Day 5 - A consortium of TV networks has decided Green Party leader Elizabeth May will not take part in the leaders debate next month. Reason? She has no members in the House even though she has candidates running in every riding across the country and got about 7% of the popular vote last time. Of course the leader of the Block Quebecois will be at the debate even though he is running in just ONE province, Quebec. He also wants to split the country up, details, details. Personally, I would let the Green leader debate and disallow the Quebecer, but thats just me.
I have my nominations papers printed and a cheque and papers ready for the local Returning Officer. Now all I need is 100 signatures and I'm good to go. I've spent much of the last two days working on a trifold brochure, the first page is posted, now I just need to print it.
It was warmer today, spring is coming, the Blue Jays opener is Friday and its sold out.
Day 4 - Still cold out, and the promises are flying thick and fast. So I recalled a line from William Gairdner's new book The Trouble with Canada.......Still : "No government can confer a benefit upon one person or group without penalizing another."
I must be watching the CBC too much, yesterday I thought they actually asked the right question but came up with the wrong answer. The question: What causes voter apathy? They did street interviews and got good answers, like: "I'd vote if I thought it would make a difference."
Exactly right, I thought while watching. People do vote if they think there is an issue, as happened in 1988 - the "free trade" election.
In 2008 the turnout was just 59.1%, the lowest EVER. You don't need to be a statistician to see the steady decline since 1988. Why bother voting if you don't think it will make a difference? By that I mean, does it matter to you if the guy that beats on you is wearing a blue hat, a red hat, an orange hat or a green hat? You are still being beaten! They are ALL the same, no wonder people are apathetic, I would be too, if I wasn't running.
Unfortunately the reporter doing the piece did not say that, he came up with some other poor excuse, but good try.
Here is a more complete list of voter turnout - as government got bigger turnout got smaller, in general.
Day 3 - Still too cold to get out and knock on doors, saw the first lawn signs (all Conservative - do you think they knew?), and I'm getting sick of the word "coalition" used by the media.
Do you ever feel as though no political party represents you? Our government funded People's Network - CBC TV, can now help you prove it. They have this interactive Q & A thing called Compass on their website. It looks and feels like a version of the Nolan Chart except they leave out libertarians and totalitarians. So when I tried it, it did not exactly give me a definitive answer except that I seem to be conservative with socially liberal tendencies. The box below is a pictorial view of my score - the circle with the check mark is me, doesn't really work for people like me, but the Nolan Chart as calculated on The world's smallest political quiz suits me fine. You should try both, if you are a Canadian taxpayer, hey you helped pay for the CBC thing whether you wanted to or not. Thats how coercion works.
Day 2
It's still freezing cold outside, a bit too early for door knocking, but that will be necessary shortly.
The mainline parties have made it difficult to topple them any time soon. Using their legislative clout over the years, the main parties that are already comfortably seated in the House of Commons Ottawa, have created several roadblocks to prevent a proliferation of frivolous contenders.
In each riding across the country, every prospective candidate or his/her representative must put up $1000.00 in order to run for office. That's not a problem for the larger parties, flush with donations from expectant supporters. But for the smaller parties like us, it is a roadblock. The money is refundable however, if each candidate or representative completes the required paperwork and follows the rules, but few libertarians like those kinds of rules.
That's not all, each candidate or his/her representative must obtain the signatures of 100 eligible citizens within the riding in order to stand for election. Again, for the main parties not a problem, they do it at their nomination meeting by passing around the form. For the little guys, well, we have some door knocking and a bit of cajoling coming up, I hope some warm weather arrives this week.
Meanwhile a friend to the west has produced (with a bit of help from me) a promo YouTube video that tries to differentiate Libertarians from the Statist parties (the rest of them). Here it is, I love it:
