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!

People Think Really Deep Thoughts

The biggest news so far this long weekend is that the NDP have made gigantic gains in the polls, leading all the other parties to gang up on it. If anyone says that this election hasn't changed anything in federal politics, there's your most concrete example right there.

I am not a fan of attack ads, so I'm not going to focus on this (although you can easily find them on YouTube if you are interested). Instead, here are a bunch of opinion pieces about widely different topics.

1) Andrew Coyne thinks that Harper is laying the ground for a constitutional crisis. Clearly Harper knows that coalitions are viable options--he thought of forming one himself in 2004. But talking of a potential coalition government or second-party-minority government as "undemocratic" might be a preparation for a second King-Byng--if the government loses the confidence of the House, Harper might demand that the governor general call an election instead of asking another party to form the government.

2) Rita Trichur is pissed at ethnic tokenism and blatant pandering to "ethnic voters" this election. Worst of all, special focus on South Asian and East Asian communities is alienating other minority ethnic groups.

3) Joe O'Connor speculates who would be king or queen of Canada if we ever decided to rid ourselves of our current monarchy.

That's it for tonight. Tomorrow: an influx of vote mob videos!

Peter Mansbridge's voice is so much nicer than anyone else's, but then, we already knew that

Peter Mansbridge has been interviewing all the leaders. And since Peter Mansbridge should totally be our king, you should go watch!

Elizabeth May

Jack Layton

Michael Ignatieff

Stephen Harper

You might remember that Ignatieff's interview set off some firecrackers with his talk of forming a government if the Conservatives fail to gain the confidence of the House. And the Galloping Beaver has an analysis of Harper's interview that is pretty interesting.

Mob Mentality

Yesterday, I read this and it made me really angry. It's an opinion piece by Michael Taube, a former Harper speechwriter, about why vote mobs are a terrible, horrible, very bad idea. I already knew I was going to be unimpressed by the second paragraph: "A few weeks ago, there was no such thing as a “vote mob.” But an idea hiding in a deep, dark corridor of comedian Rick Mercer’s brain has, quite by accident, unleashed this holy terror onto unsuspecting Canadians." Holy terror? Srsly? Don't you think that's a bit overdramatic? Taube also says, "Thanks a bunch, Rick. Just what Canada always wanted: another excuse for young people to do foolish things in public, complete with a mob mentality. I’ll make sure you get an extra lump of coal in your stocking at Christmas for your good deed!"

Excuse me, sir. I did not realize that making a public demonstration of our intentions to perform our civic duty and vote counted as "doing foolish things in public." Please allow me to grovel at your feet in forgiveness.

Taube argues, first of all, that vote mobs aren't going to encourage anyone to vote who wasn't going to do so already. This is a common criticism of vote mobs, and my opinion on this subject is down later after I've finished ranting. Anyway, back to Taube:

Also, vote mobs aren’t going to force major changes in the political parties to recognize youth issues. 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? I hate to break it to them, but there are already young people in all political parties who have been volunteering in campaign offices for weeks. They do everything from answering phones to helping shape policy. These are the type of young voters that the parties want to attract, not those of the circus clown variety.

At the same time, is it a wise idea to encourage young people to vote who aren’t well informed on politics and current events to begin with? For instance, there is a political radicalism among youth — especially the type of youth who would stay home on election day — that could lead to many fringe parties receiving votes. This is good for democracy, but not necessarily for political stability. While no one is expecting all young people to have PhD-level understanding of the Canadian political system, a decent amount of knowledge would be nice.

You think that just because we dance around in bright colours to demonstrate our enthusiasm, we are "circus clown" voters instead of "serious" voters? I don't think this even dignifies a response. Also: have you ever tried to control a crowd of 300 screaming young adults, or an elephant? Requires skills I imagine you don't possess. Have some respect for the circus, please.

And then--"...encourage young people to vote who aren't well informed on politics and current events to begin with." Well colour me infuriated. Do you think that all "non-young" adults who vote are informed about the issues? Today when I was standing in line at the advance poll, I heard a middle-aged man say that the results would probably be the same as last time, because nothing had happened to change people's opinions. WHAT. I wanted to turn around and tell him everything I've posted on this blog in the past month, and more. An even bigger problem is people (particularly elderly people) who vote out of tradition. Two close friends of mine say their grandmothers do this--the one votes Conservative every election because her father always voted Conservative, the other considers herself to come from a strong Grit family and so votes Liberal in every election out of family tradition. (Both of these women live in rural areas where memories are long and traditions strong.) Being informed about the issues has never been a requirement for voting for any segment of the population--and I think that young people are more likely to NOT vote if they feel uninformed.

