood, abolish the gun registry and get tough on crime.

Where he is likely to move aggressively is reshaping the state? Here, expect him to use the deficit as reason to shrink the size of government. That may mean slashing the public service, starving (or selling) the CBC, and privatizing government services.

Expect him to lower taxes and explore ways to empower the individual. Expect him to reform the Senate. Expect him to offer the provinces new authority, including Ottawa's residual powers. While he is unlikely to initiate constitutional reform (he doesn't like convening first ministers), expect the national government to be less national.

At the same time, watch for the Conservatives to give more substance to citizenship, which they think is too easy to acquire. There will be new emphasis on national history and national symbols, particularly the monarchy. The Conservative will continue to trumpet the North, espousing a new kind of nationalism.

Abroad, Canada will continue to regard the United Nations suspiciously. There will be no return to peacekeeping, as the Liberals suggest, or a human-security agenda. Military spending will rise while international assistance is reassessed. A foundering CIDA will be reorganized, even abolished.

The government will pursue a new deal with the United States on border and security issues. It will build on new free trade with Europe. Canada will remain Israel's best friend.

Those who expect the same tone and tenor of the last five years — a centrist stewardship, reflecting a comfortable moderation, veering right only on the margins — should not be surprised to see the empowered Conservatives abandon that kind of caution.

*shudder* Also, I just want to say that I don't think you need to make citizenship harder to get when the majority of adults born in Canada already can't pass citizenship tests. I remember my friends memorizing long lists of lieutenant-governors past, and I can't even name any of the current ones.

2) Reality Check on post-election scenarios and the constitution. This lays out potentials for what might/could happen with various election results. With a Conservative minority:

All we know for certain is that in this third scenario, a minority Conservative government would have to table a throne speech to lay out its priorities and a budget (the one in March was never passed), presumably within the next month or so.

If a minority Conservative government were to lose either of those votes, or any confidence vote within, say, four to six months, Harper would have to resign. But he would have the option of asking Gov. Gen. David Johnston for another election.

Normally, the governor general is supposed to act on the "advice" of the prime minister. But in special circumstances like these, "the reserve powers of the Crown come into play," Franks points out.

"These reserve powers permit the governor general to reject Mr. Harper's advice if he requests a dissolution when he holds a minority of seats in the House of Commons and is defeated early in the session of the new Parliament."

At that point, the governor general would inquire whether another party leader could gain the confidence of the House and govern instead, with the support of one or more other parties.

Franks suggests Johnston might well make the leaders commit to such an arrangement for 18 months to two years; indeed, commit to it in writing and make the agreement public.

Franks is basing these time limits - at least four to six months before Johnston would grant another election, and 18 to 24 months for an alternative government to work - on what Adrienne Clarkson wrote about her preparations in case Paul Martin's minority Liberal government fell back in 2004.

That was the year, incidentally, when Harper, Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe and NDP Leader Jack Layton prepared a letter to remind Clarkson that she didn't necessarily need to grant an election if Martin lost a confidence vote in the House.

Overall, Franks says, "the governor general's first and most important duty is to ensure that there is a prime minister."

3) There have been some youth debates this week, which are interesting to look at not only because it's young people being completely politically involved, but also because they actually cover youth issues (and articulate what they think youth issues actually are). For example:

Elizabeth Dubois, chair of the campus political action committee for the Young Liberals of Canada, reminded young Canadians of the Liberals' Learning Passport, which would provide $1,000 of financial assistance to post-secondary students each year for up to four years.

She said the platform promise was designed to ensure youth had access to "tools to build our future."

Alykhan Velshi, who is working a second election in the Conservative party war room, insisted that the Liberal plan isn't the best option for youth.

"It's very deep in their platform . but they're also taking something away. They're going to raise taxes on students," he warned, referring to the Liberals' plan to eliminate current textbook tax credits currently offered to students.

The pair was joined by Isaac Cockburn, who has worked at NDP headquarters in Ottawa and as an assistant to the NDP's Nathan Cullen, and Jonathan Halasz, co-president of the Carleton University Green party. Each party representative is under the age of 30.

The Bloc Québécois declined to join the English-language debate.

Cockburn immediately echoed his party leader Jack Layton's message that "Ottawa is broken."

"This type of back and forth is what he's talking about," he said, promising he wouldn't join "rigorous partisan stuff" as his peers poked at their opponents' policies.

