UWHabs

Shutting down

2007-11-05T09:41:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been very lax in writing my thoughts for quite a while now, and to be honest, I can't seem to find the effort to keep it up. I still love following politics, I'll keep reading everyone else's blogs, and I will stay an active member of my school's Young Liberals, but the last few months, I really haven't found the inspiration necessary to keep up with regular postings. So I guess I'll shut down my comments for now. Whenever we have our next federal election, I will hopefully still contribute to Greg's Riding Bloggers, but I don't think I have the desire to keep this one up. It's been fun while it lasted, and it has certainly given me a newfound respect for those bloggers who can actually maintain a blog. Thanks to everyone who has perused my commentary!

Royalty

2007-10-23T12:24:00.000-04:00

Well, it seems the Alberta Liberals will set their foot in the sand and demand the full 20% increase in oil and gas royalties. It's the right thing do to, and for the Liberals, it should set them apart from the Conservatives, since I doubt Ed will be giving in fully to the report. As long as the Liberals are careful to explain that the oil and gas industry won't be packing up and leaving, this should be a solid position, standing up for all Albertans, not just the oil tycoons.

PET Day?

2007-10-19T13:43:00.000-04:00

Mario Silva has proposed a Pierre Elliot Trudeau Day. I just can't wait to see the PET Day parade in downtown Calgary.

Avoiding an election

2007-10-17T17:02:00.000-04:00

Well, it looks like Dion has decided to try to avoid an election, by just proposing amendments to the Throne Speech, and when they're shot down, abstain on the speech itself.

Basically, the amendments will be getting out of combat in Afghanistan in 2009 and some environmental stuff (to make the Conservatives oppose it), and corporate tax cuts (so the NDP will reject it). I can't say it's the option I'd be in favour of, but we'll see how it holds up. Although the way everyone else is talking, I still find it hard to believe that the Conservatives won't try to find a way to kill parliament before Christmas, and if they do, then this won't look so good on us heading into an election.

Chretien/Martin/Manley

2007-10-15T14:05:00.000-04:00

Now, for a few quick points on the other Liberal stories in the news:

- I don't see a big problem with Manley being on the Afghanistan panel. If he rejected, then I'm sure Harper would have found a way to spin it to be like us Liberals are too self-centered to possibly come up with any solutions, and he would still have pressed forward with it anyways. Dion did fairly well again on this question in trying say something along the lines of, "Thank God we have a reasonable voice there, since the rest of the panel is full of Mulroney people." Great move by Harper by doing this, since he might be able to avoid the Afghanistan question in an election campaign, but we'll just have to work around this and show how he doesn't actually care.

- As for the Martin-Chretien dispute, what did people expect? Chretien's not going to back down from taking stabs at Martin. And while Warren may still be angry at the current people for defending Martin over Gomery, politically it's the only thing to do. As incredibly stupid and boneheaded as Martin actually was with the inquiry, once it's announced, we can't have people saying, "We shouldn't have launched it," especially Dion. It was a stupid move, but by denouncing it, we would be bringing up all the old corruption issues back to the forefront, which really doesn't help our poll numbers. Otherwise, all that Chretien's book seems to be getting out is that Martin was incompetent as PM, which I think most people already realize. And as much as talking about these disputes of the past sucks for us, I think it's better than media focusing on the "disputes" of the present group, which we can't so easily dismiss.

Showdown with the Throne Speech

2007-10-15T13:53:00.001-04:00

Well, the big question on everyone's mind this week is what will happen with the throne speech. I caught part of Question Period yesterday, and the Conservative memo was definitely, "This is either a mandate for us or an election." I thought Dion was fairly decent in his response, trying to frame it as saying whether or not Harper will go crazy or not. The problem with this is if we actually tacitly support the speech, then it does give some credence to Harper.

So, my guess for the speech is that it will be very tough to support. I don't see Harper backing down wanting this election over with soon. However, I also see him putting in enough goodies to try to paint the opposition as anti-something. Thus, it will be absolutely essential that if we are going into an election to frame the question extremely early as to why we are voting.

That's one thing that Tory did well in the Ontario election: he framed the question early. Unfortunately for him, he picked the wrong question, but he did establish the religious schools funding before anyone else started talking about anything. And that's what Hampton was so fed up about: he didn't get his election plank out early enough for anyone to talk about anything in it. He got boxed out early.

If we do go to war, which I think is actually probably more politically sound for us to do, in my opinion, then we need to be ready right off the bat. If we pick the right question, it may not be so bad for us.

And the winner is... Al Gore

2007-10-12T09:58:00.000-04:00

Well, he's doing it again. Al Gore wins yet another award, to go on his shelf with his Emmy (for his TV network) and his Oscar (for his documentary). Where to next? The presidency is the obvious one, but I say he just continues the award show tour. I say he goes to try to win a Grammy next. He doesn't have to sing, although maybe he could collaborate with "MC Rove" on a hit.

Congrats Dalton!

2007-10-11T00:20:00.001-04:00

Well, I expected that the Liberals would take this one easily, but even I didn't think it would go this easily. Good job to everyone in trouncing the opposition.

Also, tonight I went out to scrutineer and help out for Leeanna Pendergast in Kitchener-Conestoga, and let me tell you, I think people on that campaign are still in shock about the results. They did amazing in getting her elected, and I'm sure she'll be a great MPP. Closer to home, Louise Ervin lost to Elizabeth Witmer, which was expected, but Ervin still got quite a good share of the vote, so congratulations to them on a tough campaign there. Next time, we'll get rid of Witmer.

Get out and vote!

2007-10-09T23:29:00.000-04:00

Speaking as a student, I know it's tough to get students out to vote. I always encourage everyone to get out to vote, since for me, democracy is speaking your mind. I would rather lose an election that everyone was informed about and voted on than win because nobody took the time to think about the issues. And with that, I would encourage everyone to get out there and cast your ballots tomorrow, both for the referendum question and for the general election. Both may appear to be fairly solid how they will end up, but everyone should still get out and cast their votes. I'll be voting tomorrow, and I hope everyone else eligible to will as well.

My Take on MMP: My take

2007-09-28T17:03:00.000-04:00

Well, I've gone through some points I find big, and overall, I'm still a bit torn on MMP. I do like some forms of reform, and I do believe there are better systems out there than MMP, but I'm still not sure that MMP is one of them.

If we were voting on STV or just some other different way to elect people, then I think I would vote for it, since I like most of them better. They would be relatively small changes, and would have an effect on who was elected, but would still be considered a somewhat minor change.

And I still maintain that I think the best system would be a parallel system, since that brings in an element of proportionality, but still maintaining possible majorities, since I am not a firm believer in coalitions with our current system.

But, we're not voting on those systems. I don't really like some of the anti-MMP people trying to convince people that since MMP isn't the best, we should vote against it. However, I also don't like some of the pro-MMP talk of, "At least it's a step in the right direction", since I know we won't really revisit this until at least after one election of it, and probably not until 2-3 elections down the road, which could be 10 years or more from now.

So, I'm left with my decision. I'm pretty sure that the proposal will fail on at least one of the 2 things it needs to pass, so I'm not overly worried about it. For that sense, I am leaning towards casting my ballot in favour of it, since then at least I can vote for a step towards a better system, without actually having to go through the actual system which I don't like too much. But I don't think there's enough for me in it to actually want it to pass.

My take on MMP: Coalition vs. Minority

2007-09-26T10:55:00.000-04:00

Well, the debate about MMP heats up now that Dan has waded into the mess, stepping in against the proposal. One of the points that came up a bit reading over the comments was the distinction between coalitions and minorities, and how they differ, what they mean, and which, if either, is stable. I'll format this message a bit more as a rant than a point/my take thing.

So, first off, a few basics. A coalition is basically just a formal alliance. In general, they would last basically until the dominant party feels they can run it alone. And under an MMP system, I don't see parties being overly excited about breaking off coalitions, since getting an absolute majority government is severely diminished. Thus, an MMP coalition would probably end up being fairly stable.

And overall, coalitions aren't necessarily a bad thing. In general, nobody fits perfectly into one party. I am a Liberal, but I like some ideas the NDP has, and some Conservative ideas make sense as well. The Liberals and NDP would never join together unless if it was a real crisis, but any other combination could make some sense, in a way, and really wouldn't be so bad. Luckily we live in a progressive enough society so that any partnership basically needs a party in the middle and a party on the wings of the political spectrum. For all that we hate the Conservatives federally, this pseudo Conservative-Bloc/NDP partnership hasn't completely destabilized the country or killed off every institution that we love. (It's not exactly on track with most of Canada on files like Afghanistan or the Environment, but that's another matter).

But for all the good that they can be, my big problem with people advocating for them as either a positive of MMP or sort of a consolation prize for no more majority governments is the following: I don't see it happening, at least under our current alignments.

Sure, people might point to stable coalition overseas, but the way our current system is set up, the only coalitions I see possible are Liberal-Green or Conservative-Green. As weak as the NDP are, they're just too mainstream to actually join into an alliance. People saw their demands to vote for a throne speech. I can't imagine they would back down for a coalition, and they've already asked for way too much to be reasonable. And as much as they tag-teamed McGuinty in the debate with the Tories, I think they're just too much opposed on certain key points to be able to hold a stable coalition together.

So some people might still point out something along the lines of, "hey, wait a minute. Wouldn't a Green-Liberal/Tory alliance actually be really good for everyone?" And sure, for a bit. But honestly, a system where the Greens are the only party to enter into a coalition won't work.

I'm not an expert on overseas politics, but everyone seems to bring up New Zealand and Germany. And from a quick wikipedia scan, I gather the reason they work is they have 2 main parties, and then a handful of other ones that all get the 5-10% of the vote necessary. That way, you have a choice in minor parties to get your required votes. If the vote breaks down 35-30-10-10-8-7, then you need to pick 2/4 of the smaller ones to pass your bills. But with our current system, with 3 parties that have a reasonable shot at succeeding, we really don't have any respectable minor parties to ally with.

As I pointed out before, there were only 3 parties who got the 3% vote threshold in the last election. Barring any of the big 3 breaking down, I don't think our current political alignments are ready to force these minority/coalition governments on us, unless if you want a perpetual Green-XXX government in power.

Oh Sheila

2007-09-23T10:53:00.000-04:00

Well, when I started to read the Copps Article, I thought it would be another scathing Sheila Copps attacks on dirty laundry the Liberals didn't want to have aired. But I found it to actually be a decent read.

The main thing is that last time, Martin was stuck behind a massively popular Chretien, and even if his bickering cost us a bit of support, we could afford it, because we were still comfortably in a majority. But now, we can't afford to not have everyone on board. And as much as people may not exactly like Dion, I think nearly all us would agree that we like him more than Harper. And Dion looks much better standing tall at the head than with 20 people with knives following him around.

Debate Night

2007-09-20T15:25:00.000-04:00

Well, tonight's the leader's debate, and it should be interesting to watch. So far, most people seem to feel the opposition will be going hard against Dalton, and the way the TV ads have been so far, I don't doubt that. If Dalton can stay positive and actually throw some good policy ideas out there, he might come off quite well. If he fumbles on a question, or doesn't appear overly trustworthy, then it might be a big blow to a campaign that should be a walk in the park overall.