Don't even get me started on "there is a political radicalism among youth — especially the type of youth who would stay home on election day." I feel like he's probably imagining a person who votes for the Marijuana Party but accidentally gets high on election day and forgets to go to the polls. Or something. Because all of the young people I know who are politically radical are making a point of returning a ballot this election--even if it's a blank one.

And you know what? I would like to see a decent amount of knowledge about the political system from our leaders, thank you. A lot of the most politically active students are studying politics or related fields, and know WAY MORE SHIT about parliamentary democracies than the general population.

I'm sure that Mr. Taube also imagines that young people don't read newspapers, or perhaps he wouldn't have submitted something so negative against young people to be published.

Anyway. Happier news. The CBC interviewed some vote mob participants in Toronto. It's pretty interesting.

The other day I participated in a vote mob myself, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the experience. While it was happening--the running, the screaming, the cheering, the chanting, the waving of signs, the dancing, the singing--I felt invigorated, enthused, inspired. The only problem was that, unlike your average rally, this was explicitly being filmed for YouTube, and so the camera operators needed to get a lot of shots of us to edit together later. We would run around the intersection, dance for about a minute, cheer, dance a bit more, and then run around the intersection again... rinse & repeat... that really got in the way of the momentum and just became exhausting.

After I got home, I thought about it. I thought about the students who streamed out of exam halls as we started our mob, and who we were supposed to be trying to engage. I thought about their faces... confused, amused, or indifferent. Groups of people in colourful outfits running around, cheering, and waving signs are actually a fairly common sight on my campus. (Another reason why I took offense to Taube's "circus clown" comment...) And I thought about the twenty minutes we spent standing around before the vote mob started, waiting for exams to let out so we could make noise. A couple of girls walking by on the sidewalk knew one of the participants who was standing near me, and they came up to ask her what was going on. She explained about the vote mob movement, about low youth voter turnout, about the importance of voting. The two girls looked interested. "That's really cool," one said. "I thought you guys were like rallying for the Young Liberals with all that red." "No! No! The red is for Canada!" "Ooooooohhhhhh..."

While those two girls walked away from us more informed and interested than they had been, I didn't see any of the students coming out of the exam halls join in our dancing/running/chanting/sign-waving. I realized that our brightly-coloured mob looked closed to them--no, not even that. The mob of people had become one amorphous blob of humanity, dancing-running-chanting-singing-running-dancing-chanting, alienating rather than welcoming.

That led me to two important thoughts. First, the potential for vote mobs to attract new voters lies more in the social media aspect--having an awesome YouTube video that makes its way around Facebook and Twitter--than in the actual vote mob itself. Second, vote mobs are important NOT just to encourage students to vote--the biggest criticism of vote mobbing. Of course they're almost entirely made up of people who were always going to vote anyway. That's not a problem. Vote mobs are the highly visible physical manifestation of some young people's political engagement. Because almost 40% of young people voted in the last election, and while that is a very small voter turnout, we focus so much on the almost two-thirds of youth who didn't vote that I think a lot of people often forget about the over one-third of youth who did. Showing up for a vote mob is kind of like putting on a "This is what a feminist looks like" t-shirt. Maybe we're less than half of youth, but we're here, we pay attention to the issues, we're voting, and you can't ignore us if we wear bright colours and scream really loudly (although you can call us circus clowns).

At the end of the day, a sign I saw at the vote mob expresses in itself why the vote mob phenomenon, why the visibility of youth voters, is so important: "We're not just the future. We're the present, too."

I Just Voted (And it Felt SO GOOD)

So you folks all know the song "I Just Had Sex" from the Lonely Island? Yes? Yes. Okay. Here goes:

I just vote-e-ed
And it felt so good (felt so good!)
The ballot box let me put my ballot inside it (yeah)
I just vote-e-e-e-ed
And I'll never go back (never go back)
To the not-having-a-vote days of the past

Have you ever voted? I have, it felt great
It felt so good when I checked the little box
The returning officer let me do it, it literally just happened
Voting is awesome but won'tnecessarilymakeyouabetterperson

Never guess where I just came from, I was voting
If I had to describe the feeling, it was pwning
When I cast my vote, man the world felt great
And I tweeted it right after I was done

...and that's all I got for now folks. Voiced=raised. Civic duty=discharged. Awesomeness=achieved.