Cockburn said Layton was the sole leader who would address rising tuition fees, while other parties have said the concern is not a federal responsibility.

4) It's hard to respect our MPs when their behaviour would be getting them a time-out if they were children.

How can the grown men and women who wish to govern our nation expect to be taken seriously as trustworthy, thoughtful people when their behaviour suggests they are hysterical toddlers? Whenever I tune into Question Period I last about 20 seconds before I have to change the channel because the bickering sounds like an out-of-control Middle School classroom.

So how about it, folks? If you want to govern the country, how about showing some self-control and good sense? Quit shouting in the background while other people are trying to speak. Quit calling each other names. Quit using scare tactics to try to convince the populace that negotiating in a coalition scenario is worse than having one man’s ideas shoved down our throats.

5) If young women voted, things would be different. We already know that the composition of Parliament is more likely to reflect the votes of older men rather than younger women. This survey also points out to some striking differences of opinion between young women and young men.

“Time after time I have seen in national polls that young women tend toward views that favour environmental sustainability and social justice, while young men’s attitudes tend toward maintaining the status quo,” says the President of McAllister Opinion Research.

Here's some stats:

Agree/Strongly agree that “Canadian girls receive adequate support to achieve their potential in life.”

63% of young women
100% of young men

Agree/Strongly agree that “Violence against women is a serious problem in Canada today.”

92% of young women
42% of young men

When asked if the following facts should be a concern or not for Canadians, here is what young women and men had to say:

“Teenage girls are 3 times as likely as boys to suffer from depression”

96% of young women are concerned
61% of young men

“Men outnumber women 4 to 1 among Canada’s elected representatives”

80% of young women are concerned
38% of young men

“2/3 of minimum wage workers in Canada are women”

90% of young women are concerned
55% of young men

I think the first statistic is possibly the most striking. All the young men surveyed felt Canadian girls receive adequate support to achieve their potential, but less than two thirds of the young women surveyed agreed.

"Is Stephen Harper a Hologram," and Other Pressing Questions of our Times

In Maclean's this week, Rick Mercer joined the press corps and followed the leaders around their campaigns, prompting him to ask the titular question.

The Harper campaign is far and away the most disciplined, the most professional and the most scripted. Every word is on a teleprompter, it is delivered in exactly the same way, and the Prime Minister does something I have, in a lifetime of watching live performers onstage, never seen before: he actually stops and sips his water in the same spot every time. Nothing is left to chance. Either that or he is a hologram on a loop.

This is what happens without the teleprompter:

And I will never forget the chilly Newfoundland morning when Stephen Harper faced not just a disappointingly low turnout, but a cantankerous teleprompter that left him standing on centre ice at a hockey rink in total silence for seven long seconds. Eventually our quick-witted leader said, “Jeremy, could you bring me my notes?” a sentence he kept repeating until Jeremy did just that. Thank God for Jeremy, because this mercifully allowed Harper to begin the same speech that he had given 50 times since the campaign began. Nine minutes later it was over: “Chaos is lapping at our shores,” “thank you and goodbye.”

The Liberal and NDP campaigns sound like a lot more fun. Meanwhile, Mercer finishes off with this reflection on the changing nature of campaigning:

Very soon a national leader is going to make a quantum leap and launch a national campaign by staying home. He or she will enter a bunker in Ottawa and from there they will Skype streaming video into 10 curling rinks in 10 provinces in one night. They will hold a dozen town halls in a single afternoon. They will take or refuse questions from all over Canada from all sorts of people. By staying home they will reach more Canadians.

I don't think this is going to happen anytime soon--I think Canadians still very much value a politician who is willing to come out and meet with them personally. But it's a thought.

Hologram or not, Stephen Harper is considered by Canadians to be "the best to get things done", while Jack Layton narrowly wins as the leader who would make the best prime minister. Michael Ignatieff polled a distant third, with Canadians apparently finding him neither competent nor likeable.

East-to-West Vote Mobs: Halifax, Winnipeg, Whitehorse

Everyone looks like they're having so much fun at these vote mobs!

Halifax:



Winnipeg:



Whitehorse:

Royal Nuptials Kick-start Busy Weekend

So, busy weekend. Royal wedding, world figure skating championships, second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, intense few campaign days leading up to election day... am I missing anything?

Anyway, speaking of the royal wedding, the prime minister extended his congratulations to the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge via Twitter this morning. (A few elderly ladies in the grocery store the other day were deploring the date of the election, since Laureen Harper must have really wanted to go to the wedding! At least, maybe she would have looked happier than she does in any of Stephen's photo ops...)

