THERE IS A CANADIAN ELECTION GOING ON

Hello, blogosphere. I am just here to say the only reason I haven't blogged in awhile is I've been busy. I should be studying for my last exam right now.

Everything is insane right now though. This election stuff is getting out of hand. The Tories have been running the same well-scripted, highly controlled and image-based campaign that they always have, and which first got our current king Stephen Harper elected and re-elected. Lately, the NDP has been gaining support; whether or not they can overtake the Liberals remains to be seen. The question of whether either the Liberals or the NDP can overtake Harper, that is the question.

I personally hope to god that Harper can finally be ousted. I especially hope that the guy does not get a majority. Here's why:

Do you remember back when a foreign service officer blew the whistle on the Canadian military handing over detainees to Afghan security forces, in violation of international humanitarian law? And then the government tried to destroy him and refused to give documents to a parliamentary inquiry?

Harper got elected on promises for GREATER TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY, if you remember. Which is of course a grotesque joke. Having come into office on campaign promises of greater transparency and accountability, Harper has silenced civil servants and diplomats, cynically published guidelines on how to disrupt hostile parliamentary committees, and suppressed research that contradicts ideologically-driven policy, for example data that show crime rates to be falling, or that the Tar Sands aren't environmentally devastating.

Following rulings by Speaker Peter Milliken, for the first time in Canadian history, the government and a minister were found to be in contempt of parliament for withholding information and misleading the house.

International Cooperation minister Bev Oda told parliament she did not know who had altered a document that cut funding to a foreign aid group. Later, she admitted to ordering the changes, but did not know who had carried out the order. This is called lying to parliament.

Former Integrity Commissioner Christiane Ouimet failed to uphold a single one of more than 200 whistle-blowing complaints, which it was her job to do. Forced out of office by the ensuing public outcry, she was awarded a $500,000 (CAN) severance package on condition that neither she nor the government talk about it.

That is, a public servant paid by the taxpayer was financially gagged by yet more taxpayer money to stop taxpayers finding out what was going on.

In 2008, Harper was re-elected right after the economic collapse and right before the U.S. Presidential Election. He was re-elected by continually pointing at Canada's being relatively unscathed after the collapse, touted his financial policies as being safe and sound, and that he was running on a platform of continued economic stability and good policy. Which was a lie; Stephen Harper completely mismanaged the budget, resulting in what we have now, which is the largest deficit in Canadian history. The current election was sparked when all of the other parties rejected Harper's budget, which offered more tax cuts for corporations and powerful rich elites, expansion of the prison system and the military, and offered far too little for health care, average Canadians, and the environment.

And yesterday, an article from the Toronto Star said "The only thing worse for the environment than a harper minority is a Harper majority."

With regards to his platform: "In the thin environment section of their platform, the Conservatives boast they aligned Canada’s emission targets with those of the United States — which sounds great, except the American target was lower. They also say they’ve introduced regulations on carbon-spewing coal-fired power plants. This is not true. They’ve promised to do so, but so far the regulation exists only deep in the computer of some dispirited Environment Canada employee, if at all.

And, no surprise, there is no mention of addressing emissions from the oil sands."

Back in November, after the people clearly voted in the Climate Change Accountability Act, the Tories convened a secret Senate session just to shut it down and not pass it. The bill, Bill C-311, was voted on when it had been put before the Senate more than half a year before. The Senate held a surprise vote in the middle of the night without notice and without debate, so that many of the Senators who would have voted for the bill wouldn't be able to vote on it. This filthy trick was a direct assault on real democracy in this country.

After the last elections, when the opposition parties were close to agreement on a coalition majority government, rather than face the house in a vote of confidence, Harper talked the governor-general into shutting down parliament for a month until he shored up his own support. Proroguing Parliament for me was personally enraging, and resulted in a surge of outrage from concerned Canadians ('Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament' is still the largest ever Canadian Facebook group). It also was in fact a direct stifling of our country's democracy. In 2008, according to Statistics Canada, 58.8% of Canadians voted. Harper's minority government got in with only 37.7% of that vote.

In a democracy (Rule by the People), we need the people to participate. Therefor, on May 2nd, 11 days away as of writing this, we need people to ACTUALLY COME OUT AND VOTE. There are many out there who hold this notion that the political process is extremely flawed, corrupt, doesn't really represent them, presents a total lack of choice, or voting doesn't matter and won't change anything. In many ways, especially nowadays, there is some truth to some of these points. There are those who say that by not voting, they are using that as their voice, in protest of the perceived flaws or corruption of a system from which they feel alienated. I however think that is bullshit. By not voting, your non-participation is affecting nothing, and is counter-productive. If you want to protest your alienation from the political process, then in that case you should actually make your voice heard. This can be done through protests, civil disobedience, engaging the media, and all sorts of ways. Hell, if you're really alienated from the political process, then run for office, or start your own party. Non-participation, however, is basically opting out of your responsibilty as a citizen, and therefor your rights as a citizen, your right to have a say in how your country is run and in making decisions, and really your position as a citizen. Non-participation, in fact, furthers those problems with the political process, and further erodes our positions as citizens in a democracy, and contributes to the reduction of our involvement. If you want to refrain from voting, you shouldn't. But if you're going to refrain from voting as some supposed way of indicating your opposition to the problems in this country, then  at least actually do something to try and change things, as well.
Not voting amounts to exactly nothing.

For more on why Harper shouldn't be re-elected, a really good list is presented here, on a really awesome blog called 'Driving the Porcelain Bus'.

Back at the end of March, there was an article in The Australian, called "Canada Watches Its Democracy Erode." It laid out some of the general points mentioned above, as well as lamented the situation around here, saying:

"Edmund Burke noted that all that was necessary for evil to triumph was for good men to do nothing. Canadians are certainly good and worthy folks, but they suffer an excess of civil obedience, politeness and lack of civic rage that could be harnessed to combat political atrophy. At a time when Arabs risk life and limb for political freedoms, Canadians seem largely apathetic about the erosion of their democracy.

The centralisation of power in the hands of the prime minister and political staffers - with the resulting diminution of the role and status of cabinet, parliaments and parliamentarians - is common to Anglo-Saxon democracies in Australia, Britain, Canada and the US, but the extent to which constitutional conventions, parliamentary etiquette and civil institutions of good governance have been worn away in Canada is cause for concern.

...Judges who rule against the pet causes of the government's ideological base are not immune to attacks from cabinet ministers. Civil society groups that criticise any government policy or ideology risk loss of funding and hostile takeovers by boards stacked with pro-government ciphers.

Little wonder Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin describes the government's "arc of duplicity" as "remarkable to behold". What remains unclear is whether this adds up to an indictment of Canadians' indifference to democratic rights being curtailed or of the opposition parties, which have failed to harness the silent majority's outrage.

As Canadians head for the polls in early May, it remains to be seen whether Liberal Party charges of the Harper government being obsessed with secrecy, control, spin and attack ads will resonate with voters. Until then, Oh Canada, we cry our hearts for thee."

For all Canadians: PLEASE GO OUT AND VOTE!

and

PLEASE LET'S GET RID OF STEPHEN HARPER!