Quebec by-elections

2007-09-19T11:57:00.000-04:00

Well, I got part of the headlines right, but so far, we are still seeing all these backstabbing stories popping up. Sure, we're back to our "anonymous MPs" or poli sci profs commenting on the plot to destroy the Liberals from within. Dion may not be the perfect leader, but he's keeping us quite steady in the polls so far. And if we could end this little bickering, actually do some changes to the party structure (I don't think I've seen anything that even remotely looks like "renewal" so far), then it doesn't matter who the face on the posters is.

But really, with a bit of work, we can easily not lose the next election that badly. I don't think we have a very good chance at coming out ahead of the conservatives barring a major scandal brewing, but we can do decently. They may talk about some sort of Quebec revolution, and getting 30-40 seats in Quebec, and whatever else they may think of, but they're not riding high overall. If, whenever the next election may be (I still think it's at least a 50-50 shot that we'll see it before the end of the year), we can avoid the media talking about plots to take down Dion, we may actually do fine.

But for the next little bit, I guess it's back to provincial politics, where McGuinty and Tory are fighting to see whether the voters like education/hate religious schools more than they hate broken promises from 4 years ago.

By-election day

2007-09-17T16:11:00.000-04:00

The Liberals lose Outremont; Dion to step down after humiliating loss!
Bloc lose Roberval; vow to not fight election soon!

Well, maybe we won't see either of those headlines in the paper tomorrow, but the way some press members are talking, it seems to be gearing up towards that. Yes, Liberal and Bloc losses in the 2 ridings would be tough, but we won't be seeing knives coming out over the results of a by-election. And I don't even think it will affect how likely these parties will be to head into an election this fall.

Which is an interesting point: the way the media has it, the Ignatieff clan are sabotaging Outremont in order to force Dion down. But everyone and their sister knows that Dion will face at least one election as leader. But the media also seem to think that by losing, the Liberals will delay trying to force an election. So by that logic, IF both of these media rumours are true, then Iggy's folk are going against their own wishes. However, they have repeatedly said that they're not trying to help the Liberals lose, so there goes at least one piece of speculation down, although it doesn't really impact the other rumours.

[For the record, I don't think that any "rival" leadership camp is out to sabotage the Liberal party. Dion may not be doing the absolute best around, but I don't think one by-election loss with a rival party throwing out a star candidate shows a tremendous lack of leadership]

Dalton Rally in Kitchener

2007-09-14T12:15:00.000-04:00

Well, the place was packed last night to see Dalton speak, even if the Liberals only hold 2 of the 5 local [ish] ridings in the area. He definitely came across a bit differently last night then when I saw him up at Nippissing for SummerFling. Personally, I wasn't overly fond of his speech. He seemed too forceful and not as much of an easy-going fella that I think plays very well for him. And as much as it's nice to keep talking about education and health care, I wouldn't mind hearing about some other topics sometime as well. I guess we'll have to wait and see how the campaign goes, but I do think we'll need some good policies other than health and education to be able to beat Tory, even if he continues to do his best to keep running into his own sword.

Campaign Launches

2007-09-03T16:40:00.000-04:00

Well, as we near the official campaign launch, I'll try to keep up as best I can with what's going on in the KW area. I'll be a bit busy this week, as it's the start of the term, and the first week is always tough (mainly due to a lack of internet at home), but after I get settled in, I hope to be able to provide some juicy details, as I hope to do at least a little bit of helping out some local candidates around town.

Other people's take on MMP

2007-08-30T14:23:00.001-04:00

Well, I'm going through my own take on items such as lists, lists again, and minorities, so I thought I'd post up a link to some other people's opinions, and specifically, a small debate over at The Great Canadian Debate, about MMP. Many arguments are quite similar to what I've been putting forward so far.

Also, Greg Morrow has a good run-down of what he would like to see in how lists should be created. Not sure if it will be done that way, but it's something to consider. And again, it seems with just about every point that I see so far, I see some good and some bad with it. I may spend a post sometime going through some ways that we could pick the lists, and see which of them I feel would work best.

My take on MMP: Lists (pt 2)

2007-08-27T15:54:00.000-04:00

Following my first take on list MPPs and my views on minorities, I'll take another stab at some stuff I've heard about List MPPs, this time focusing more on what they do (or don't do) after they get elected.

List MPPs are responsible to nobody but the party.

My take: Can't really argue too much with this, and it is a minor downfall, I will say. One of the major factors of current MPs is to follow the wishes of the people who elected them. And if they go against the wishes of the people, they will have to step up and explain their decisions the next time. If I don't feel my current MP represents me, I won't vote for them next time. I would really have to think that most of the list my party puts forward doesn't represent me to vote against them. If the top 4-5 people on the Liberal list are all anti-abortion, and I'm pro, then I have to think whether it's worth it to vote against the party on that. I may have to think that the top 4 will get elected regardless, but then my vote for the party is hoping to get numbers 6 and 7 elected, who represent me exactly. Or if every second person on the Liberal list doesn't represent me, do I vote for them? While this may sound bad, it's hard to say how much this will really affect stuff.

List MPPs will have no constituency, and thus won't have to deal with constituency work.
List MPPs constituencies are the entire province. They have the LARGEST constituency!

My take: These are some points that I've heard, and I agree and disagree with both. I do think that the matter of constituency work will have to be dealt with (I'll elaborate more on it later on when I examine the problems of dropping to 90 riding seats), but I can't judge too much, since I've never worked in a constituency office, I'm not positive how much the constituency business really affects everything. I hear some MPs and MPPs really do a lot about constituency work, probably as much as phoning up people with birthdays or stuff like that, and for some, I hear they really don't care too much about them. I do think not having as much constituency work could be both a blessing and a curse (see my next points), but overall, another weak point in the proposed system. I do hope that the List MPPs will take up some of the slack, but it could backfire if they only care about their local ridings, and we would end up with some ridings with effectively 2-3 MPPs, and some with just one. Alternatively, the "List MPPs represent the whole province" is again both true and false. While in some respects it is accurate, and they rely on the whole of Ontario to elect them, they really aren't representative of anyone as much, since it would end up being that the party will end up being responsible to everybody, while the individual List MPPs won't have to deal with as much.

Since List MPPs will have no constituency work, they have an unfair advantage in having more time to act on other stuff, like their re-election.
Since List MPPs will have no constituency work, they will be able to work on some longer-term items that require more time.

My take: Again, without knowing what the impact of constituency work is, I can't judge too much. While it would be VERY unfair for a List MPP to be elected, and then spend all the time that the regular MPP is working on one person's immigration case to be going door to door in the riding campaigning for the next election, they also may be able to take that time to spend more effort on committees, and to actually be able to plan forward.

List MPPs will be a second tier of members, and will be forced to act like the Senate.

My take: Another interesting point. Unless if a specific MPPs was "appointed" to the List to represent a specific demographic group, I don't see how easily they will be able to justify voting against their party's position. Especially since I'm not versed in what happens if a List MPP got kicked out of their party, what would happen to them? I don't know, but if they got replaced with the next person on the party's list, that would be a tremendous whip on them. On the other hand, if they sat as an independent, what does it mean to have a List MPP as an independent? Then they really represent nobody, and everything gets very interesting.

With the extra time, and since they don't have to face tough riding or nomination battles, List MPPs could be a real collection of specialists in their fields.

My take: I put this out, since this is an argument I aspire to. Far be it from me to be able to praise parts of the US electoral system, but I do think that one of their (theoretically) best aspects is that their cabinet ministers are not elected members. Sure, Bush has singlehandedly slaughtered most illusions that the system can be used for good, but as a whole, it could be useful. Since I heard a speech by Larry Page, founder of Google, give a talk about how many US representatives had technical degrees. I believe the number was somewhere less than 10, out of ALL governors, senators, members of congress, etc... We are very under-represented. And we're also not overly personable overall (as the old joke goes: How do you know a mathematician is extroverted? When he talks to you, he looks at your shoes and not his), so it could be tough for us to get elected. But if a party could throw a few people to represent the research and technology sectors onto the lists, they could really bring a new voice to parliament, and may actually know why it is absolutely critical to spend more more on innovation projects, which aren't generally the sexiest funding projects.
On a similar note, since they don't face the electors, they can also think ahead. I know there are tons of things that suck in the short term, but really are the right thing to do long-term (especially to do with the environment. Sure, it sucks to have people lose their jobs, but keeping the dirty, polluting plant open is worse for us overall. And if I represent the riding where that plant is located, no way will I get re-elected after closing that plant). Not directly having to say to someone, "Please, trust me that you being unemployed now is the right thing for the country!" allows me the privilege to do that without knowing that I will be losing my job next time. Having a few people like that might be good overall.

My take on MMP: Minorities and fringe parties

2007-08-20T12:33:00.000-04:00

Well, continuing on with my summer series, I will now examine the next set of issues, minority governments and fringe parties:

Since we won't see as many majority governments, parties will be forced to work together.

My take: Well, I must say this will be partly true, but it could also be a problem. Let's just say that in Canada, we don't have a large tradition of working together overall, and I don't think that will necessarily change overnight. It is sometimes refreshing to see parties being forced to work together, but since the Liberals and Conservatives are so opposed to each other, for now, it would just be one of them being propped up by the NDP, which isn't always the greatest thing. I don't mind the NDP myself, but I don't want to always have to rely on them. As I mentioned before, I would like to have some chance at a party forming a majority, since although it may not always be great, I do think that we do sometimes need that sort of stability around.

Since a small change in votes will not cause a large change in seats, parties will have little incentive to force early elections.

My take: Well, I have to agree with this in principle, but in practice, I'm not sure how easy it will be for people to adapt to this. I am not a big fan of the 2% vote change leading to a 10% change in seats, but I'm not sure that this is enough incentive. It could be a good way for a party to say, "you've got to agree to this, or else we're gonna have to go to an election and you're not getting any better", but I can see the party in power holding this over the other parties as well, basically forcing them to go along with their plan, lest they be accused of forcing the election.

30% of people voted for party A, 30% voted for party B, nobody voted for a coalition of A and B!

My take: Another good and bad issue. While nobody may be fully satisfied with coalitions like this, the easy counter is in the current argument where a party with a majority but 36% of the vote is basically governing against 64% of the electorate. But really, as I said above, I don't see the history in Canada for making good coalitions, so I think you'd end up with one party trying to control everything, which may cause troubles.

Fringe parties will call all the shots.

My take: I don't like this argument too much. If a party gets 3% of the vote, they only get a handful of seats. While on a few votes it might make a difference, and I will cringe in the first Tory and Reform/Christian Heritage Party/Right-wing nutjob party coalition or even bill passing, the big parties will still be mostly in control. It may make the difference on a few votes, but really, in our current political system, the Green party will be the main "fringe" party, and to be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing some of them get elected, since then voters will actually have to pay attention to more than their environmental record, which I know will cost them votes.