Here are some perspectives on the royal wedding and how it fits into the federal election and our democracy (constitutional monarchy) more broadly: pro-monarchy and anti-monarchy.

Vote Mobs: York and Queen's

Vote mob at York! I like that they actually went to the polls and filmed it :)



Queen's U vote mob! They didn't include the former prison farm animals...

Brain Break Time!

You know that famous picture of Stephen Harper holding a cat? New internet meme: Cats Holding Stephen Harper. (In Soviet Russia...) I made my own entry, armed with my (admittedly poor) photoshop skillz:

Speaking of cats, a pollster going door to door found more than 50 of them in one Toronto home. The owner has been arrested and charged with cruelty to animals.

On a completely unrelated note, one blog is running a poll on Canada's sexiest election candidate. It's in the final round, with four male and four female candidates left in the running from across the country (including, of course, the Liberal stud-in-residence, Justin Trudeau). The Globe and Mail subtly disapproves. "Do Canadians need to be sexually cajoled into voting?" it asks. And, "Mr. Bussey says his superficial exercise was intended 'to encourage you to vote,' but does Canada want this cohort's vote?" Don't worry, I'm sure it will be balanced out by the people who staunchly vote for the same party their father always voted for.

Splitting Hairs?

What is this "the Catholic vote" and why are Conservatives better at courting it? I wasn't aware that Catholics were a special interest group. (Just told this to my Awesome Housemate. Her response: "Everyone is a special interest group.") Besides which, from the article, it sounds like who Conservatives are really better at courting are Christians (of all stripes) who attend church regularly. Catholics aren't any more likely to all vote the same way as any other portion of the population, and I can tell you this as a Catholic in a Catholic family with (some) Catholic friends who hold wide and varied opinions on things. (And, spoiler alert, very few of these people seem to be leaning Conservatively despite the Virgin Mary associations with the colour blue.) Also, being Catholic isn't at all synonymous with being pro-life or opposing same-sex marriage. Besides, Catholic social teaching tends to be more economically left than the Conservative party. But I digress... this is a personal beef.

Anyway.

There are ways of talking about groups of voters without making them seem like some kind of dehumanized monolithic special interest mass-vote, and it's not "courting the Catholic vote" or "campaigning for the ethnic vote". You can start by not assuming that everyone with the same cultural background is going to vote the same way. Then, you can listen to what people have to say about themselves. All of which to say that I'm really excited about Project 60, aimed at improving voter turnout and political engagement, created by and for First Nations youth. It's the people who feel the most disenfranchised who can speak most effectively to each other--not politicians, or Elections Canada ads that really don't change anyone's mind. And it's the people who feel the most disenfranchised who speak back the loudest, because otherwise their interests aren't spoken at all.

Clearing the Air on Parliament and Government

Two things I want to draw your attention to. First, Peace, Order, and Good Government, Eh?'s five principles of parliamentary democracy:

1. Parliament is the core institution of Canadian democracy. The House of Commons, its elected chamber, is the one body elected by all Canadians.

2. When Canadians go to the polls they elect the House of Commons not a government. The right to govern goes to the members of the house who can secure its confidence.

3. The prime minister is the servant of the House of Commons and must be accountable to it all times.

4. When no party has a majority in the House of Commons, it is for the House to decide what kind of government it will support. In these situations, the House basically has three choices: 1) a coalition government of two or more parties who share cabinet posts; 2) a minority government in an alliance with two or more parties who agree to support it on the basis of agreed upon policies but who do not share cabinet posts; 3) a minority government that works out agreements with opposition parties issue by issue.

5. The Governor General's role is to exercise the crown's discretionary reserve powers only when necessary to permit the proper functioning of parliamentary democracy.

I think these are very important to remember, especially when we look at the next item, Dan Gardner's reasoned discussion of leadership and minority governments. On the desirability of minority governments:

Lots of people agree, at least about the desirability of majority government. Majority is normal, they feel. Majority is stable. After a string of minorities, each more rancorous and dysfunctional than the last, a majority is the only thing that can pull Parliament out of the quagmire and deliver effective government.

This is not an unreasonable view. But it's wrong. Starting with its basic premise.

