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?

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.

"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.

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.

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)

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.

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!

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!

Some Inspirational Musical Stylings

Friday Night Brain Break

New tumblr: Things Harper Does to Seem Human.

Check out The Bacon Party of Canada. Their notes are my favourite. Straight-up hilarious parodies of campaign ad rhetoric.

Leavin' Stephen:


Lead Now parodies "I AM CANADIAN":


Steve Paikin interviews Rick Mercer:

Vote Mobs: Calgary and McGill

First off, the official video for the University of Calgary vote mob. Bonus points for singing of O Canada!



Here's the footage from the vote mob at McGill University:



They've tagged the Université de Montréal in their video. uOttawa tagged the Université de Québec à Montréal. So far it seems that vote mobs are a phenomenon only at English universities (and in English cities! See if there's one near you!) other than uOttawa, which is a bilingual university. I hope francophone youth throughout the country step up too!

We're Not Props for Photo-Ops! Oh, ethnic tokenism.

On Wednesday a Conservative staffer sent around an email asking if there were any ethnic people in Etobicoke, and if so, could they come to Harper's rally in "national folklore costume." Oh yes. He went there.

Of course both Harper and the Etobicoke Center Tory candidate are distancing themselves from the incident, and the Grits are having a field day wandering around blustering about how people don't wear costumes, they wear clothes. I read somewhere that Ignatieff said something along the lines of, 'it's not national costume, it's national dress', which admittedly isn't much better. But I can't find that article so I'm going to assume it's a claim as unsubstantiated as the Helena Guergis attacks.

Anyway, in AWESOMENESS news, there was a counter-rally on Thursday. From the CBC:

A Facebook page formed after the email was leaked calls the email "patronizing and offensive" and invites people to participate in a counter-rally outside the Etobicoke event.

"Whether you're Chinese, Arab, Portuguese, Italian, South Asian, Irish, Vulcan, Klingon, Zombie, or Ewok. Let's show the Conservatives that "ethnic voters" are not props for photo-ops," the Facebook page says.

Salmaan Khan, a Ryerson student who helped organize the event, said he felt it was important to respond to the email.

"Personally, as a person of colour, I found the comments that were made in the email from the Conservative camp to be offensive," he said Thursday. "We are not ethnics, we are Canadians."

He said cultural garb is not necessarily a costume.

"But that's how they worded it, and I guess that's what we'll show up in."

Khan said he is not sure how many people will attend the event, or what they would wear — but he said some people are planning to come dressed as Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.

"We're not props for photo-ops!" Good slogan, no? Sounds like something you would chant at a rally.

Now I am not a member of a visible minority group, but according to some people I am a member of an ethnic group, so I get sensitive about these kinds of issues. The rally sounds like fun. If I were in Toronto area I might have showed up in my Dolce & Gabbana or whatever is "ethnic costume" for us "Eye-talian" ethnics. Probably leopard print.

Anyway, here is the story, with footage from the rally, on Global:

Some Funny/Awesome Stuff in Case You Are Bored

OK, so I have been a little bit in absentia today, and will be kind of in and out over the next few days on account of I Work Hard For My Tuition! Also: Final Papers Gah! Howsomever, here are some Things For You:



Pretty awesome, eh?

From last week: speculating on the leaders' pillow talk.

ALSO: Did you know that Rick Mercer writes for Maclean's now? Everything he writes is hilarious.

So the other day while googling "vote against apathy" (I am now 4 of the top 7 hits, including videos) I discovered that a few weeks ago someone tweeted about my blog, and I'm pretty sure I went to high school with this someone, which is cool. Or is it creepy that I remember that? Probably creepy.

Anyway. French-language debate coming up in less than an hour, and then I will be back to the Serious, Hard-Hitting Coverage you expect of me. But hopefully this will tide you over until then.

If you weren't watching the NHL draft lottery you may have noticed there was a debate

So there was a debate. It was interesting. Actually, no, that's a complete lie. It was really, really boring. Except for when they yelled at each other. Stephen Harper didn't look directly at the camera or at the other leaders, stayed very calm, spoke in a patronizing tone, downright lied more than a few times, and said, "That's simply not true" a whole lot. Jack Layton was friendly, made some good points, called Harper out for having changed his ideals from when he first arrived in Ottawa, and basically turned out very well. Gilles Duceppe attacked Harper (his strategy this whole campaign), said a few things about Quebec that I could TELL the second came out of his mouth would be misinterpreted/misquoted, and got a bit angry which made his English a little bit sloppy. Michael Ignatieff did the best at bringing up youth issues, made some very insightful and incisive remarks about Harper's rule, and produced the most soundbites. Like he was basically speaking in soundbites. Very history prof. Obviously as a history student I approve, although he used a lot of what I call "essay words".