The 3% threshold is low, and will give credibility to tons of small, fringe parties.

My take: This I find is the craziest argument. Anyone claiming this has obviously never seen election results. Ask people how much the Green party got in the 2003 Ontario election, and I bet hardly anyone would say that they got less than 3% of the vote. So really, the only "fringe" party that has a chance to get elected would be the Greens. The Family Coalition party would need to quadruple its votes to get seats.

So basically, I'm not sold on this incessant minority rule, but rest assured, I don't see there being any problem with crazy fringe parties calling the shots.

My take on MMP: Lists (pt 1)

2007-08-17T11:25:00.000-04:00

Well, in my summer MMP series, I figure I may as well start it off with a bang and tackle the issue that it seems most people are wary about. From the arguments I heard last weekend at the OYL's SummerFling, these lists are the largest contention point, and somewhat ironically, are the least elaborated in the entire proposal, basically with the Citizen's Assembly saying, "we'll let the parties figure it out." So with that, here are some arguments I've heard, followed by my comments on them. Part 1 will focus on how the list MPPs are nominated, and who they will be:

If parties aren't responsible filling their lists, people won't vote for them

My take: I would love for this to be true. I think it would be great if the Liberals fill our list with equal numbers of people from each region and group, then we will get more votes from people. That would be great, except I don't expect that to happen too much. Oh, it may make a difference of a few votes, but I don't see this as a great selling point, since I highly doubt that very many people will actually know too much about the lists.

The lists will be filled with party hacks!

My take: This is somewhat fair, since I do believe that the list MPPs will tend to be fairly well-connected members of the party. But how is that too much different than the other MPPs parties nominate? We don't know how the parties will nominate people on the lists, but I don't think it will be much different than how we nominate candidates, so I don't see this as a major drawback. You still need to be involved and connected in the party (or a celebrity) to get elected.

All the list MPs will be white men from Toronto

My take: This could be a problem, but I don't see it as a major one, since I doubt it will happen. Honestly, I'd fill the top spots on my list with people from the areas that I would have the weakest party support, since then I could make sure when I win to have ministers from various areas. I mean, which party wants all their MPPs from one region? Doesn't make for a very balanced cabinet.

No way will there be MPPs from the North, since the party elite in Toronto will run the lists

My take: Again, this could be some trouble, but I'm pretty sure the parties will try to balance it out. Yes, there is the potential to screw some people over, like ignoring the North, but I don't think that would be too much trouble.

The parties will be responsible and make sure that the lists are representative

My take: Well, so far I've been mentioning this quite a bit, and this is one place where stuff can go wrong. As I pointed out above, I do think that parties won't be crazy with lists, but I still wouldn't be surprised if 15-20 of the 39 list MPPs are from Toronto. Sucks, I know, but we can't have everything perfect.

The lists will be a great opportunity to get [insert minority group here] a fairer representation

My take: This is where I feel the lists will be the most useful. I don't mean any disrespect for certain gender or ethnic groups, but they do often have troubles getting nominated, and are thus under-represented in the legislature as a whole. People don't want a "token ethnic" on the list, but I don't see any trouble in being able to better represent certain communities by having a list MPP.
I'll add even more to this: I think it would be a great way to add people who would do very well in cabinet, but may not be the easiest ones to get elected. I'm not a big fan of taking hints from the Americans too much, but one of the supposedly better parts of their system is that since their cabinet is appointed, and not made up of elected members, they could be specialists in their field. Now, they screw that up most of the time, but it could be nice to be able to bring in someone who may not be the campaigner, and be able to bring them into cabinet in a specialist role.

I'll stick with this for now, but I welcome any comments or other criticisms about how these people will be nominated and who they may be, and will do my best to respond to other comments. I will be coming back to discuss the List MPPs later on, probably more in regards to their actual roles in parliament, and depending on what other arguments I hear, I may revisit the way they're nominated again.

My triumphant return

2007-08-13T13:53:00.000-04:00

Well, as I mentioned a couple months ago, I decided to take a break this summer from my blogging responsibilities. But now that my final exams are nearly over, and since I plan to keep going strong this fall, especially with at least one election coming up, I thought I'd start back now.

I've been thinking for the past week of starting a small series of posts about the new Mixed-Member Proportional system that is being proposed and voted upon in the upcoming election. I've been rumoured to be fairly much in favour of it, and let me start off by saying that's not true. Mostly.

I do believe that we should have some changes to our voting system. I am a Liberal from Calgary. If we had some form of PR federally, then the Liberals would actually have a reason to campaign there and do their best there. I also believe that both federally and provincially, the Green Party deserves to get some sort of representation, since they do have many supporters and would do well to advance the debates.

But on the other side, I also like getting majority governments some, if not most, of the time. Maybe not winning 75% of the seats with 40% of the votes, but I like some majorities, since they do often get more work done.

So with those initial thoughts out of the way, my idea was to run a little series, attacking the proposal from both sides. I've seen arguments from those who are staunchly in favour, and from those who are staunchly opposed, but haven't seen as much from those of us in the middle. I don't like this massive polarization, where it almost seems every point is black and white to everyone.

But in order to go forward, I don't mind getting some help in this. I am myself not familiar with all the arguments on either side (I've heard many of the basic arguments), so if you know of an argument either side is using to attack or defend, I'd love to hear it. Either post as a comment or e-mail it to me at uwhabs(at)gmail(dot)com and in the upcoming weeks, I hope to give my hopefully somewhat reasoned opinions of the argument.

Take Back Canada

2007-06-29T18:52:00.000-04:00

Well, I hope everyone's summer's going well. Have a great Canada Day this weekend, and I leave you with a link to the new YLC campaign, Take Back Canada. Enjoy yourself this weekend!

Bye Bye Bill Graham

2007-06-19T19:59:00.000-04:00

Well, it appears that Bill Graham has decided to retire. He was a very nice person, and a good interim leader. He came to talk to our club last November, and gave a nice speech. I wish him the best of luck in his upcoming endeavors.

I also would like to wish Bob Rae the best of luck in his fight for the riding. It won't be easy, but let's hope he keeps the riding red.

Dion Doesn't Buy His Own Clothes!

2007-06-13T10:15:00.000-04:00

Well, everyone is aflutter about the fact that Dion lets his wife shop for his clothes. Now, this may be a terrible thing to happen in and of itself, but I think the question we really need to ask ourselves is this: If Harper let his wife buy his clothes for him, would she have gotten him this:

Alberta Libs win something?!?!

2007-06-13T09:56:00.000-04:00

Well, looks like there could be some troubles in Steady Eddie's camp, as the Alberta Liberals have won the byelection in Calgary Elbow. While it's still way too early to start mentioning the downfall of the Alberta PCs, it's always nice to see them lose like this. Congrats to everyone on the campaign out there, and good job in winning it. Keep up the good work for the next election out there and we may see some changes out in the Conservative heartland.

Summer delays

2007-06-07T22:34:00.000-04:00

Well, I know I haven't updated recently, and there are a few reasons. One, I've been pretty busy with school the last few weeks, getting into midterms and all for this term. Second, I haven't really found inspiration. Barring some overly exciting events, I'll probably take it fairly slow the next few months.

But coming up, it should still be interesting to see how the Alberta provincial by-elections turn out. The Liberals have a real shot at the seat in Calgary, and it would truly be a great victory for them to win that seat. People seem upset at the PCs, and it would be great for the opposition to capitalize on it. Still a long way from fully booting them out of power, but the smaller and smaller the PCs get, the better it is for Alberta.

There goes our summer excitement

2007-06-01T09:39:00.000-04:00

Well, it looks like we're going to avoid some summer excitement, since the PQ has caved in and looks to not oppose the Quebec budget. Seemed obvious that someone was going to blink here, since I'd probably think that none of the 3 parties really want to see what would happen if the Liberals lost the vote.

This week's sign that the apocalypse is upon us...

2007-05-29T01:24:00.000-04:00

There are Liberals in Calgary. Without Ralph, it's looking like some Alberta PC support is slipping away. While I'm sure more people are focusing on the Quebec situation, or more likely, the Sens, it's going to be interesting to watch to see if the Liberals can break through in the by-elections coming up in Calgary.

WTF Lost!

2007-05-23T23:27:00.000-04:00

So, what the hell is going on with Lost? Whose coffin was it? What's going on with everyone? What the hell are they going to do for the next 3 seasons.

Plus, Hurley is the man. Absolutely incredible thing there. Followed by Sayid's move? Something that I thought we only saw on 24.

Citizen's assembly

2007-05-22T11:38:00.000-04:00

Reading an article in the Star today, I feel compelled to answer to it. The basic premise is that the author of the article seems to find fault with Ontario letting some of its citizens draft a proposal for electoral reform. To me, this view seems wrong.

Now, from what I gather, the basic premise of the article is PR is bad, and therefore we should not even bother spending any time to consider anything to do with it. I know Greg would find an incredibly large amount of wrong with that statement, and I think the main premise that Mr. Gwyn goes on is faulty.

Now, this isn't a post in support or opposition of any form of PR, but in the need to discuss the issue. And I do firmly believe that we need to discuss the issue. Even if the main conclusions to be drawn from this would be that our current system was the best that we could ever get, it's worth talking about it. You may not like what the assembly put forth, but that shouldn't take away from the fact that they are actually looking at issues and debating on the merits of it.

He does bring some good points that we need to reform maybe not the electoral system itself, but the culture of parliamentarians. Seriously, that deserves a look as well. The whole citizen's assembly may have wasted time and money and we may end up with nothing at the end, but for me, it's a small price to pay on the chance that we could have gotten a serious re-vamp of how elections work, and the chance at something more than we have now.

Summer doldrums

2007-05-20T22:21:00.000-04:00

Well, we're off into the summer break, and apart from some infighting over the Sens, I'm not sure if we'll see too much controversy this summer. We'll have to wait and see how much dirt we're going to get over the summer. With the Conservatives faltering near the end, it should be interesting to see if people will forget about this, or whether these will trail behind them all summer.

Antarctica melting?

2007-05-16T14:54:00.000-04:00

Well, apparently Antarctica is melting. Cue someone speaking out that this is simply a natural cycle than Antarctica goes through in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ...

The Liberal Party is imploding! OMG!

2007-05-16T14:42:00.000-04:00

Well, now that the Liberal party seems to be doing well in the polls, and that the Conservatives are rife with scandal, the Liberal party has decided that it's time to turn against the Leader. Yup, sounds like some great intuitive logic there, at least if you're a reader of the National Post. While obviously not everybody is 100% happy with Dion (you can never really be), it seems odd that people would be doing this much overt planning to get ahead. My guess is that in all these cases noted here, you simply have an organization of folks who want their candidate in. Not every contested nomination battle is a fight between leadership camps that has been directed by on high.

It's pouring out there

2007-05-15T20:18:00.000-04:00

First off, some nice crazy storms out there earlier tonight. Coming home, there was a section of the street where cars were in up to the top of their wheels in water. Some days I'm glad I don't need to drive around.