Minority governments are not some strange and unfortunate aberration. One survey of democratic governments in western Europe and the British Commonwealth between 1945 and 1987 found that 87 per cent did not feature a single governing party in control of a majority of seats. They were minorities, in other words.

Within Canada, the first federal minority government was formed in 1921. Since then, there have been 27 governments, 13 of which were minorities.

Most of these minority governments were nowhere near as rancorous and dysfunctional as the last Parliament. Some functioned brilliantly. The minorities of Lester Pearson had partisan clashes and scandals — they all do — but they were among the most productive in history.

The story is the same internationally. Name a peaceful, prosperous, well-governed country and chances are you have named a country in which minority governments are the norm.

Agnes Macphail said something similar, in the speech I quoted earlier today: "I do not believe that when you have a stable government—one with a very comfortable majority, you get a good government [...] I do not see how we can expect a legislative program that will be pleasing to our constituencies."

But anyway, back to Dan Gardner. He makes the point that the Conservative minority government worked well its first year or so, until Stephane Dion became the leader of the Opposition and Harper sensed a chance for a majority:

Out went decorum, respect and negotiation. In came insults, stonewalling and brinksmanship.

The Opposition contributed to fractiousness — recall the new Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff declaring the prime minister to be "on probation" — but historians will heap the lion's share of the blame on Stephen Harper. The petty and pointless provocations. The how-to manual on obstructing committees. The constant refusal to deliver documents demanded by the House of Commons. The historic speakers' rulings. The even more historic contempt verdict.

It's a dismal record. Perhaps worst of all were the attack ads: A prime minister who sincerely intends to work with an Opposition leader does not publicly and viciously insult the man he will shake hands with over the negotiating table.

That's the biggest problem with Harper saying he won't negotiate with other leaders if he gets another minority. Leaders of minority governments HAVE to negotiate with the other leaders or nothing will get passed. It's one of the most important checks and balances of a government. Refusing to negotiate will lead to the instability Harper predicts.

Why? It's not a defect inherent in minority government. Nor is it that the big three parties have irreconcilable visions and policies. In fact, the substantive disagreements between the parties are as small or smaller than they've ever been in modern times.

No, the problem is the leader. Stephen Harper gambled everything on winning a majority. Now, after swearing that anything less would cause earth to shudder and sky to weep, it would be personally calamitous if a Conservative minority government functioned smoothly.

Harper said there would be instability, damn it. And he will make sure of it.

It may not come to that, fortunately.

It's likely the Liberals will be under new management soon, which should help blow away some of the animosity hanging in the air over Parliament Hill.

But what would make all the difference is a new Conservative leader, which is possible. Having tried and failed four times to win a majority — including twice against the weakest Liberal leaders in modern history — Stephen Harper may decide it is time for a career change. Or Conservatives may decide it for him.

Ominous.

Canada's First Woman MP is My Idol

We now pause our regularly scheduled election coverage for a brief homage to this woman:

So I am a big fan of all the #deadPMs on Twitter. Recently they’ve been joined by some dead premiers, Fathers of Confederation, etc. and it struck me that the whole thing was becoming quite a sausagefest. Where, I asked myself, is Agnes Macphail, the most bad-ass dead woman MP in Canadian history? (It turns out there is an Agnes Macphail twitter but it’s been inactive for over a year.) So I Wikipedia’ed her, found the links to the Agnes Macphail Digital Collection, and discovered this 1928 speech (pages 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Basically Agnes Macphail is many shades of awesome. I think this quote aptly applies to most Conservative press conferences these days: “However, after reading the speech very carefully I think myself it is an exceedingly clever speech—how adroitly it says nothing at all!”

She also catches the economic signals foreshadowing the Great Depression:

I had the privilege, and I consider it a very great privilege, of visiting last summer very many rural homes in Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and I certainly did not find in those homes the prosperity that I read about in the speech from the throne. I found people struggling to meet debt, and worrying over taxes and meeting the payment of their mortgages. I thought the conditions were particularly bad in the province of Manitoba. I believe it was said by some member this afternoon that they no longer grew grain in Manitoba. Well, I think that was true this year.
[…]
I do not consider that we can boast of our prosperity until that prosperity has reached the homes of the mass of the people. I think it is quite likely that the prosperity that has undoubtedly arrived in certain classes and sections of Canada will continue and will likely increase, until possibly it reaches boom dimensions, and will be followed by a crash or a long depression comparable to the one out of which we are just emerging [the depressed conditions following the First World War and into the 1920s].
[…]
One of the things to which I refer is the present Bank act. I notice in the Weekly News of February 3rd, printed in Winnipeg, that the Bank of Nova Scotia made a dividend this year of 16 ½ per cent, which seems a snug little dividend. The Canadian Bank of Commerce made a dividend of 12 per cent, with a bonus of one dollar. It was the same with other banks; evidently they are all making very great profits. Now there is a general feeling in farming districts that our banking system is not all it should be, and that some line of setting up a bank of issue and rediscount should at once be instituted.

