Observation Of The Day

For a guy who says he doesn't want an election, our Prime Minster sure does mention it a lot, as he travels the country, handing out checks.

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Canada, Not To Be Left Out

Has abandoned even the facade of democracy. The question of the day is, are elections, as they are now constituted, even necessary?

Exhibit A: Our two biggest parties are, in effect, acting as agents for a foreign corporation, against the interests of Canadian workers. They make the act of voting as appealing as suicide.

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The Interview

After watching the PM's interview with Mansbridge last night, I was struck by two things. First, Harper's "plan" (although he danced like crazy when Mansbridge pushed him on it) is to cut government spending, which during a recession/depression is about the stupidest thing a government can do.

Second, Harper is one cold son of a bitch. Mansbridge tried his best to warn him against his own character, but Harper ignored him. He gleefully indicated that there were many good buys to be had due to the crash. Mansbridge looked absolutely horrified, as he should. This is people's life savings going down the toilet and Harper, death's head grin in place, is telling people not to worry because it just means that those not stupid enough to buy high, can now profit from other people's misfortunes. I have been flamed before for saying this, but Harper is not normal. He has absolutely no empathy for other human beings. This is not a guy you want running the country when the economy is in the toilet.

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The Pitiless Logic Of "Stop Harper"

Call it political karma. If Travers and Walkom are right (there has to be a first time), we should, in very short order, see Layton appeal to soft Liberals to come over to the NDP to stop a Harper "majority". Too bad we don't have an electoral system designed so we could vote for a party rather than against one, eh?

Sunday Update: Right on schedule.

Sunday Update 2: The problem with Layton's new strategy is that it buys into the idea of strategic voting. One wonders what he will say if the polls take a sudden turn in another direction?

Monday Update: Like now, for example.

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That's Two Votes For The Nice Man In Overalls

As I read Travers' column this morning I felt a rising sense of anger. He wrote about the rural urban split in the vote, using Stratford as his model and he concludes:

Seen from the theatres, bed and breakfasts and coffee shops, the ruling party's arts policies, and particularly recent cuts, are backward steps. Seen from the entrepreneurial perspective of a city that has found innovative solutions before, the national government's easygoing willingness to leave education to others is a failure to step forward.

Of course there's another view. It's from the country where there are more than enough votes to re-elect Schellenberger and where urban troubles are abstract, far away and, perhaps, just a little pleasing.

Not once in his column does Travers question the over-representation of the rural vote in our system. The undemocratic nature of this setup is just taken for granted.

Canada is in a bad way. Not only do we have a terrible electoral system, but we make the farce we call democracy even more grotesque, by weighing rural votes more than urban ones. The injustice of this situation has become so accepted by our elites that no one even thinks to raise it as an issue. Canada deserves better. We deserve representation by population, you know, democracy.

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Dennis Perrin Speaks

It's as if he is looking into a magic mirror and can see Canadian politics as it is practiced by Liberals and Conservatives without any distortion:

Over the past days, I've reached for various masks that hang on my office wall, then submerged myself into character while touring a number of liblog comments sections. It's not pretty. There are some truly twisted mindsets claiming to be "liberal," or worse "progressive." Even mildly broaching the idea that perhaps, just maybe, Obama/Biden is not the fix that is needed, that it is more of the same, only with tin halos and false smiles, will get you slammed. The Ticket will not be questioned, not in any serious way. The Republicans and the Republicans alone are the source of all evil in this land. Every tired retort is repeatedly aired -- McCainiac, Naderite, racist, sexist, etc. You know the script. Facts don't matter. Refuting their falsehoods, meaningless. We have entered the religious phase of the campaign, and only those embracing the faith may speak without being slimed. If it wasn't for PETA, I suspect that snake-waving would be part of the ceremony, provided that the snakes were registered Dems, of course.

Substitute Liberal for Democrat and Conservative for Republican and it is completely applicable here (or will be as soon as Harper drops the bomb).

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The More The Merrier

As we embark on yet another pointless exercise in electoral fraud, I want to get something off my chest. I want Elizabeth May included in the debates. Why? Because the more parties involved in this farce, the greater likelihood we will get a "majority" government with a ridiculously low percentage of the popular vote.