Secondly, everyone seems to be jumping for joy over Falwell meeting his maker today. He definitely isn't a man that commands lots of respect and that we should all be terribly upset about, but I don't think it's the time to rejoice. Let's hope that this will temper the religious right, but it does seem a bit wrong to be cheering for his death.

Duceppe out

2007-05-12T20:56:00.000-04:00

Well, I didn't post yesterday about Duceppe declaring his intentions for leadership of the PQ, partly because I was busy, and partly since I figured I'd have some time to analyze the situation and what it would mean for everybody involved, but no sooner than it started did it end. I mean, you would think he would at least stay in the race for a little bit, but basically, the PQ has said that Marois will be their next leader. Now the question remains whether we will see whether Marois will face a Sheila Copps to go against her, or whether she will actually be able to run unopposed.

Accountability, Schmaccountability

2007-05-09T21:26:00.000-04:00

Well, by now everyone's well aware of the most recent step in the Tories' new accountability program. I really don't know why they keep failing in this. I mean, is it just incompetence, or are they actually explicitly going out and defying the rules? Do they feel that they can get away with it, since our past deeds are still a little fresh and they know we can't play the "accountability" card without looking bad ourselves?

I mean, I know we're limited, since just saying "look at the Conservatives! They're as bad as WE were when they're in power! And they've only been there a year!" definitely isn't a very good election strategy.

I would normally just chalk it up to some problems learning the actual accountability rules, but it seems to be more than just random chance, and a few mis-declared meals or trips here and there. At this pace, they have to be really stupid for these to be all accidents.

And if they really are trying to subvert the rules, you think they would at least wait a bit, until they got a majority. I mean, it seems insane that they would actually be trying to skirt the rules when they've got such a tenuous hold on power.

So which is it? Are they trying to subvert the rules, or are they just incompetent?

Boisclair steps down

2007-05-08T12:24:00.000-04:00

I would at least have thought he would wait until the party kicked him out at a Leadership review vote in September, but it seems that Boisclair is stepping down. Now we just have to wait and see if Duceppe will take the bait and move provincial, or if he'll stick it federally and we'll see someone else take over the sinking ship that is the PQ.

French Elections

2007-05-06T19:28:00.000-04:00

Well, as everyone knows by know, Sarkozy has won the French Election by a margin of 53-47. It seems that Sarkozy and Royal split the centrist party's votes to edge out his socialist opponent.

Now, one thing I will comment on is the double ballot. It's a very interesting way to conduct an election, to force everyone to vote twice, and I'm a bit surprised that the turnout was actually so high both times. I know there was a lot on the line, but it seems weird that they still managed 85% of the vote on the second go-around. Canadians seem to hate voting once, never mind what would happen if we were asked to vote twice. Good on the French to come out in forces to vote. One only wonders what would happen in Canada if we managed 85% turnout in an election.

It's pronounced "Nucular"

2007-05-05T12:49:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm not a usual commentator about the Alberta PC party's proceedings, but I found this article talking about how they're considering looking into nuclear power to help power the oilsands, and it got me thinking a bit more about nuclear.

From what I've seen, it seems that lots of people are divided about the power of nuclear. Many see it as a nice, emissions-free power source, that seems to be a logical step to move us away from coal and gas fired plants. Others see it as a major problem source, which is unsafe and causes waste which we cannot dispose of. Now, as with any issue, the answer is in the middle, but I'm surprised in most of the talk about reaching our carbon goals, the matter hasn't been brought up further.

Personally, I think we should be investigating the issue more. I don't think I'm ready to switch over fully to nuclear, but I definitely do see that there's lots of potential there. If the global warming alarmists are right, then the excess CO2 in the air will be even more damaging than whatever waste that nuclear produces, and as we explore more about nuclear, I'm pretty sure we'll be able to find more and safer ways to store the spent fuel.

And contrary to what many people believe, it is relatively safe. I mean, apart from 3 mile island and Chernobyl, there haven't been any big problems with nuclear. As a nuclear lobbyist I heard talk this winter say, the fact that we still hear about the big problems is a good sign that it's safe. I mean, we don't really hear too much about accidents and problems in other power plants, since they happen often. Just like many people are surprised to hear that planes are the safest mode of travel even when we hear about plane accidents around the world every few weeks or months.

Now, I still know that nuclear isn't perfect, and before we were to commit a significant amount of resources in building more plants, we need to make sure that storage is improved, but it is something that I feel we shouldn't be as scared about. For once, I agree with something the PCs are proposing, and I do hope that they vote to investigate its uses even more.

Why do people care about Doan?

2007-05-04T22:53:00.000-04:00

I know he may have made a bad comment 2 years ago, and I'm a bit late in commenting on it now, but does anyone really care about this? Parliament has tons of stupid things that they investigate and do, and the waste plenty of time on it all the time. Just like the bigfoot petition, there's plenty of wasted goings-on that we just have to deal with. You know it's a slow news week when these type of stories make news for more than 5 minutes.

So what do we have to talk about? Oh, just a few stories about Afghanistan, and some polls that are showing the Liberals bouncing back. The Afghanistan story is an interesting one, since the government still doesn't quite know its own story on what is going on. Sometime, I'd love to see a government just admit that they were wrong, or didn't know all the details. I think it would be great for us if we had that sort of honesty from our officials, but I know that's probably a pipe dream.

And about these polls showing some stuff, I maintain my dislike for this excessive polling. Sure, we're up this week, but I'll bet that next week the Conservatives will pull back to being 3-4 points ahead, and everyone will be claiming it's all because people love their policy on bigfoot or whatever else, even when the actual numbers really haven't changed.

So what have I really said here? Nothing really, but it sure does seem we're getting into our summer lull. Barring something crazy like the Conservatives bringing their environmental plan to a vote, it's looking like we're in for about 4 months of nothingness before we start talking heavy about the Ontario election in the fall.

Lots going on

2007-05-02T14:49:00.000-04:00

Well, unfortunately I haven't had a chance to write too much the last few days, as I've just gotten back into town and haven't had an internet connection at home.

So, to catch up:

-Congrats Justin on the nomination. He's got the organization, and even some grudging respect from Antonio, so looks good so far. He may just be more than a pretty face, but we still need to see more from him.

-EcoFraud! Beautiful!

-Afghanistan: Conservatives seem to be changing their mind constantly, and are rightly being taken to task over it. There's nothing that they can do to really defend this without a complete about-face, so they're pretty screwed by it. And while it would be nice to take them to an election over this, my next point will stop us.

-Ouch. I know many Liberals are tapped-out from Leadership, but we still have been low on donations for years, since the new rules have come in. We have close to if not the largest voter base, more than twice the number of voters as the NDP, and many of our supporters are middle-class citizens, and we need to figure out how to adequately raise money. It's hard getting people to give, but if we can't figure it out, no matter how good our policies and ideas are, we won't be able to get out and reach people with the message.

Provincial Matters

2007-04-29T22:07:00.000-04:00

Well, I came back today to KW and got to attend the KW Provincial Nomination Meeting. It happened to be the first contested provincial nomination meeting, and this one was to elect the person to hopefully replace Elizabeth Witmer in the upcoming provincial election (yeah, I know, it feels weird to be talking about provincial politics, especially with a somewhat larger nomination meeting held today), but it never hurts to start thinking ahead to the election which will probably still be before the Federal one.

So anyways, unfortunately my choice for candidate, Jeff Henry, didn't quite win, but he did put up an excellent battle. I have a feeling lots of people in the room got their first impressions of him today, and I think they were truly impressed. So now our candidate in KW for the next election will be Louise Ervin, who I know we are all now hoping will be able to knock of 'Liz, and help make the Kitchener-Waterloo area a much stronger Liberal area in the next McGuinty government.

Democrat Debate

2007-04-26T21:18:00.000-04:00

Well, in what feels way too early so far, the Democrats had their first debate tonight. A good chance to see how the candidates stack up against each other, and find out where they stand. Obviously, Iraq seems to be the top topic, and it is interesting to see everyone try to defend their initial positions on the war, their decisions to fund the war, and anything else involved in that.

I haven't watched it all yet, and I may comment more once I've seen it and seen some analysis, but it definitely still seems to be a 3-person race. I don't see any of the minor players having any real chance, since none of them even seem to have any position that is strikingly different from the others. If anything, they're not setting themselves up in any position that gives them a shot. I mean, they all seem to be even more Liberal than the main 3, which doesn't really give them any spot on the spectrum to really grab a foothold.

*UPDATE:
Watching some post-debate recap, it seems to be universal that Clinton was the best one. The main talking points are that she was poised, she answered solidly, and showed that she could be presidential. Obama was a bit slow in his answers, and wasn't overly great in it. However, it'll be interesting to watching him in the next few debates, to see if he can pick it up. Edwards wasn't great in it, and he needs to get his views out, but I do still think that he has the best policies.

Better late than never

2007-04-26T17:40:00.000-04:00

Well, the Conservatives appear to have an environmental plan, which will meet the Kyoto targets... by 2020. Or maybe 2025. But eventually, they will be met.

So, it's obviously not a perfect plan, since the targets won't be met for a long time from now, but at least it is a plan. While it would be better to target for only a few years late (maybe reaching targets by 2015, say), the big question now is if it will actually be enforced.

It's better than nothing, and the Globe seems to think nobody will overly like it. It is a plan, at similar to the Afghanistan vote for the NDP, it's a choice whether to accept a target that's later than you like, or continue holding out for something better, which won't be coming.

*UPDATE: Well, thanks to Scott for pointing it out, but it appears that the Greens have a statement saying how these targets are weaker than the previous ones. Now, I won't take everything the Greens say at face value, and I do feel that targets for 2020 are better than targets for 2050, but there is still the point that the Conservatives are trying to use different baselines (2006 vs 2003), and that it really doesn't come too close to the Kyoto commitments, even by 2020. I still feel it's better than nothing, and that it could be used as a starting point. We just need to push the Conservatives to do more.

Impeach Cheney

2007-04-25T19:36:00.000-04:00

Well, looks like one of the long-shots for '08 has made a play, with Kucinich introducing a motion to impeach Cheney. Now, he basically has no real supporters of this yet, but we'll have to see how far it goes.

Afghanistan motion

2007-04-24T20:24:00.000-04:00

Well, the motion was defeated today by the Conservatives and NDP, one saying it went too far, the other not far enough.

Now, I would need to actually read the motion, but it still seems weird the NDP not liking it. I mean, I guess they're trying to make the argument that it would be similar to saying they want Kyoto targets by 2012, so they would vote down a plan that meets the targets by 2015 (or 2050, as the Conservatives would put it). Really, if they don't like it and object to the mission, would it not make even more sense for them to simply abstain from voting? That way the bill would at least pass, and I can't see how they could argue that life without the bill further advances their cause than life with the bill, unless if they think that the Conservatives will pull a "We were going to propose withdrawing them now, but now that we already have a date, it's too much trouble to change it" type of philosophy.

Oh well, it's the NDP's loss. Apart from the hippy group that already likes the NDP, I can't see them gaining any votes from this. And even if they voted for the motion, they could still publicly rally that they want the troops out now, and that if they can't have them out now, then as early as possible (which would be right after we've legally agreed to). Unless if they're secretly in some sort of "now or never" type of clan, which I would have lots of trouble with.