Macphail was a pacifist, as you can see in her comments on the munitions industry. She first argues that international trade of arms and munitions should be banned (that would, actually, have saved us from so many problems…) and she’s against the private manufacture of arms:

I see no reason why the manufacture of munitions which are designed to bring about the death of human beings should be in the hands of private individuals who can and who have used this power for private gain. Let us now make a law stating that, if the worst came to the worst at any time in the future and we must face war, all property will be administered by the state; that is, there would be a complete conscription of wealth. I feel this would have a moderating influence upon certain elements in Canada.

Canadian industry had made HUGE money off the First World War (as had America industry) and Macphail may have been correct in fearing that munitions makers were ready to warmonger for their own personal gain. Or maybe she was just pissed at Sam Hughes for giving the munitions contracts to his buddies.

Macphail would have been pro-prison farms if she were alive today. (I also feel like the first prison farms were established around this time with her support, but have found no evidence to prove this.) Her arguments here are very similar to the ones used by protesters of the prison farm closures, except more patronizing:

In our whole system of taking care of prisoners we should look to the good that we can do to the prisoner while he is detained by the state, making him feel that the state is fair to him. That is why I want him to be paid a decent wage for his work, from which wage, of course, his keep must be deducted. We must never forget, too, that the family of the prisoner possibly suffers more than the prisoner himself, and when the prisoner comes out, there should be, shall we say, a fatherly hand of the government to guide that man into civil life, to re-establish him. So many of them when they first get out try for a few days or weeks to go in what we call a straight way, and not being able to do that they very soon revert to crime.

Here’s what she has to say on party politics and majority governments. I have to say I agree with her, more or less, on both fronts:

I am not interested in party politics; I am not interested in parties, although I must say in all fairness that I am very much interested in the people who compose the parties. I am at all times ready, and indeed anxious, to support legislation which to my mind is beneficial to the constituency I have th honour to represent—I believe that is the correct form—and to the country as a whole.
[…]
I do not believe that when you have a stable government—one with a very comfortable majority, you get a good government. I may be wrong; I sometimes am, but I think not in this case, and so, having in power a stable government, one with a very comfortable majority, a majority that unfortunately has been added to by men who should have known better [here she is referring to MPs not voters], I do not see how we can expect a legislative program that will be pleasing to our constituencies. But at least we are here to get for the common people of Canada the best that we can, and I am here sitting ready to be pleasantly surprised by the government.

What a superstar.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Study Break for Democracy

The sun is shining, the daffodils are out, and I should be studying, but the news is calling to me. So I am taking a study break and it is COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED because it's for democracy.

Since the orange surge, Jack Layton might be downshifting in order to avoid missteps and keep criticism at bay. Meanwhile in the Harper camp a whole new scandal breaks loose (as you'll know if you watched The National between the Habs game and the Canucks game last night). The Tories' optics aren't so good these days at all; the Liberals recently got their hands on a compilation they made of Harper's most incriminating and controversial quotes. Note to self: if my leader says lots of controversial and incriminating things, don't collect them and and organize them nicely in alphabetical order by subject matter, because my biggest rival WILL find it. Also: if I don't collect them all into one big binder it's so much easier for me to say, "I have no idea what you're talking about!" when someone brings them up. It's like the long-form census.

Speaking of the Liberals, Michael Ignatieff admitted today that he smoked pot when he was younger (probably in grad school). Consensus: "It obviously didn't ruin my life but a glass of wine is so much more relaxing." (that's paraphrased, obviously)

This Morning's News

Somebody who is not a student finally realized how stupid a May 2nd election is for student voter turnout. There is a youth debate tonight in Ottawa, streaming here at 7pm EST. Business leaders are freaking out because apparently an NDP government wouldn't be market-friendly. The Habs are going into Game 7, the Canucks won their series, and Patrick Chan set a world record. I think that covers it, Canada.

YES. YES. YES.