If there are awards, then Harper wins the one for cool-headedness. However he somehow managed to not really answer the questions put to him by the other leaders. He dismissed talk of his contempt charge, trust, and accountability, and shied away from talking about the Auditor General's report that he misquoted. He was also very dismissive and patronizing towards the other leaders, their platforms, and their points.

Jack Layton was definitely the most friendly and personable. Ignatieff called him "Jack" throughout the debate (maybe the other leaders did too but I didn't notice) and he somehow manage to seem more human and more normal than the other leaders. He also had a few good burns against each of the other leaders, especially Ignatieff's absence from the House of Commons and Harper's change of opinion since he came into power.

I personally love Gilles Duceppe, although he doesn't come across nearly as well in English as he does in French. I thought he seemed a little emotional in this debate--although I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, the idea that we should have unemotional and therefore impartial leaders is kind of a fallacy. He absolutely ATTACKED Stephen Harper with the 2004 coalition agreement, which shouldn't be a surprise for anyone who's been following him so far. Unfortunately Duceppe's comments about multiculturalism not working in the Quebec context were misinterpreted. It's important to remember that Quebec's model of integration is different from the model of multiculturalism in the rest of Canada, but IS NOT ASSIMILATION. (Sidenote: as the daughter of an immigrant I personally feel that integration works better than multiculturalism. The problem with multiculturalism is that everybody cares so much about what piece of the cultural mosaic you come from when you just consider yourself Canadian.)

Michael Ignatieff WINS on youth issues and WINS on women's issues and WINS on immigration issues and WINS on sound-bite production. But he did get a little bit passionate--as I mentioned before NOT A BAD THING. Also he didn't have a good response to Layton's accusation that he's absent a lot from the House of Commons, or any of the accusations that his platform has a lot of the same holes in it as the Conservative one. And while Ignatieff may have won on youth and women's issues, by being the only leader to actually bring them up (other than gang violence), he really didn't say that much on them.

Anyway. I wish they would have covered some different issues, or at least not always let each question turn into the same argument over and over again. I also would have loved to see them scream insults at each other but maybe that's just me.

Memes! Duceppe, Harper, Layton.

Leaders Debates Bingo!

I still like my drinking game idea but these are awesome too :)

View/download 10 bingo cards here.

Would you be more likely to watch the leaders' debate if it was a drinking game?

Because I've been thinking about how that would play out. You would obviously have to drink every time Gilles Duceppe refers to "the best interests of the Quebec nation." Every time Michael Ignatieff waggles his eyebrows. Every time Jack Layton mentions sitting around the kitchen table. And, of course, every time Stephen Harper dodges a question by talking about his family.  And a shot every time a Green Party ad comes on during the commercial breaks.

Yes?  Yes?

Leadership debates Sir John A style

Election Coverage News

So the French language leadership debate was scheduled for the same time as a Montreal Canadiens playoff game. Clearly, this was a disaster. (Actually, it was, because as anyone from Quebec knows, the Habs are practically a religion.) So Gilles Duceppe got it moved. So pro, Gilles, so pro.

According to a new poll, 21% of voters are using social media to discuss and debate the election. Apparently middle-aged voters more so than young voters, probably for the practical reason that young voters have much better things to do with their social media. I think I shall take this as a call to arms and encourage you ALL to spend more time posting political statuses on Facebook. It's what all the cool kids are doing.

I think by now all of the major parties have released their platforms. In the coming week or so I'll be looking at them and seeing how they compare on youth and student issues. After that I will probably do some quick overviews of the more minor political parties. And of course I'll have a lot to say for the leadership debates!

Vote Mob Time! UVic and McMaster

Vote mob at the University of Victoria:


Coverage of the McMaster University vote mob on CBC's The National:


Also, this. I have no idea what it is, and I'm not sure whether or not to be amused.

Student News

Students at McMaster participated in a flash mob that was allowed into a Conservative rally. True story. "The fact that they let us in today represents that they are listening, they're aware of the student vote," said one of the organizers. Yay student power!

Some people are upset advance polling coincides with Easter weekend. "It's the sheer stupidity of it," says one lady. Personally I think it's genius. Lots of students are going to be heading back to their hometowns for the weekend, whether or not they celebrate Easter, so it's the ideal time to vote in your home riding if you choose to do so!