Be interesting to see if this is held over his head if/when we go to an election. I'd like to hear his justification, or at least see him squirm trying to argue that no date is better than a date.

April Fool's Day?

2007-04-22T16:57:00.000-04:00

Well, in what could only be conceived of as an April Fool's joke 3 weeks late, comes this little gem courtesy of everyone's favourite little news aggregator:

"Let me boil it down for you", notioned the hangdog, "there are some within Dion's grey matter and some within May's green matter who are cooking up a plot to merge the two parties."

Earth Day

2007-04-22T00:01:00.000-04:00

Happy Earth Day!

Hopefully the Conservatives will enjoy the spirit of the day and decide to actually do something positive for the environment.

Fruity cocktails good for you

2007-04-20T19:23:00.000-04:00

It's true.

A fruity cocktail may not only be fun to drink but may count as health food, U.S. and Thai researchers say

The study did not address whether adding a little cocktail umbrella enhanced the effects.

So with that, have a great weekend all, and remember, drink healthy!

Coalition of the Willing [parties]

2007-04-19T15:27:00.000-04:00

Well, the Green-Liberal deal last week caused some controversies, and now it looks like the scope is enlarging, with a new possible deal in St. Catherines. Unfortunately the Liberals aren't exactly running the most progressive candidate in the riding, so it's exactly the greatest thrill to welcome back Walt to the HOC, but we can live with a few bad apples.

Now, I'd tend to think we probably won't be seeing too many more of these type of deals, but overall, I really don't mind. I would personally not mind seeing more deals of the sort, all over the place. I'll give up a candidate in some ridings in BC where it's really a 2-way race between the NDP and Conservatives. For me, I want the HOC to have the best split possible, and in general, that means that I'd rather see NDP, Green, and Liberal MPs over Conservative ones. I don't yet feel like we need any sort of official deal where we end up with a combined flag or anything of the like, and I do think we still need to not entirely give up in some areas (the whole 307/308 riding strategy), but a doing a few small deals here or there to steal a couple conservative seats isn't much trouble.

Although to be honest, most of this would be useless with a STV system where candidates are ranked. Even the MMP system which Ontario will vote on would be something, although I will want to look at it more this summer when I have some time to fully decide whether I will be willing to go fully proportional.

Gun Laws

2007-04-18T14:42:00.000-04:00

Well, as the stories that are coming out now are stories of what was lost, one of the more common things for people to think of is "How can we prevent this?" Our work mailing list is up to about 150 posts, in what started out as someone complaining about guns. It has obviously veered off a bit, but the debate about gun controls is definitely still very alive (especially here in the States, where many people cling to their 2nd amendment rights).

Luckily, I haven't seen too many large press stories of people trying to make some political gain from this story. And hopefully we will keep it that way, since there really isn't much that can be said. I've heard arguments from people on both sides of the fence: some say that we should take this as a sign to go further to ban guns; some as a sign that we need to loosen legislation, since at least then if this crazy guy started shooting, maybe someone would have been able to shoot back before he got to his 30 victims.

But for me, I hope no political party tries to go to those cheap political points, since they're both mostly useless in this case. Sure, I'll support tough gun control rules, but you really can't stop these type of situations with those rules. These type of incidents are rare, and will still happen no matter what rules are in place. We do need to find ways to stop this sort of act from occurring again, but the solution to that doesn't have to deal with gun laws.

Charter snub

2007-04-17T14:33:00.000-04:00

Well, everyone's rightly upset at the fact that Harper is absent from Charter celebrations. I mean, we all know there are certain parts of the Charter that they don't like, but why in the world would they snub the ceremonies? I mean, I could see it if the Bloc or PQ decided to skip it on the whole "Quebec never signed it" nonsense, but for the PM? That shouldn't happen.

And a big reason why he would go even if just for political gain? People like it. I mean, even thinking purely politically, wouldn't showing up and celebrating it go a long way to try to calm people's worries that he's trying to dismantle it? By skipping out on the ceremony, all it does is give the opposition more fuel to go after him about.

So today, let's take a moment to reflect on the Charter and all the good it's done. If only Harper would do the same sometime.

VA Tech

2007-04-16T17:15:00.000-04:00

Terrible. Just terrible.

Very local politics

2007-04-15T23:10:00.000-04:00

Well, I thought I would share some very local politics news today, in that I was just elected as the new VP Policy and Planning of our local University of Waterloo Young Liberals Club. I'm very excited for this new opportunity for me, and hopefully in the next year I'll be able to bring forward some good policies on behalf of our club (and hopefully we won't be too caught up in elections to be able to).

Deal with the Greens

2007-04-12T21:19:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm actually surprised at this move to not run a Liberal in Central Nova, in an effort to hope that Elizabeth May wins her seat. I never thought we would actually go ahead with it, and instead run someone not very strong and rely on an underground movement to tell people to vote for the Greens, similar to what the Liberals did in calgary centre many years ago to help Joe Clark out (at least, I assume that's what happened when the Liberal vote in the riding dropped by 20% overnight).

And this one is one that makes sense. It certainly will get people talking about how close Dion and May's views are on the environment, and that will certainly help overall. And it's not like we would actually win the seat, so it's not like we're really giving up an MP for it.

Glen also has a nice post up, comparing it to Hargrove's deal with Martin. He finishes it up with a good line as well:

now we just have to hope that May doesn't tacitly endorse the seperatists like good old Buzz did...

Darfur and Paille

2007-04-12T14:31:00.000-04:00

No, even if Paille has been accused of many things, saddling the Darfur crisis on him is not what I intend by the title (I just seem to have the habit of always having a few separate topics to mention when I write up posts. Think of it as getting 2 for the price of 1).

First up, Wells has a good link to the Gazette article digging up some stuff about Paille, the new guy investigating the polling scandal (PollScam?) The good news from that is that it seems in the past Paille has been a fan of under the table money, and giving contracts to people who give positive reviews of the government. Maybe he'll be friendly to our old shady dealings?

Secondly, some Google news which I found interesting. It seems that Google and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum have teamed up to let people know what's going on in Darfur. Called Crisis in Darfur, it's a bunch of markings on Google Earth showing the destruction going on in Darfur. A nice initiative that will let people know that maybe it's not all rosy everywhere.

Belinda and PR

2007-04-11T17:24:00.000-04:00

Well, everyone has their comments about Belinda's decision to call it a career in politics. Truly a sad state to lose someone of her, uh, intellect. She will be missed dearly (mostly by the blogging community, and at conventions for those who like free booze). Although honestly, if she was going to quit, shouldn't she have had the decency to do so before Martha got nominated somewhere else? I'm sure we'd all have a bit more respect for Belinda if she stepped down and paved the way for Hall-Findlay.

For something else, Greg from DemocraticSpace has another post up on Proportional Representation which will be a secondary focus in the next election. Currently the debate is whether to have it regional or provincial representation (ie. your PR vote would go towards a provincial tally to divvy up candidates or a regional list), and whether it be open-list or closed list (you pick which regional rep you want vs voting for the party and having them run down their list). For all Ontario voters, I'd definitely recommend a stop by there now to get familiar with the topic. I confess to not knowing too much about the different systems, but 15 minutes browsing down his posts gives a great refresher on some basics of it.

And that brings up another matter of its federal implications. In the past, we've seen some talk by a few different parties about some forms of PR, most notably the old reformers (part of their populist appeals) and the NDP more recently (since they want more seats). Obviously now that they're in power, the Conservatives won't be too thrilled with it, but it would be interesting to see if they lose the support of the Bloc, would the NDP say they'd support the Cons with an increased support of some MMPR?

Yay polling numbers!

2007-04-10T15:11:00.000-04:00

Some have the Cons and Grits in a statistical tie. Some say that Canadians think Harper is nearly 3 times a better PM than Dion, who is practically tied with Layton. Both are from the same polling firm. Some people took the first as a sign of Liberal increases. Some people look at the second as a cause for concern.

To be honest, I've gotten bored with polling numbers. It's obvious now that people change their minds wildly nowadays, and that based on what sample of people you poll, it's hard to compare. Right now, the only poll numbers I would consider trusting would be if a company came out with one poll number today, and then asked the exact same people 2 weeks or a month from now to see how they've changed. Right now, that's the only way I would consider drawing conclusions, since the margins of errors on these polls are just way too large to pick up the little differences (I mean, +/- 3.1 percentage points? That means one poll could have the Cons at 39% and a majority and another can have them dead tied with the Liberals at 33%, and both be "accurate").

Now, the leader percentages gives some trouble, and that is something that we need to look at. As much as we hate to admit it, Harper gives off the aura of being more Prime Ministerial than Dion does. We have to learn to live with it and overcome it. The numbers themselves should only tell us that Dion needs to work on his demeanor, and that we need to focus our campaigning efforts on the ideas, and not about the people. We all know our ideas and vision are the better choices, so we need to run on that. We also need to think up our retorts when Harper comes hard after Dion when Dion gets uppity to defend his record. The numbers from the poll alone mean nothing, but they will determine how the campaign will be run.

So, does this all mean that we will or won't have an election soon? At this point, these numbers are useless to figure out. Everyone has internal numbers which are a much safer indication of intentions. They'll be looking riding by riding to figure out how stuff is going. I'd still say that we will avoid an election this spring, since I don't see a good chance for the Tories to go to war on it. I obviously wouldn't be surprised to see one, but really, I think the Conservatives will probably feel that they can wait and still be fine. If they can keep their lunatics muzzled, I don't see why they wouldn't try to put in 2 decent years of government and get people used to their style. I mean, nothing serious has gone wrong to the average person so far, so another year of it and the average person won't mind letting them stay on for longer.

A few notes

2007-04-06T18:32:00.000-04:00

I had a fairly decent-sized post written up about calculators and computers in classrooms in response to this story, but it got eaten. Let me quickly point out my conclusions which were that we should avoid an over-reliance on electronic aids in school early on, since I don't think it teaches people how to do stuff (there should be no mathematical knowledge which is taught with an electronic aid until it's mastered by hand first).

Next, hope everyone has a good Easter or Passover or weekend, depending on your religious views.

Third, Go Habs Go! Massive game coming up tomorrow, and it should be exciting. Montreal needs to win to clinch, or just make it to OT if NYI doesn't win both their games left. It would be sweet to have it tied late and for Montreal to score the game winner into an empty net to clinch.

That's all I've got to say for now.

Alanis Morissette's My Humps

2007-04-04T20:04:00.001-04:00

If you haven't seen this, it's a must to watch.

Liblogs video

2007-04-04T14:04:00.000-04:00

Well, when I first got the message last week from Cherniak saying that he was urging all us Liberal bloggers to make some videos to counter the new Tory attack ad and try to get some press, my first reaction was, "hahaha, come on. Can a few of us posting videos on a website actually get any MSM coverage?" I initially took it as a stunt that I figure would at best fail, and at worst, blow up in our face if nobody made videos and we only had like 1-2 videos to "brag" about.