On Friday, I posted about Michael Taube and his article suggesting vote mobs were a terrible idea. I was quite upset at his suggestion that vote mobs were circuses designed to get apathetic radicals off their couches and into the polls in order to screw up democracy. (At least, in final sum, I think that was the main thrust of his argument. It wasn't particularly coherent.)

Today comes this lovely response full of WIN. An excerpt:

And to Taube’s question: “Do you really think any of the major leaders honestly cares that some 18-25-year-olds who wouldn’t ordinarily vote have suddenly been convinced by a comedian’s rant on TV?”

In a word, sir, No. The vote mobs, Mr. Taube, Mr. Harper, Mr./Ms. Member of Parliament, are not for you. They’re for me. For us. For the 18-25-year-old crowd. We’re not convincing you, we’re convincing ourselves. We’re convincing ourselves that we really do matter and that we really do have potential political clout. We also mob to remind ourselves, and to tell other youth, that we are the problem. The fact that our political power goes unrealized is a problem only we created and only we can solve. Politicians don’t listen because we don’t vote. When we dance, scream, and yell “VOTE!” we’re not talking to you, Sir, we’re talking to each other.

I don’t really care whether or not the party leaders see our video. What I want is for youth across Canada to see it. They’re the reason I left my books in the library to go out in the cold and jump around, not you, not the adults, not the political leaders.

I find it incredibly sad that some see Vote Mobs as an indication of something wrong with either youth or Canada. If we were protesting anything, it was apathy. If we were celebrating anything, it was Canada and democracy. In light of events across the world, for example, the protests in Egypt, 300 young Canadians rallying in front of their school, singing O Canada and waving signs that say “Vote” is an indication of all that’s right in Canada.

You should really go read it in full, because it's many shades of awesome.

Who said this election wasn't going to change anything?

Things are shaping up for this to be a historic election. First of all, voting at the advance polls jumped 35% from last election. This is part of a general trend seeing more people vote at advance polls, accompanied by the fact that they fell on a long weekend and also, I think, greater awareness of the advance polls. So it doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a big jump in overall voter turnout. The advance polls in the riding where my school is ran through 60% more voters than last election. In this student-heavy riding, this might be due to vote mobs, the fact that there are no exams on Good Friday, or the fact that most students are going to be out of the city and off to summer jobs before May 2nd.

Besides a potential voter turnout revolution, things are looking good for a potential Green victory in Elizabeth May's riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands, BC. (Saanich-Gulf Islands, was, by the way, a trending topic in the Twittersphere today.) Both the Liberal and NDP candidates have environmental activist cred, so it seems the riding is environmentally friendly in general.

And, one of the biggest upsets--polls show the NDP leading the Liberals in support. They're predicting a Conservative minority of around 130 seats with an NDP official op with about 100. People in Ontario are freaking out remembering Bob Rae's disastrous NDP provincial government, but I had dinner tonight with someone from Nova Scotia and someone from Manitoba. Both of these provinces are currently under NDP government, and both are getting along just fine. "The Liberals are just falling away," one suggested. "There's just less interest in a centrist party. My problem on a federal level is that I'm fiscally conservative, but left socially, and there's no party for that." Too true.

Anyway, they're calling it the Orange Crush:

And, even more orange crush-ing, here are the results when people were asked to name both their first and second choices:

That's the majority of people polled putting the NDP in their top two, yo! Totally throwing that in the face of everyone who says this election isn't going to change anything. Now there are definite problems with polling data, so let's not count our MPs before they hatch. But anyway, orange crush. I am drinking some right now (for non-NDP-related reasons). Also:



UPDATE: I picked that song because it has orange crush in the lyrics, but I forgot how depressing it was. Pro the NDP's promise to get troops home from Afghanistan? Anyway...

"Dirty Tricks" and "Imagined Scandals": Power, Partisan Politics, and the 2011 General Election

If I was writing a history paper on this election campaign, that is what I would call it.

First, the dirty tricks. They are the actions of a small few, and not representative of the general population:

The sum effect is that people are left with a bad taste in their mouths (a new Angus Reid survey shows 80 per cent of Canadians are politically "scattered between mistrust, cynicism and alienation"), despite the best efforts of most candidates to run clean campaigns.

"I see it as a few bad apples in a pretty darn good system," said Capstick. "If you go to local debate, after local debate, you'll see candidates shaking hands — and meaning it. Some of them even hug."