Sometimes the news makes me angry

What is this you say? You want to hear more from Stephen Harper and high-ranking Conservative cabinet ministers proving they have no understanding of or respect for parliamentary democracy? Okay. Here is more. And also here.

In case you can't tell, I'm still pissed this is even happening and even more pissed that Harper's fear-mongering, anti-parliamentary attacks are working.

Vote Mob at Acadia!

Awesomesauce. Liked the creativity with the individual students in the beginning!

A few last things before the advance polls open

1) All you need to vote is proof of identity and proof of address. That's a government-issued photo ID and, if your driver's license has your parents' address on it but you want to vote at school, a piece of official mail with your address. You can find out more at Elections Canada. If you're not sure where to vote, Vote.ca is a really easy-to-use resource.

2) If you're still undecided, Apathy is Boring has handy-dandy summaries of the platforms of each the 18 parties running candidates this election. (For example, the Rhinoceros party: "Democracy Reform: Voting areas will be decorated and soft music will be played"; the Christian Heritage Party: "Women's Rights: The CHP is the only pro-life party in Canada today"; the Marxist-Leninist Party: "Defence and National Security: Withdraw Canada from NORAD and NATO".) Seriously, check it out.

3) Find yourself a vote date! "Vote, Actually" from Lead Now:



4) Results of the latest poll. Absolutely shocking.

5) Another analysis of the latest poll results. Still shocking. It's shaping up to be a potentially historic race!

6) It's illegal to publish election results on the Internet (including Facebook and Twitter) when polls are still open in some areas of the country, in case it influences voting in those regions. Tweeters are fighting back. If you live in BC you probably won't have to worry about this.

7) Elizabeth May with Paul McCartney and... a baby? Anyway. I bet Stephen Harper feels silly for singing all those Beatles/John Lennon songs now, knowing they're friends of Pierre Trudeau and Elizabeth May. Via Vintage Voter.

8) The vote mob movement made it onto the BBC! You know you're newsworthy when. Perhaps we shall set off an international student movement. ...yeah, right.

Well, as far as I know that's it. For those of you who are planning to vote in the advance polls, as I am, happy voting to you!

UBC and Waterloo Vote Mobs!!!

Vote mob at UBC! Love the intro :)


Vote mob at Waterloo! What's with the giant vegetables??

Late-night double-feature picture show

You know that Liberal candidate with the really awesome ad I liked? Now he has another video, which is also awesome. Seriously, the Liberals are winning at YouTube.



And this epic song should convince students everywhere to vote!

This is How a Parliamentary Democracy Works

The CBC have an article called "Ignatieff, Harper in war of words over minority scenarios". They've got that right.

So, here's the 411, to use Layton-esque slang. Yesterday, Michael Ignatieff said that if the Conservatives win a minority, but are unable to secure the confidence of the House, and the governor general asks the Liberals if they can form the government, he will try to do so.

He acknowledged that he could try to form a government — without going back to Canadian voters — if a Conservative minority is elected but subsequently defeated in the House of Commons. Moreover, Ignatieff made no apologies for that possibility — saying that this is exactly what would normally happen in a parliamentary democracy.

Ignatieff's comments set up a clear contrast with views held by Conservative leader Stephen Harper over the legitimacy of a government led by a second-place party and promise to be pivotal issues in the remaining days of the campaign.

He's absolutely right. This is exactly what would normally happen in a parliamentary democracy. It's called the Westminster system. In the Westminster system, electors choose the MPs that make up the House of Commons, and whichever party has the support of the House gets to form government whether it has the most seats or not. Usually the party that has the most seats gets to try first, but if things change, that party loses confidence but another party gains it, then that second party can form the government. Here's the hypothetical situation in question, according to Ignatieff:

"If Mr. Harper wins most seats, forms a government but does not secure the confidence of the House — and I'm assuming Parliament comes back — then it goes to the Governor General. That's what happens. That's how the rules work.

"And then, if the Governor General wants to call on other parties — myself for example — to try to form a government, then we try to form a government. That's exactly how the rules work. And what I'm trying to say to Canadians is, I understand the rules, I respect the rules, I'll follow them to the letter and I'm not going to form a coalition."