I want those Liberals who helped destroy Ontario's chance at getting PR and by so doing pushed the issue off the national radar, to squeal with pain should Harper win a majority with 34% of the vote. Because, make no mistake, if Harper does pull it off, he will run with it. He will rape this country. Then I want to hear the folks at the Star and the Liberal blogosphere talk about how we need the kind of stable government that only FPTP can deliver. Yes I am sure they will be quite effusive in their praise for a system that delivers a phony majority to Psycho Steve.

Now, it may not happen. Harper may let his mask slip long enough for the voters to see the pure evil inside. Dion may be an electoral genius. Layton may yet get his dream and toss the Liberals into the trash heap of history. But none of these things is likely. With four and five way splits inherent in our beloved voting system, anything can and will happen. So, bring on the clowns. Start the music. Let the games begin.

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And The Clocks Are Striking 13

From today's news:

A senior Conservative source said the party plans to broadcast an announcement each day of the campaign at 6 a.m. from an in-house studio at the party's national campaign headquarters in Ottawa.

The Sinister News Service has discovered footage of a trial run of the first such broadcast, scheduled for the not too distant future. In the trial run, they substituted an unknown chap for Dion's face, but don't worry, when the real election comes, he'll be there, front and centre.

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An Ad I'd Like To See

Close up of a "craps" table. Roller shakes the dice in slow motion. Ominous music in the background. Captions read. "Stephen Harper likes to gamble with Canadian lives. He believes that government has no business regulating things like nuclear reactors, climate change or meat processors. And now he wants Canadians to gamble on another Tory mandate."

The roller throws the dice and the camera follows. The dice come up "snake eyes". You hear a voice in the background say "You lose".

The final caption comes up. "Is that a risk you are willing to take with your family's health?"

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Ballot Question

Are we, as a people, ready to reward a party that let's 89 year old women die of food poisoning, in order to satisfy its own ideological hatred of government?

Update: For my anonymous commenter. Nik Nanos weighs in on what "reasonable" people in Ontario may conclude from this incident. H/t to Impolitical.

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Dun, Dun, Dun

Last Thursday I wrote:

If there are any MSM types out there, perhaps you can ask some food inspectors if they were told to back off and give industry the benefit of the doubt, and if so, when?

Well the good people at the Globe and Mail must have been on the same wavelength because they answered my question today:

And the federal agency responsible for food safety this year began to let the industry conduct its own food testing, The Globe and Mail has learned.

A leaked cabinet document that outlined plans for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to give the food industry a greater role in the inspection process raised the ire of opposition politicians last week.

However, some of the plans have been in place since March 31, according to a CFIA manager and an official from the union that represents the federal inspectors.

At the Maple Leaf plant behind the listeria outbreak, a single federal inspector was relegated to auditing company paperwork and had to deal with several other plants, the manager and the union official said, contradicting the impression that officials had left last week that full-time watchdogs were on-site.

So, the government had already shifted to the Walkerton Model before this outbreak at the Maple Leaf plant. How suddenly very interesting. I wonder if this incident rather than any other, is driving the election timing? I also wonder if the Tories left it a day too late?

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Harper: "I'm The Decider"

Really, Psycho Steve needs to stop channeling his hero. He passed a law intending to handcuff future prime ministers when it comes to calling elections. He should live with it or change the law.

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Yippee I Got To Vote (Now If It Only Meant Something)

I just got back from voting. The polling clerks had a real ritual they had to go through this time. It was like kabuki without the white makeup. I had to show my registration card, my driver's license, confirm my address without looking at the registration card, mark my ballots and then reconfirm my name when I gave the ballot over to the clerk before putting in the box. It seemed quite overboard if you ask me and it lent an air of mistrust to what had previously been a lighthearted, greet the neighbors kind of event. I suspect all this new concern for security will do is suppress the vote even more. Speaking of which, I talked to one of the other clerks and she said the turnout was down from 2004. It will be interesting to see the final numbers.

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I Hereby Declare....

This to be the official theme song for our next federal election day.

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