Of course, hugging doesn't tend to make headlines.

But even looking at the bad behaviour that is making headlines, experts say things could — and have been — much worse, with most pointing to previous violence by the Front de liberation du Quebec between 1963 and 1970.

J. Scott Matthews, an assistant professor of political studies at Queen's University, said the problem is that the actions of a few are being mistaken for the sentiments of the many.

And now for the scandals, which are apparently imaginary.

A Liberal ad (now revised) claimed that Stephen Harper is after “absolute power.”

Really?

And, when one person was kept out of Harper rally, the media went on a feeding frenzy. I’m not saying it was right to keep that one person out of the rally, but I’m pretty sure that our democracy was not threatened.

The same is true of the various scandals surrounding the Conservatives: Afghan detainees, Kairos funding, Rights & Democracy, Bev Oda, in-and-out funding, ethnic fundraising, Helena Guergis, Rahim Jaffer, Bruce Carson, proroguing parliament, and right up to contempt of parliament.

Time and time again, we’ve been warned that the scandal-ridden Conservatives are a threat to our democracy.

Have we lost all perspective in Canada?

No. Perhaps you have. Because the scandals surrounding "Aghan detainees, Kairos funding, Rights & Democracy, Bev Oda, in-and-out funding, ethnic fundraising, Helena Guergis, Rahim Jaffer, Bruce Carson, proroguing parliament, and right up to contempt of parliament" all sound pretty threatening to democracy to me.

Anyway. The later part of the article is less eyebrow-raising. He makes the point that no one is really focused on the issues anymore, and we're all getting distracted by this flouffy scandal stuff, which is fair--I mean, Bruce Carson and Helena Guergis won't even be footnotes in history textbooks in twenty-five years, but the actual policies governments create have lasting effects.

Vote Mobs: USask and U of T Mississauga

USask:



ORIGINAL SONG ABOUT VOTE MOBS!!!!! I'm excited :)

UofTM:



I like how they all crowd on the bus at the very end!

This is Terrible

I am appalled.

Liberal campaign organizers in central Toronto say they have seen a record level of election-related vandalism as party supporters complained of scratched cars and slashed tires, while across town, the Liberals said they had fired a campaign worker after complaints he was removing Green party literature from mailboxes.

Vandals in the central riding of St. Paul's have targeted at least 45 cars in front of homes with Liberal lawn signs over the Easter long weekend, said Lynne Steele, campaign manager for Liberal incumbent Carolyn Bennett.

There has been "much, much more" vandalism than during the 2008 election, when vandals slashed the brake lines on some cars owned by Liberal supporters. This year, the vandalism has been so widespread that Bennett's campaign is hoping to hold a postelection fundraiser to pay for repairs to Liberal supporters' cars. "Some of the people have been hit two and three times," she said.

Seriously. Seriously. What are elections in this country coming to?

End-of-the-Long-Weekend Brain Break!

These Hipster Harpers brought to you via my Awesome Housemate, who is quite clever and also really into memes.

Looking for something to cook this week? Why not try family recipes from the party leaders? Try Harper's Mexican lasagna (so multi-cultural!), Ignatieff's pasta and baked vegetables (so health conscious and with an easy vegetarian option!), Jack Layton's gumdrop cake (so sweet and sugary just like Jack!), or Elizabeth May's Charleston Light Dragoon Punch (also, "the iron fist in the velvet glove," may have to try this one...).

Looking for something to do right this very minute in order to procrastinate? Why not take the federal election 2011 leaders' quiz? I got 10/20, and I totally judge Michael Ignatieff for preferring asparagus to chocolate. Who does that?

Video time!

John Roby, The Harper Song. Love the bluesy feel.



Jack Layton gives an impromptu piano concert today at lunch.



Also sings "Cockels and Mussels" on an airplane. I think I sang this song in Girl Guides as a child...



Aaaaaaand one more Hipster Harper to close it all off:

Things for the Reading

1) The Liberals have been pushing the idea that Canadians shouldn't trust Harper with a majority, but this issue doesn't seem to be motivating too many Canadians. Meanwhile, Harper sidesteps the question. And Richard Foot reflects on the former Reform Party's political integrity, which has sadly disappeared from the current incarnation of Conservatives.

t seems almost fanciful now, but in the 1993 and 1997 federal elections, candidates for the Reform Party were required to sign a contract committing them to the politics of integrity. If elected, their actions would be governed not by the partisan demands of their party but by the will of their constituents and above all, their own moral conscience.

