Election Day minus 8 - Into the heart of darkness

Day 30: Yesterday I spent much of the day at OISE part of the University in downtown Toronto. It was like a home coming for me, I had attended classes there about 40 years ago when I was a student getting my teacher's accreditation. Sadly, it hasn't changed much. 

I don't want to sound self-serving but I was at public forum of the Small Parties, like us. Well, not really like us, all that we have in common is we are just minor parties in the May 2nd election.

Many of the party reps present thought that the media ignore us in favour of the mainstream parties. Of course that's bunk. In the marketplace of political parties, the minor fringe parties are given short shrift for many reasons. Some of these parties are just plain single issue parties like The Marijuana Party, Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party, and the First Peoples National Party. Of course I would consider the Green Party a single issue party, and they should have been at this conference, because like us they have no representation in Parliament. They were invited, but chose to ignore it. 

No, the reason that we are ignored by media is that we are ignored by voters - we really don't have much to offer to the vast majority of voters who are too busy to select good political representation. The Greens of course emerged as a larger party to save the world from the scourge of human environmental recklessness, you know global warming and the like. But the writing is on the wall for them, they don't yet believe it, but they are yesterday's leftovers, maybe they will join the minor party group next election.

Other parties present were the Canadian Action Party, Christian Heritage Party, Communist Party, Marxist-Leninist Party, Pirate Party and the Rhinoceros Party. All but the Pirates and Rhinos (see picture of two members above) are state-loving power parties. The Pirates are interesting, not sure why they aren't libertarians but hey, I like the name. The Rhinos are funny, full stop.

One party I thought was interesting enough to sort of join is the Online Party. Like all the others they are interested in issues, but they aren't pushing anything, they are just polling apparently, and offering a place for issues to be discussed, very refreshing.

For me the whole thing was possibly a waste of time though, unless there is some real press attention (none that I have seen yet) from it that discusses issues, not just the fact we were a motley crew.

Each of the party reps and their helpers I'm certain, were dedicated to their cause and passionate about getting their particular message out. I respect that, and those that I met, and spoke to, seemed like good people, people I would like as neighbours (maybe not the Rhinos ;-) ). I knew that going into the University campus, a socialist hothouse, was not going to be fun for me, and it wasn't fun. Central Toronto itself tends to vote for left leaning parties and people. So going down there was like banging my head on a wall, it felt better when I left. Would I do it again? Not unless there was more to gain than I did this time. This was a mix of Stranger in a Strange Land and Heart of Darkness.

Election Day minus 9: Time to bunt

Day 29 - Baseball is the perfect game for summer, slow, gentle, and cerebral. That's right cerebral, it is a mind game, a game of strategy and probability. Team managers like to play the percentages. What are the odds of such-and-such happening in a particular situation? A good manager will try to choose particular tactics that have worked in the past in a certain situation, only because there is a likelihood they may work again. So there is a constant collection of data in the form of statistics that team managers can refer to, and the best managers have this data in their heads.

Today I had an opportunity to be at a local event, an all-candidates meeting in my voting district. I was asked by our party V.P. of Political Action to sacrifice my own attempt to gather votes for my campaign in favour of the party, the team. This is a common practice in baseball, if there are runners on base with the chance to score, subsequent batters may be asked to "sacrifice" themselves for the team, depending on the situation. How? Well,  a batter could hit the ball really hard into the air - creating a fly ball, but deep enough into the outfield so that a runner could advance after the ball is caught. Or a batter could be asked to bunt along the first base line. This forces the opposite team to throw to first, and get that bunter while whomever is on base advances. It's a sacrifice too, for the team.

Now lets be clear, my sacrifice today is not going to ruin my chance at being elected, far from it, but it does not look good in my community. For the sake of representing the party I appeared at a staged media event of minor - "fringe" parties from across the country that was held in the heart of Toronto.

I just got back from that, and I'm beat. The socialists of central Toronto have beaten me, air-heads that they are. I'll say more later.

Earth Day 2011

Even in the heat of an election campaign, when I don't have time to, well, time to do all sorts of things, I can't resist taking a swipe at the Eco-nuts, especially when I'm given ammunition. Such ammunition came from the good people at ReasonTV.
Now you may have noticed the awful silence amongst the media regarding Earth Day (April 22, 2011), I certainly have, here in the Great White (still thawing) North. I have not been cajoled today to turn off my lights, avoid driving, flush the toilet only when necessary (ugh!), use less toilet paper, pick up street garbage, have a candle-light dinner, buy local produce (good luck in Canada in April), compost my left-overs or any of those thing. What a relief! Its been quiet, I guess the eco-crisis has subsided, because there are no frantic pleas from the green mob.
Any way I have things to do, so here is ammunition for the rest of the year to ponder the next time an enviro-nut admonishes you for being alive.

Election Day minus 11 and 10 - State Holiday Today, or else!

Libertarian says: party is socially

 liberal, fiscally conservative.

Day 27 and 28: Is Canada, particularly Ontario, Christian country? You would think it was today, Good Friday. Drive around my town and almost everything is closed. Yet I have been listening to the local all-news radio station and they report two and three hour wait times at the Canadian - US Border, for entry into the United States where it is business as usual. Those Yankees even have Good Friday/Easter Sales, and with the Loony worth about $1.05 for each US Greenback, well, that is irresistible for many not so religious Canucks. You would think in a free country people are grown-up enough to choose whether they want to work or pray or shop. Not here, it is an Ontario law and I have commented on it before. Just think of all the business being lost to our American neighbours as we are encouraged to stay home and hunt Easter eggs.

In another area, many Canadians are finding it much more difficult to cross that once very porous US-Canadian border. The legislative over-reaction to the  9/11 hysteria has created new ways for our governments to observe our movements, as you may want to read in this article.

Today is also Earth Day, did you know? I totally forgot, and the media did not remind me as it has dutifully done for the previous 20 years. I guess things have improved, or more likely people don't really care. Every day should be a day we respect property and how people use it. The destruction of the environment, I believe is largely due to poor laws for the protection of people's property. Canada is a perfect example, our Charter of Rights contains no provision for property rights and this phrase from the Libertarian platform sums up our policy: 

We maintain that no one has the right to violate the property rights of others by pollution. We believe that the laws of nuisance and negligence should be modified to cover damages done by air, water, and noise pollution.
We support the development of an objective system of law defining individual property rights to air and water. We believe that ambiguities regarding these rights (e.g., the concept of "public property") are a primary cause of our deteriorating environment.

In my own little election campaign, my wife helped me post all of my remaining large signs (30) throughout town, and repair many that have suffered wind damage. I have more large signs posted than either the New Democrat or the Green candidate. In fact the Green candidate isn't so green. His signs are plastic bags (non-recyclable) stretched over metal holders, and they are all lawn signs which contravenes the local Town by-law about size and sign type. Talk is cheap in the world of politics.

The two pictures above are from the local newspaper, and the reporter was reasonably accurate in reporting what I had said to her. I doubt that this will cause a stampede of voters in my direction, but who knows, I may attract the odd thinking individual.