But Jason seems to have pulled it off. Hope we can continue to make videos and keep the grassroots involved with this!

New Conservative Ad

2007-04-02T15:38:00.000-04:00

Well, the Conservatives have decided to launch a new ad (the "citations" one). In it, it's basically saying:
1. The Conservatives have solved the fiscal imbalance
2. Dion doesn't believe in the fiscal imbalance
3. If elected, since Dion doesn't believe in the fiscal imbalance, he will take Quebec's money away.

Now for me, I don't see how you make the jump from #1 and #2 to get to #3, but I guess an ad doesn't really have to make sense. I haven't lived in Quebec for a long time, so I'm not sure how it will play. The Conservatives really are trying to hammer home their messages, especially for a party that says they "really don't want an election".

April 2 quick links

2007-04-02T14:24:00.000-04:00

I was away over the weekend, but a few quick links:

Yesterday was April Fools' Day. Pranks are best when they're semi-believable. Some are decent because they are kinda stupid (although I love the comment differentiating labels and folders). And for me, some are just too full of crap to be too funny.

Devils Fire Julien. What team fires a coach when they have home ice 3 days before the playoffs start? Lou is playing a risky game here.

Finally, I need me one of these.

Falling on the Climate Change bill?

2007-03-30T14:17:00.000-04:00

Media speculation is ramping up about whether the Conservatives are planning to make the climate change bill a confidence measure, and plan to fall on it. Now, if their poll numbers really are 17 points up on the Liberals, then this is a great plan, since they should be able to win over anything.

But if their numbers aren't that high, then it seems incredibly stupid to fall on a bill toughening environmental standards. It's not like the bill calls for crazy action that obviously will destroy the country, so I can't see them wanting to go to war on it, unless if they suddenly found that 40% of the country doesn't like the environment, or something like that.

On a side note, it appears Blogger has a news feed widget now that you can add to your sidebar to show news stories from Google News. If anyone has suggestions for other keywords to add on, let me know and I can add those on.

US to withdraw from Iraq

2007-03-29T19:37:00.000-04:00

...in 2008, if Bush doesn't veto the bill which passed the Senate today, and actually follows through on it. I'd say there's as much chance of that happening as us seeing Dion lead the PQ in the next Quebec election.

But it is still nice to see the Senate continue to put more pressure on Bush, even if it's simply a non-binding symbolic resolution. However, I really find it insane how they force so many different resolutions into one. But I guess it makes sense to have a timeline for withdrawing, more money for Iraq and Afghanistan, more money for marines, money to track down sex offenders, and money for spinach farmers all in one. I mean, they're all related, right?

What about the bloc?

2007-03-29T13:51:00.000-04:00

The globe has an article out today examining what the Bloc should do next. Do they keep the hardline stance, or do they shift to try to take up the ADQ's view, and get rid of the referendum notion, like the PQ is thinking about. Especially with the rumours of Duceppe switching to lead the PQ, it means both the PQ and Bloc will have to think and decide what their positions will be for their respective parties.

If the Bloc can't hold the seats that the ADQ won, then they'll be relegated to obscurity. A 20 to 30 seat bloc would be pretty useless, overall. Especially with a showing like that, it would probably be at the hands of a Conservative majority. But with the PQ at an all-time low, and if we keep the rumours of Duceppe swapping back provincially, then it would be tough to convince voters to vote for them.

And going forward, if the Bloc is seriously slumping, that leaves the Liberals as the party of opposition in Quebec to prevent a Conservative majority. We have to bring our message to Quebeckers that the only true way to prevent a Conservative majority is to vote Liberal. We have to reinforce the notion that the Bloc can't defend Quebec's interest against the Conservatives if they have a majority, and the only way to stop that is by electing a Liberal government.

Now this is all assuming a Bloc in rubble, and an election coming up soon. If we end up waiting on an election, then lots can change, but as long as the Bloc is weakened and still slightly directionless (or even worse for them, keeping their hard-line stance on a referendum), I think we should be able to steal back a couple seats. Not a lot, but every little bit counts.

But yesterday's poll said...

2007-03-28T19:49:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of Farn and Wide, we have 2 seaprate polls showing completely different stories. One has the race almost neck and neck. The other has the conservatives over 40% (but still lots of undecideds).

I'm sure in the next few days the rest of the polling firms will have new numbers out, and next week we'll start seeing the post-Quebec election numbers roll in, the Conservatives do appear to be a bit ahead. Combine with a strong ADQ showing in Quebec that they'll hope to capitalize on, the big question is what knife are they going to throw themselves on?

But they did get a bit screwed since Charest sucked, so it might not be so obvious. I'm still leaning to thinking that the Conservatives will wait a bit on the election, but I could still see us voting sometime in June. Definitely still not a guarantee either way.

More to life than politics

2007-03-27T14:54:00.000-04:00

Well, I started out saying I would comment on matters other than politics, and a while back I abandoned that. However, with today being Super Tuesday in the East Playoff race, I thought I'd mention it.

6 teams compete - only 3 will make it in. All 6 in action tonight. We could see stuff tighten up even further today, or we may see stuff spread out a bit.

The Habs may also be getting some good news, with Huet possibly returning this week, although the way Halak has played, Huet doesn't seem as necessary.

The Isles get some bad news, as Dipietre suffers post-concussion syndrome. Always sucks when guys get hurt, but at this stage, it's a big break for the others in the race.

So how will it all end, with only a couple weeks left in the season? Nobody knows, but it will surely be fun to watch. Hopefully the Habs can keep their run here and make their historic collapse a little less historic.

Day after the vote thoughts

2007-03-27T14:44:00.000-04:00

Well, as we all sit back to analyze, a few quick links.

Boisclair to stay on

Knives coming out in Liberal party?

Scott Tribe muses about a PQ/ADQ coalition

Antonio muses following the "bittersweet win"

Coverage in DC!

Cherniak says the federal libs need to take over the provincial ones

Generally, seems like a sobering experience all around. Should be interesting to watch the dynamics of it over the next few months.

Live blogging the results

2007-03-26T20:46:00.000-04:00

I'll make a few notes as I listen in online: (all times PDT)

5:46 - ADQ tied with the Liberals? WTF? Antonio's not going to be happy at all
Greens up in 1 riding. Do we have our surprise riding, like Andre Arthur in the last federal election?

5:47 - ADQ ahead? What is going on here?

5:49 - 45-42-34 right now. Nice to see the PQ down a bit, and I can't see them winning it with this, but could the ADQ actually hang on?

5:50 - 46-44-33

5:52 - SRC has it a bit nicer: 48-36-28-1 for Lib-ADQ-PQ-QS

5:54 - Although on their minute-by-minute results, they have it 46-44-33, same as CBC. I don't think anyone predicted the ADQ would be in this tight.

5:56 - ADQ actually polling ahead of the PQ in total votes so far. Either it's going to be a stunning defeat for the PQ or else ADQ regions are faster to count.

6:00 - Charest is trailing in his own riding. Man would it be huge if both the PQ came in a stunning loss AND Charest lost his own seat. Politics would be crazy in Quebec

6:02 - CBC predicts a minority. Geez, you think, based on how it's been so far? At this point, it may even end up within 10 seats from first to last

6:06 - CBC's website has the ADQ ahead of the Liberals in total votes!!!! Has the world gone tipsy-turvy?

6:12 - I thought it was temporary, but the ADQ is still ahead in votes as well. I think we'll be going late to figure out who's going to end up in the lead.

6:15 - Elected numbers stand as 31-20-17 for Lib-ADQ-PQ. So the ADQ has already had 15 seat gain elected

6:17 - Still only 40% of the riding in, but Charest is down 2482-2277 in votes in his riding.

6:29 - Well, I think I'll call the PQ being stuck at about 34-36, so we've got 90 seats to split between the Libs and the ADQ. CBC's got the Libs up by a few seats now.

6:38 - CBC.ca's got a PQ guy on who was trying to claim that it wasn't a loss for separatists. Okay, that's like saying that the Conservatives winning the Federal election is good for left-wing voters of the country

6:40 - Liberals back ahead in seats, 46-43/44 (depending who you watch). Charest still losing. If the Liberals win in seats, but Charest loses his seat, does he step down?

6:53 - Liberals 4 seats ahead of the ADQ, with only 15 seats still in the air. Liberals looking like they should actually hold on.

7:01 - Liberals now elected in more ridings than the ADQ are leading and elected in, so looking a lot like they should be staying in power. However, barring a miracle, Charest is gone from his riding. You also have to watch out, since CBC now has the PQ only 2 seats behind the ADQ, so with a last push by them, it would be interesting if they got back to tie with Dumont.

7:06 - CBC predicts Liberals win.

7:09 - Looks like the PQ isn't close in any of the undeclared ridings, so they'll stay in last. Also, Calgary Grit has musings of Charest stepping down and running federally for Harper. Certainly should make for some good chatter in the next few weeks.

7:20 - Well, stuff seems to have calmed down now. 46-41-38 right now. I think I'll sign off for now and head home now. The PQ doesn't end as bad in seats as they looked earlier, but 28.35% of the vote is horrible for them. CBC just declares that Charest lost his riding, so expect lots of hounds over the next few days for both the Liberals and the PQ.

9:12 - In a move that shocks everyone except Antonio, it seems Charest actually won his riding. That should probably stop the load of people calling for him to quit.

Election time in Quebec

2007-03-26T12:53:00.000-04:00

Well, if you're reading this blog now, and are not aware from the election in Quebec going on today, then welcome back from your vacation of the past, oh, 5 weeks.

It's the big day. All the polls are saying the split will fall right close to even in votes, and it all depends how the parties get their people out, and where the votes fall. Right now, I'm still hanging on my prediction from before the election call, saying that the Liberals will still take it in a minority. It's going to be close, but I think the Liberals will be able to squeak out enough to get the edge in seats. However, it will be interesting how this plays going forward, to see how long they last there. We might end up seeing *another* election in the next year if the parties can't work together.

Another budget

2007-03-22T17:50:00.000-04:00

Well, even if we're still dealing with the fallout from the Conservative budget, the Ontario government has released its budget today. Another pre-election budget, but this one doesn't seem to be crazy. I doubt we'll see too many Liberals turning on Dalton for this one. Overall, I don't see anything to complain about. A child benefit that pays out to the needy, low-income folk, instead of to rich parents. A balanced budget. Funding for education.

Nothing huge and crazy, but lots of spending where it's needed. Opposition can't even point to anything to be overly unhappy with.

Edwards continues on

2007-03-22T14:23:00.000-04:00

Well, in some sad news for John Edwards, it appears his wife's cancer has returned. Hopefully she can go on with the treatment and continue to live a full life. Edwards has stated that he will still continue his race for the White House.

First budget victim: Comuzzi

2007-03-21T14:05:00.000-04:00

Well, when a party member breaks ranks to vote on a budget, hard to see how anyone could be upset when that person is kicked from the caucus.