Seriously. Trust Ignatieff on this. He's right. That's what happens, that's how the rules work. I mean before he was a politician he used to study and teach this stuff for a living at some of the greatest universities in the world!

Stephen Harper sees things another way. He's already mentioned he thinks it's "undemocratic" that the second-place party rule. He also believes that Ignatieff is secretly talking about a coalition:

The Conservative leader said Wednesday he would be “honoured with any mandate” his party receives from voters on May 2.

But refused to discuss what changes to the party’s platform he would be willing to accept to keep the Conservatives in power if they win another minority.

Instead, Harper ratcheted up his rhetoric about the prospect of a coalition, calling it a ‘black hole” that would stall the recovery, provoke more constitutional squabbling, and trigger a “national-unity crisis.” He was likely referring to comments by Jack Layton in the English-language debate, in which the NDP leader said he was open to re-opening the debate on how to get Quebec to sign the constitution.

Harper also declared that an opposition coalition would lead to another referendum on whether Quebec should separate from Canada, even though it would be up to the provincial government to put forward such a vote.

“We don’t know what that government will stand for,” Harper said of a possible coalition.

“But we do know the general outlines. There’s no focus on the economy. There are tax hikes, and of course these parties have very dangerous and conflicting views on national unity and constitutional matters. So as I say, I think the option for Canadians to avoid all of this, is to vote for a strong, stable, national majority conservative government on May the second.”

Okay. First of all, it is FAR FROM a clear choice between a Strong Harper Majority and an Evil Reckless Coalition. Firstly, majorities tend to be more reckless than coalitions, who must remain moderate in order to appease all parties involved. Secondly, Ignatieff has said time and time again that he WILL NOT form a coalition, and in the hypothetical situation he has outlined he's not forming a coalition either. Thirdly, if there is a Conservative minority, what makes a minority stable is having the support of the House. If Harper refuses to co-operate with other parties, any minority he had would be lost very quickly. And I'm not even going to get into the allegations that a Liberal government will mean another sovereignty referendum in Quebec.

But back to the CBC article, where the leaders are bickering and trying to clarify their statements.

"I have never said I will vote against his budget," Ignatieff told reporters in Saint John.

Harper would have to negotiate support with the other parties and govern accordingly, he added.

"What I've said is, I want to form a government. I want to get … the most seats. I then want to offer a budget to the Parliament of Canada and seek its support. If he gets more seats than me or my party, then he will present a budget, and hey, you know what I do with a budget: I read it."

Harper says he wants to form a majority government. Ignatieff says he would be happy to form any government at all. Clearly this makes Ignatieff a volatile vigilante bandito. Even worse, the leader of a gang of volatile, vigilante, separatist, socialist banditos! But Ignatieff responds to Harper's comments about the coalition:

"No. I repeat, no," Ignatieff said to applause from Liberal supporters.

"I don't have a problem about coalition, and I don't have a problem about respecting the constitution of my country. With the greatest respect, I would tell you that Mr. Harper has a problem with both."

Later, Ignatieff said of Harper: "What does he think he is? The king here? It's 'my way or the highway' the whole time .… He has an obligation to present a budget that has the confidence of the House of Commons .… The ruthless, relentless disrespect for Parliament is why we're having an election here."

And Gilles Duceppe weighs in on the issue with clear insight, reminding me that during the leaders' debates some people commented that he has the best understanding of how our government works:

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe was critical Wednesday of what he called Harper's "no compromise" approach to dealing with the possibility of another minority government, calling it irresponsible.

Speaking with reporters in the Eastern Townships, Duceppe said Harper "needs to respect those whom Canadians choose to send to Ottawa to represent them."

Because, see, THIS is how the Westminster system works, THIS is how a parliamentary democracy works, THIS IS HOW OUR GOVERNMENT WORKS. We, Canadians, choose our MPs, based on the interests they're trying to protect. Then the MPs go to Parliament and duke it out there over who gets to form the government, based on who has interests in common. Your MP will presumably vote to protect the same interests WHETHER OR NOT their party is government. In the case of a minority government, it doesn't have that much more power than the other parties in terms of creating legislation, except it makes the budget. Whether a minority government is formed by the largest or the second-largest party doesn't really make a difference, because either way they have to work and compromise with other parties in order to pass their budgets and their bills. So, as Duceppe pointed out, Harper's refusal to work with the MPs the majority of Canada chose, in the case that he has a minority government, is incredibly irresponsible and WILL result in him losing confidence of the House.