Keith Martin, the British Columbia MP who came to Ottawa as a Reformer and was later elected as a Liberal, always kept the old document in his briefcase during his years in office as a reminder, he says, of how things ought to be.

"That's frankly why I joined the Reform Party," he says. "We had a very democratic mandate."

Seventeen years after Martin arrived in Parliament, political integrity seems a rather a quaint and quixotic notion, discarded amid the dark thickets of tactical scheming, rule-bending and permanent party warfare that consume federal politics today.

Oh, nostalgia. So bitter and so sweet. Martin compares the disaffection of MPs to battered wife syndrome.

Political integrity, once undermined mostly by sex, money and patronage, is now also being eroded by more disturbing trends: the erosion of democratic rules and customs, and the decline of civil discourse.

"Parliament is a sham," shouted Maclean's magazine from its front page recently.

The House of Commons is fading into irrelevance. Budget details are now leaked to the media before they are tabled in Parliament. Prime ministers float policies and legislation — even decisions about going to war — in speeches to Rotary clubs or interviews on television, rather than in the House.

Voters are routinely mocked. Politicians elected to sit with one party cross the floor with the promise of a cabinet job in another.

MPs are afraid to speak their minds, instead reciting 'talking points' issued by cadres of rabidly partisan, unelected apparatchiks in the service of party leaders.

Laws, such as the fixed-date election law, are flouted by the very people who create them.

Parties — once grassroots organizations that fuelled the democratic process — are now hollow shells, serving only as brand names for leaders and their professional marketing teams at election time.

And young voters are so inured to this that, nonplussed, they consider it all a part of the greater political game. ...Sorry, that was my bitterness slipping in there. I hope reading things like this will convince people that the partisan mudslinging we've got now isn't "just how it is"!

The current election, rather than being a contest of ideas, has become a campaign of fear: in speeches and television attack ads the parties stoke fear of secret coalitions and hidden agendas, fear for the future of health care, fear of economic meltdown, fear of Quebec separatism. The leaders and their advisers seek power by scaring voters, rather than inspiring them.

True that!

2) One of the biggest stories these past few days has been the sudden surge of NDP support in opinion polls. Here is an interesting perspective on the NDP's historical position at the balance of power, which makes the excellent point that the NDP's gains actually don't matter that much to Stephen Harper since they're mostly taking Liberal and Bloc support anyway. Countering that is this reality check on the accuracy of opinion polls. Not only do pollsters mainly call landlines (not hitting youth voters), so many people have caller ID now and won't pick up for a 1-800 number, and those who do usually don't want to spend the twenty minutes. So realistically, the demographic represented the best in polling numbers is seniors. But polls still make good stories in the news media, especially since all the parties released their platforms so early this year.

3) Happier thoughts! Let's read about the youth vote movement, about fighting voter apathy, and about the 120 candidates under 30!

Vote Mob Extravaganza Continues: UBCO & Kelowna, Brandon, Brock, Regina

UBC Okanagan & Kelowna vote mob got all their candidates out, which is awesome to see. Also: how are three of the four candidates women?? I have never seen this before but it makes me happy!



I LOVE the song choice for Brandon U's vote mob! (Although, apparently, Stephen Harper plays it on his tour bus. Finally, something Harper and I can agree on: classic rock.)



Brock's vote mob is particularly patriotic, although I was terrified someone was going to step on the flag!



I like Regina's mascot. Is that... a gopher??? (Update: Ok so it's apparently a cougar who interrupts pirate duels and marriage proposals in order to get people to vote. WIN for most awesome mascot ever!!!)



With all the vote mobs today, it's really got me thinking that one of the really nice parts of this is being able to see universities across the country. Like Brandon University for example--I've heard of it, maybe, but I don't know anyone who goes there and I never gave it too much thought, and now I get to see all the awesome and creative and politically engaged students. And all the vote mobs running across campus, through libraries and food courts and student unions, that's really really neat to see. It's too bad it's such an icky time of year--I know my campus shows up best in fall when the leaves change. Maybe we can do this all again next time!

Vote Mob Spectacular: Concordia, SFU, and Vancouver Superheroes

I very much appreciate Concordia's Lonely Island song parody. (Wait for it, wait for it…)



SFU's vote wall draws attention to the very important and often ignored issue of student debt.



Vancouver Superhero vote mob: delightfully silly!