Also, as much as I disagree with Antonio on many issues of the fiscal imbalance and many matters Quebec-wise, he does provide some good arguments over on his site about these issues, and about the optics of Charest cutting taxes after getting a bonus from the government. This was in response to a very good debate on the blogger's hotstove between him and Dan.

Budget Day!

2007-03-19T17:28:00.000-04:00

Well, gather round folks, since it's budget day today! Everyone can get in line for their little goodies. Everyone gets something, unless if you happen to be poor or aboriginal. Looks like some Quebecois are happy and will vote for it.

So now the main questions are:

1. How will this affect the Quebec election, with the Bloc voting in favour of it now?

2. Will we be seeing a federal election soon? Not necessarily that it will cause one, but is it strong enough for the opposition to go to war on, or strong enough for Harper to defend?

Only time will tell, but at least from first glance, it's not a full goody-bag of stuff that nobody in their right mind could refuse.

*edit: after a bit of reflection, and after reading A BCer in TO's recap, I have to say that there's really nothing in there that you can complain about directly. No big income tax cuts for large corporations, or direct tax hikes for the poor (we still have the indirect hike from rolling back the Liberal tax plan, but it's not explicitly mentioned). We'd all like to see some money go into something else, and less money go into that fiscal imbalance (although if it really end the problem for good, then I'll be happy), but it's not something that will be keeping me awake and worried about what the government is doing to us. Definitely not enough to go into an election war on, but still enough to be able to reject it without looking bad.

More reasons why Edwards should win

2007-03-19T14:17:00.000-04:00

Well, perusing the political chatter mailing list, I came across a link to this post, talking about the US candidate's views of homosexuality and gay marriage. Really interesting to see the difference between Canada and the US, where the views of Clinton and Obama are even further right-wing than Harper's. But there is one candidate who seems open to it, and that's Edwards. As the article points out, he's still in the "civil union" mode instead of fully endorsing gay marriage, but does admit that the next generation would probably be favour of it.

Good on him for being open about the topic. The more I see of him, the more he looks like a much better candidate than the others.

California wants in

2007-03-16T18:26:00.000-04:00

Well, apparently California has decided to move up its primary date, in order to be included in the action to pick the nominees for the next election. This means that, assuming other states like Florida, Texas, and New Jersey do likewise, we'll have less than a month from the first primary to when everything is decided, likely coming within only a couple weeks from Iowa and New Hampshire.

So, while we still have many months until the votes themselves, it's gonna be a packed winter next year, with all the states wanting to be "in on the action." Nobody wants to be the "BC" of the primaries, with the contest over before they finish voting. At least those in BC can still be happy that they won't get to know the results of Canadian elections early.

Anders

2007-03-16T15:01:00.000-04:00

How a man who has called Nelson Mandela a terrorist can continue to win a seat in parliament astounds me, at least he'll have to face an actual nomination fight now that a judge has overturned his sham of a nomination race. While Anders may benefit us Liberals politically by his insane comments and views, and while he may be the best chance the Liberals have to win a seat in Calgary, I think people would be overly happy to see him ousted. Now, please Glen, don't switch back now that the Tories are forced to be democratic!

"But I said it in French!"

2007-03-16T14:48:00.000-04:00

So, according to Mr. Boisclair, 2 phrases which mean the same thing could be racist in one language, but not in another. Apparently, "slanty eyes" is offensive in English, but in French, it's perfectly acceptable. Can someone please explain that to me?

This denial is a classic case of a guy who needs to take a media relations class. What you say when you're alone with friends and what you say in a public stump speech need very different levels of control about what is permissible and what isn't.

It's statements like that that I'm not surprised that we'll soon see the PQ in 3rd place in polling data. That one linked to has all 3 parties in a statistical tie. It's coming down to the wire. While I do think that Dumont will fall a bit once the allegations from his bridge attack see more light, right now, it seems like it will probably come come right down to the federal budget.

Tories kill climate change group

2007-03-15T17:12:00.000-04:00

I guess it makes sense to axe a group who works on stuff you don't believe in, and it might just be a standard re-org, as the Cons want us to think about, but it certainly isn't good optics cutting away the Environment Canada Climate Change Policy Directorate. Up next for them? Environment Canada itself. "No, the same number of people will be working on stuff related to the environment, but now, they'll simply be working in the Ministry of National Resources office."

In other completely unrelated news, Obama has said that he won't campaign on his rivals' personal lives. It's a bold move. If everyone stops mentioning this stuff, we might sometime, gasp, elect someone who's been divorced to the highest office in the land. How terrible would that be!

Courting the Klingon vote

2007-03-13T16:48:00.000-04:00

Now, I know everyone's constituencies vary slightly, and you will often see some politicians trying to court some minority votes by having their pages in Mandarin or some other language. But for Jyrki Kasvi, he has the interests of another minority in mind: Klingons. I guess it's not so weird, seeing as Google has had their homepage translated to Klingon, Pig Latin, and even that ever-widely spoken language of Bork, Bork, Bork for years now.

"Some have thought it is blasphemy to mix politics and Klingon," said Jyrki Kasvi, an ardent Trekkie. "Others say it is good if politicians can laugh at themselves."

-CNN article

Raising taxes

2007-03-13T14:55:00.000-04:00

It's always big news when a government decides to raise taxes, so we'll see how this works out for Shawn Graham in NB. Nice to see them balancing their budget.

Also, today is when we get our first report on the 2006 census. With my quick scan through, a few cool facts (to impress those ladies):

Toronto is now over 5M people in its metro area
Two new millionaires in Calgary and Edmonton
KW came very close to cracking the top 10, being only 6000 people smaller than London now, and with its larger growth, should pass London soon. Waterloo itself is only 2500 people away from 100000. However, the KW urban area is larger than London's.
The 6 largest federal election districts are all in Toronto, with Brampton West being the largest, at 170000 (the average is at 102000).
Stratford is the most densely populated agglomeration, with Red Deer closely behind.

Lots of information there, but basically, Canada is growing, with Alberta and Southern Ontario leading the way.

(*hat tip to Calgary Grit)

Random thoughts: polls, Americans, and Canadiens

2007-03-09T21:13:00.000-05:00

Catching up on some more recent news, Decima's poll looks the same as the usual others we're seeing. Now I'm getting a little annoyed by the continual polls, but everything points to us being about where we were a year ago, and if that's the case, I'd agree with TDH that an election isn't guaranteed. If the Liberal's TV spots have any positive effect for us, that would all but kill an election this year. But if the Conservatives this they'll be getting a boost from a Liberal victory in Quebec, there's still a good chance we could be voting in a couple months.

And down South, we're continuing to talk about the US race for 08. NBPolitico has an excellent recap of the candidates on both sides of the spectrum. Definitely looking to be heating up, with lots of good candidates on either side, but no great ones for either. Everyone's got some fatal flaws, which makes it eerily similar to the Liberal race from last year. So far I'd say the best bet for the republicans would be McCain, who is moderate enough for many people but still has some hard-line views on the war and abortion, at least enough to appease the hard right (after he gets the nomination. Before then he'll be pegged as a crazy liberal). And for the Dems, it's tougher to call. Barrack is getting the most press and looks to win it, but I wouldn't be surprised if he pulls an Ignatieff and can't get the last little bit of support to win.

And finally, what the hell has gone wrong with the Canadiens? At Christmas, the Habs were a second line centre away from being a legitimate contender, and 3 wins away from home ice throughout the playoffs, and now they're on the verge of a top-10 pick. How does a team fall so far so fast?

Dion: No negative attacks

2007-03-08T21:09:00.000-05:00

Well, looks like Dion plans to take the high road, and not stoop to negative attacks. I'd say it's a good plan to reinforce the positive for now, and to keep thinking about the future. For now, it's the best way to regain credibility. That way, people will hopefully think of him and the party as moving forward, and maybe step away from the past for a bit. It was a stupid plan for Martin to forget the past, but we need look forward. For all we rag on Harper, Joe Blow Canadian probably has very little wrong with how Harper's governed, so negative campaigning does very little. Make people think of the future, and then they'll realize why Harper has been wrong so much.

Science and Government

2007-03-08T16:07:00.000-05:00

I wanted to write a bit about something very important to me, as a computer scientist and as a person interested in politics. This issue is about government's involvement in science and research, and more specifically, about government understanding stuff about science and research.

I write this as I was reminded about the issue last week from a tech talk given by Larry Page, founder of Google, who was discussing a wide variety of subjects, ranging from energy to the economy, and everything in between. This was similar to the talk he gave at the AAAS conference a few weeks ago. Since the whole talk is over an hour (but if you're interested in science and technology, it is a good watch), I'll summarize the part that I wanted to emphasize (he went into more detail in the talk given to us, but the basic point was at about the 9-14 minute mark).

So he was talking about how much government understands science, since it would seem logical that if more members of the government understood about research and technology, they would be better equipped to deal with it. ed. note: It only makes sense - I mean, there's a reason why we appoint people who speak French as ministers for la Francophonie, and why we appoint people from rural ridings as ministers of in charge of agriculture. So, logically, it would make sense that if more government officials used to be involved in science and engineering, then we would much easier be able to tackle the challenges posed by technology that will come in the next few years, ranging from legislation about the internets to funding for research. ed: he didn't explicitly mention the internets, but I think made a few comments about evolution instead. Something like, "the fact that we even have a debate about whether to teach evolution in schools is crazy."

And the key point was that in all the main public offices in the US, from Governors to Senators to Congressmen (note: since I don't remember all the details fully, I may be including too many or too few groups in this, and my numbers may be off by a couple), but in all those people, there are only about 6 of them who have formal training in science and engineering. ed: And I'd be willing to bet that you wouldn't find too many more in Canadian politics either. And even when you have someone who knows about engineering physics, like, say, a former astronaut, they often have trouble winning.

And to add on to that, when you include members of the press, who are the ones most willing to talk about these issues, you add on a total of 0 more people who have training in engineering. Yep, that's right, nobody in the main press has an undergrad degree in a science or engineering field. So since none of them are used to it, they don't feel the need to mention about it as much. ed: and I do find that true. I mean, when stupid bills come up to vote, you get stories about it, but any press conferences dealing with more funding for research are brushed aside and hardly reported on, usually as a sidebar to an education announcement.

That was the main information from that part of the speech that he touched on. He went on to other points as well, but this was the stuff I wanted to comment on.

There are lots of reasons I've heard why people in engineering fields don't want to get involved with politics, ranging from a lack of interest in politics, to not wanting to give up their current job to go to a government job, to arguments about people in engineering being maybe more socially inept or just a general lack of political talents. While there may be some valid points in some of these, I don't see anything more than your basic stereotypes coming into effect here. Sure, there are lots of people in science and engineering who would make terrible politicians, but there are still lots who could do well.

And even in a place where math and engineering rule the day like at the University of Waterloo, from the impressions I've gotten, our executive has an uncharacteristically high amount of our executive in math and eng fields, with 2 out of 5 (me and our VP Policy, who happens to be an engineer). Just about every political event I go to, the general response to me mentioning that I'm a computer science student is that I'm like the "special child" at the event. And even thinking the other way around, I know I get my share of ribbing when I talk about politics with my techie friends.