This seriously feels like the King-Byng affair all over again. In that case, Mackenzie King's Liberals, who finished second to Arthur Meighen's Conservatives, formed the government with the support of the Progressives. The next year, when King's government was under threat due to a scandal caused by one of his ministers, King asked Lord Byng, the governor general, to dissolve parliament and call an election, but Byng refused. Since Meighen actually had more seats than King, Lord Byng wanted to give him a chance to form government before calling an election. Meighen was prime minister for only a couple of months before his government lost the confidence of the House. Then there was an election and King won a majority.

Moral of the story? Sometimes the second-place party makes a better government.

Also, I kind of want to be governor general. But that's another story.

Some Inspirational Musical Stylings

Mid-Week Brain Break

I don't know about you, but I sure could use some silly right now. Let us see what the Internet has unearthed...

Ah ha! Vintage Voter has pictures of the party leaders as young'uns. Here is one of my favourites, Harper's high school year book picture:

Yep, that's ol' Steve-o. Considering the fate of the long form census, looks like reality is still his pet peeve. Anyway, the others are just as completely hilarious, so click through to the end. I also think they need to add this picture, of Jack Layton at a Star Trek convention.

Also, the leaders as Muppets:

Speaking of childhood memories... do you guys remember Raffi? Because IT'S RAFFI OH MY GOD IT'S RAFFI!!!!!!!



So Decision Canada started with celebrity Stephen Harper hair makeovers, which are pretty funny, and then progressed to "Chicks with Michael Ignatieff Eyes," which is just really really weird. What are they going to do next, babies with Jack Layton mustaches?

A couple of neat things. If you're interested, the CBC has a comparison of campaign ads. Also, you should go check out Vote Lab, where you can cast a virtual vote to see how different result would be under an alternate electoral system such as mixed member proportional representation.

Carleton Vote Mob/The Movement Gains Strength!

Here's the Carleton University vote mob.  I love the intro with Rick Mercer and George Strombolopoulos!



Also, by the way, #votemob is a trending topic on Twitter right now. Oh yeah! WIN.

Here's the piece on vote mobs from the CBC on Friday, it's worth a watch.

Vote mobs and videos and lawn signs, oh my!

So there are lots of things, being said on the Interwebs, about young voters these days. First off, this is the new video from LeadNow.ca



I have to admit, when I saw the title "Let's vote together" I thought/hoped it would be a parody of that song from The Parent Trap, the original one.

Well, anyway. Next, the Globe and Mail talks about the vote mob phenomenon.

When Canadian television celebrity Rick Mercer challenged young Canadians to get themselves to the polling station on election day, he had no clue what he had started.

“In the back of my mind I was thinking perhaps some of them would write a nasty letter to the local paper,” Mr. Mercer said Sunday on CTV’s Question Period. “But no, they’ve started these vote mobs."

While the vote mobs have definitely been a mobilizing force on campuses, the Globe brings up the little-known fact that university students vote at about the same rate as the general population, while young people not at school are the ones who tend to stay home from the polls. So will youth mobilization reach out to all youth?

Still, there is something in the air this time around. It’s not just the vote mobs. It’s the huge number of election-oriented messaging that is available on the internet and on social media like Facebook and Twitter that reach students but also the young Canadians who are not actively enrolled in post-secondary education.

Gracen Johnson, one of the organizers of the vote-mob movement in Guelph, said she “definitely” believes the message is getting out to people her age who are not in school. “We all have a lot of non-university friends,” she said Sunday. “You can avoid university, you can avoid classes, but you can’t really avoid Youtube."

And since everyone knows that the real way to motivate youth is booze, Gracen Johnson and her friends are all planning to vote in the advance polls on Friday and then go out for election-themed drinks. This is something I've never heard of before. I mean, I know people who watch the election results come in at the bar, but I've never heard of going out to celebrate voting. It's like a giant drunken democracy-fest sorta reminiscent of nineteenth-century elections before they brought in the secret ballot. But I digress.