And I do think that moving forward we need to find a way to make it so that it's not a surprise for anyone to be interested in politics, and so that we do have representation evenly not just among genders, but among professional experiences. I've talked with some people who believe that using some form of proportional representation could solve it, since then you could appoint some scientists to the top of the regional list to be elected, but I do also think we need to go further. Just like with the talks about new ways to make parliament and politics more friendly towards women, I think we need to look more into detail about under-representation of engineers going forward.

Since really, moving forward, funding for science and technology research should be one of our higher priorities. While I know it will never get the attention that files like the environment, education, and health care will get, and I don't even believe it should be up to their levels, it still should be something we strive towards. As mentioned in Page's talk, the whole Silicon Valley industry was started by a 1000$ grant to Hewlett and Packard in the 1930s. And moving forward, the technology industry will be one of the most crucial industries. I'd be willing to bet that a large number of people in Angus-Reid's Green Survey will say they're counting on a scientific breakthrough to stop Global Warming. Most people acknowledge that we've got to move on from gas-powered engines and onto some sort of fuel cell one.

But without the investment in the industry, this sort of stuff won't just happen. Larry Page was complaining about American funding, but the Canadian model is even worse. We need to push this issue, and the best way to do it is to get more people in engineering fields to step up to the plate and run for office.

Green Survey

2007-03-07T18:11:00.000-05:00

Well, all the hullabaloo about Angus-Reid and online polling last week convinced me to sign up with them for online polling (I like filling out surveys. I already do for Ipsos and NPDOR), and I just finished one about the environment and global warming. It should be interesting to see the results in the next few weeks, since it was a fairly elaborate survey, and even included a little quiz at the end to see how much you actually knew about what was going on. It was a pretty long survey overall, so it will be interesting to see what results they can grab from it.

OYL and the NDP

2007-03-05T15:58:00.000-05:00

Well, 2 topics that have nothing to do with each other, but since I'm too lazy to write 2 posts, they get crunched in together.

First off, good on the NDP for denouncing Robert McClelland's posting. [Cherniak writes about it in detail in his post before that one]. I haven't been as vocally opposed as Cherniak and Kinsella over Robert's past miss-speaks, and some of what he had said in the past could almost possibly maybe be explained, but this goes far over the line. No sane person could ever justify a comment like that, even in the heat of a debate, even in any sort of sarcastic reference. The NDP did the right move in denouncing that, since there is absolutely no place for that rhetoric in the party, let alone as the head of a prominent organization.

On a second, completely separate matter, the OYL had their yearly AGM this past weekend, recapped by Justin Tetreault. I was unfortunately not able to make it, but it sounds like it was fun, as most young liberal weekend gatherings are. Since I've been out of the country, I haven't been following everything as closely (aside from the many random facebook invites), but looks like a good team has been assembled. Since I've only really been a member for about a year now, and most of the time we've been worried about leadership, I haven't had too much contact with the old team, and look forward to working with Jacob Mksyartinian and the rest of the group that was elected.

(on a side note, why does the OYL have to keep electing presidents with long, tough last names? Teliszewsky and now Mksyartinian. Gonna take me a while to be able to spell that one right)

Polls, polls, and more polls

2007-03-02T14:49:00.000-05:00

CanWest, Angus Reid, and Decima.

And everyone's got their own comments on them, from dismissing methodology to boxing comparisons, to blunt analysis, to faint hope, to basic warnings about what we should strive towards.

Overall, we do have to be worried about this. We can do comparisons with how Martin was before the last election, but Harper's more competant than Martin was. And we can complain about whether online surveys are truly representative until the cows come home, but unless if you actually know how they "randomly" select the participants, it's all hopeful thinking. These are professional polling firms, so I'm pretty sure they're doing what they can to get the most representative sample they can.

So what do we have to do? How can we beat Harper? Well, for one, we need to move off being only about the environment, since I think it's obvious now that being a one-trick pony about that isn't working. People get distracted too much, and we couldn't even hold steady when these polls were taken during all of Al Gore's lead up to the Oscars. If it's looking like we'll do well with the environment, Harper's smart enough to pick something new to distract us with.

Really, we need to be careful overall. We all hope that Harper will fumble at something, but we have to realize we're not dealing with the incompetent leaders of the past. We won't even be able to play the old, "but look how good our economy is now!" card that we had in our back pocket before. The reality is that it's not an easy trip, and Dion really needs to work hard to get the trust back.

So what do I suggest? We beat Harper with his own game. He started the election campaign with negative ads, so we should respond by talking policy with people. Make people feel like we've got a plan for the future. Put out some new ideas for renewing the party, or even, as Scott and Greg keep harping about, proportional representation. This will get people talking, and bring the Liberal party to be a party about ideas and one that believes in something, not just the stale shell of a party that I have a feeling lots of Canadians have seen us to be the past few years.

Wappel and the Terror Vote

2007-03-01T14:10:00.000-05:00

Well, we had almost unanimous solidarity on the Terror vote, but we did have one member vote to extend the provisions. So, now we have to decide how to properly deal with it.

First off, let me state that kicking Wappel out of the party won't cause me to lose any sleep. I don't like him representing the Liberal party, and I wouldn't want him as my MP.

But I don't think it's a good political move to kick him out or even deny signing his nomination papers over this. As much as we know that extending the accord was wrong, your bland generic poll will tell you that people don't like the decision too much. And yes, I know that if you actually asked people about the substance of the debate, and showed them an example of the powers that we're giving, they change their minds, but in reality, we have to deal with public perception more than substance as a political party. And kicking a guy out of the party for this is not good public perception.

Now, I do believe that he should be punished somehow for voting against us, but I think we should keep it "unspecified." I want to see him go, but our goal now should not be to give this story any more media than it's already gotten.

Poilievre, terror, and milk

2007-02-27T17:35:00.000-05:00

A few quick stories"

Liberals ask Poilievre to apologize for stupid comment. Pierre again showing why he is a model parliamentarian.

Next, we've got the big vote tonight. Even if there's a CTV poll where 65% are in favour of extending it, I would tend to think we need to refine them a bit more before supporting them. Unfortunately we haven't had that chance as a parliament to actually talk, and I highly doubt that our current parliament could actually reasonably discuss anything, but we should sit down and figure out this stuff in more detail.

Finally, seems some new research shows that people were almost all lactose intolerant 8000 years ago, and that basically only with the advent of dairy farming did some Europeans actually manage to digest it. Why do I mention this? I dunno, was an interesting story about how us milk-drinkers are the real genetic mutants.

Support Navdeep Bains

2007-02-26T13:27:00.000-05:00

Well, this morning I got an e-mail for an online petition in support of Navdeep Bains, asking for Harper to apologize for his slandering of a good Liberal MP. I encourage everyone to go show your support for Nav and sign it.

Clinton

2007-02-23T20:57:00.000-05:00

Well, one of the perks of working out in silicon valley for a large company is that they bring in guest speakers, and today we were graced with the presence of Senator Hilary Clinton, in a chat with our CEO. It was a fairly informal ordeal, so it wasn't just a rallying speech for Clinton, but still obviously quite partisan and geared towards her Presidential campaign.

Overall, I thought she did fairly well. You can tell that she was knowledgeable about matters, and wasn't just giving canned lines in response to questions, but she also didn't pick you out of your [metaphorical] seat and make you want to run out to vote for her (I say metaphorical since obviously not everyone could fit in). She was also quite general with her talks (we want universal healthcare, we want more green incentives, etc..), without going into too much general about what to actually do about it.

Overall, I would say she's definitely not a puppet and she is in this for real. It should be interesting to watch her as we go through the campaign, and if she can get enough support to win the race.

Vilsack out

2007-02-23T15:53:00.000-05:00

Well, even if we've barely started the 2008 presidential campaigns, we already have candidates dropping out. Of course, nobody actually believed he had a shot to win it anyways.

So really, does anyone think it will be a race between anyone other than Hilary and Barack? Would the media go crazy if someone else actually won?

Trudeau

2007-02-22T21:14:00.000-05:00

Well, by now I guess everyone's heard that Trudeau decided to run in Papineau. Good on him for not taking an easy riding, and for taking a harder road. Would have been nice to have him in an easy seat to get out to more areas, but at least this way he can take the chance to prove to us that he truly belongs in politics, and isn't just riding his dad's coattails.

Facts? Where we're going, we don't need no facts

2007-02-21T19:10:00.000-05:00

Well, when I first heard about Harper's referencing the sun article about a Liberal MP, I didn't really know what to make of it, since I couldn't get too much info about it. Even a bit after, it's tough to figure out exactly what the article said, what Harper said, what Harper was trying to say, and what it all meant. Some people seem to think that the Liberals are trying to close down these anti-terror measures to save a Liberal family member's derriere, somehow making us think the Libs have some terrorist ties and are trying to save them

Luckily, some people have the intelligence above that of a 5 year old, and can actually figure out what's going on with the story. Harper tried to play dirty with a partisan low-blow. He shouldn't have brought it up, and someone's got to make him apologize for all these semi-slanders of good Liberals. Goodale before, and Bains now. Does he have something against our best and brightest MPs?

Yeah I'm Free, Free Falling

2007-02-21T13:57:00.000-05:00

at least according to Don Martin. So fun how he takes one poll and rides it throughout the article, and then briefly passes off 3 seat projections with the Liberals gaining seats, 2 of which return them to power. Ah, the fun of reading only what you want to read.

But what I really want to know is when Canadians finally decided to shift onto the election-time weekly polling numbers. Does anyone else remember the good old days when we used to get one poll every month or so telling us what we thought, and then stepped up during election times? At this pace the polling companies will have gotten to just about every voter in the country by the time the next election rolls around.

Deep Impact, or simply Armageddon

2007-02-20T16:49:00.000-05:00

Well, it's happened. Our worst fears have been realized. The world must get ready, since we have news that an asteroid is on a collision course for Earth.

So start stockpiling those supplies now and brace yourselves for the end of the world.

Quebec election

2007-02-18T18:19:00.000-05:00

Well, looks like Quebec will be going to the polls shortly after a mini-budget on Tuesday. The Quebec polls have been all over the place the last few years, with it switching back and forth every 2 weeks or so. Currently, it seems to be leaning towards a PQ minority. Should be fun to follow over the next month or so. I don't think anyone thinks that Charest has done great, but the PQ has been imploding recently. I don't think Boisclair will be able to hold onto his support, and my early prediction is the Libs will hang on, but in a minority.

And also, speaking of imploding, how low can you go...

The new cold fusion

2007-02-16T17:18:00.000-05:00

Well, I feel I must comment on the recent news about a company claiming to have a working quantum computer. I'm not an expert on quantum computation, but roughly, a quantum computer sort of exists in lots of different states at once, and using that and some other logic, can basically solve an incredibly hard problem in a very short amount of time. Others are already a bit leery about this new claim of a quantum computer, and I have to agree with that. It may work in this small case, and it would be incredible if someone actually got one working, but I think there's not enough here for it to be a real one that will be more powerful than the computer you or I are using right now.