Both the Liberals and the NDP think they've been doing an awesome job at courting the youth vote. I will grant the Liberals YouTube victory, for all their excellent, pithy, short, clever videos that are easily Facebookable ("Hey Stephen Harper, stop creeping me on Facebook" being my favourite). And it makes sense that the NDP would have the strongest promises about net neutrality and cell phone billing, like this candidate claims, although if that's been in the news I've somehow managed to miss it. On the other hand, I think that the issue most likely to draw out youth voters (other, perhaps, than students) is the fact that the unemployment rate for the under-25s is almost twice that of the general population. Both the Liberals and the NDP have discussed youth employment initiatives, although I'm not sure it's an official platform plank.

This is one of the most interesting questions raised by this article, besides the student/nonstudent distinction:

If young people are going to turn out to vote in larger numbers, their new interest in democracy is impossible to measure in public-opinion polls.

Christopher Waddell, the director of the journalism school at Carleton University, who questions how Elections Canada knows who is voting and who is not given that age is not included on a ballot, said polls largely exclude the youth.

“The majority of young people these days no longer have landlines on their phones, almost all of them have cellphones. Most public-opinion surveys are not calling cellphones,” said Prof. Waddell.

And internet polling panels are largely assembled from mailings that have been compiled for other purposes like points plans or credit-card companies. “It’s very unlikely that those mailing lists would include a wide variety of young people,” he said.

I don't know. It's true that a lot of young people don't have land lines (I do, call me old school) but I would say most have credit cards, especially those in the 20 and up range. And I know lots of people (myself included) who have WAY TOO MANY points cards. Air Miles, Aeroplan, HBC points, PC points, Shoppers Optimum, MovieWatchers, Chapter's iRewards, Subway points… Most people probably have points cards from some shoe places or American Eagle Outfitters or something at the bottom of their wallets, like from that time when there was a special so if you got the points card you got 15% off your purchase that day. Anyway. The point is that young people might not be entirely unrepresented in opinion polls, although that being said by Prof. Waddell's criteria I probably should be on some pollster's list and no one's called me yet.

In other youth vote news, Ilona Dougherty of Apathy is Boring talked to Decision Canada about why youth don't vote. A lot of it is stuff I've heard before--young people feel uninformed about the issues, and think that casting an uninformed vote is irresponsible--but this is new, and something I hadn't thought of before:

Every candidate says that they want young Canadians' support. But for the most part, political campaigns are more interested in persuading the people who already voters than in encouraging young people to cast their first ballot.

Don't believe me? Ask anyone you know under the age of 30 about the last time a candidate got in touch with them. At Apathy is Boring we have an office full of 20-somethings, many of whom live in competitive ridings. None of them have received a knock on the door during this election. Or the 2008 election. Or the 2006 election. Or the 2004 election. In the last four elections, none of the parties have bothered to ask for their votes.

Up until last week I would have cried, "Too true!" However, the Liberal candidate in my riding did, in fact, come knocking on doors last week in a mainly student-populated neighbourhood. Then again, he is a fairly young candidate, and intentionally courting the considerable student vote because it's a really close race around here.

Meanwhile, Global has three ways to fight apathy. There's the informative method, taken by Apathy is Boring (which you should totally check out, by the way. They're supposed to post major party platforms minus the partisan rhetoric sometime before the advance polls). Then there's the motivational. I Vote Because… asks Canadians to explain why they vote, and then posts their responses on a map, in order to spark a conversation about why voting is important. Finally, there is The Great Canadian Blank Ballot Project, which is intended "to raise awareness of the dire need for democratic reform in Canada."

So far, the project has received both support and condemnation. “People frequently think we are advocating spoiling a ballot, which is illegal and simply not true,” says Dean.

The group makes the distinction on their website www.rejecttheelection.ca between a rejected ballot and a spoiled ballot.

“A blank ballot is perfectly valid and is counted as a rejected ballot and reported by Elections Canada,” says Dean. “whereas a spoiled ballot - one that has been defaced or destroyed - is not counted by Elections Canada.

Voters can request “None of the Above” campaign signs through the project website.

See? What did I tell you. Didn't I tell you, that if you're frustrated with democracy the blank ballot is the way to go? Answer: yes, I did tell you that. Anyway, if you're interested, this is what the lawn sign looks like:


Anyway. I've mentioned before that the vote mob movement seems to be more or less English-Canadian in nature. But I recently came across Qui vote gagne, a French site devoted to combating youth voter apathy and creating informed voters! It's awesome, and also has links to two Facebook apps, one of which allows you to create your own government by naming your friends as ministers.

Also, if you understand French at all, watch their video. It's hilarious!