Hey politicians: do something useful!

In the past few weeks, I've received emails from every major and minor political party, David Suzuki, Greenpeace, Avaaz.org, and a couple more. Now before my contact list starts to impress you, realize that I subscribe to most of these organizations so I can mock them here.

And mock them I will. Outside of the Conservatives, all of the emails were urging me to support the NDP-Liberal takeover attempt. How can I do that? Well I can sign their nifty petitions (which puts me on their mail out lists, sneaky sneaky) or give them money. Mostly, it was about money.

But last week is over. The Governor General has suspended Parliament, and we have to wait until January to see how the government will fall.

Did you notice my use of the word "how" and not "if"? Well go back and read it again then, sentence skimmer. The current government will fall. That is a given. Why?

Because none of the parties understand how a minority government works. The way they understand it, it doesn't.

I'd like to ask our politicians to take this time they've been given to learn how to do something useful--such as governing our country.

The economy is unstable. People are concerned. We're tired of elections, we're tired of infighting, we're tired of dilly dallying. Put aside your petty party prejudices, roll up your sleeves, and work together to find better answers.

If that means the Conservatives and the Bloc get together to hammer out an economic plan, so be it. If the Liberals and the Tories sit down to work something out, great.

In a minority, someone has to play nice with at least one other party, or it's back to the polls we go.

So it's my suggestion that Harper's government start looking for playmates instead of trying to bankrupt, bully, and beat up the opposition. It's time to crawl into bed with the corrupt and disorganized Liberals, the socialists, or the separatists, Steve. Pick your poison.

If it all gets to be too much, just close your eyes and think of Canada.

Abby's weather report on the Canadian political storm

I know you've all been waiting with baited breath for my next post about the Canadian constitutional conundrum, so I thought I'd at least get a post out before the PM and the GG get jiggy with it. (This new job is taking huge chunks of time out of my aimless internet surfing and blog posting.) Since my skewed, totally pointless opinions seem to amuse you, here's how I see recent events:

The original Conservative motion

The original so-called economic update didn't really update the economic situation or the current economic climate at all. Why? Because Harper wants to wait until our big, friendly, newly led neighbours to the south sort out what the heck they are going to do about their own economy.

Makes sense, right? Why should we spend money to stimulate our economy when it is totally reliant on the US? I thought it was a good idea for the government to keep my tax money in its pocket instead of handing it out to doomed manufacturers. It's called capitalism. What goes up can come down with a really big bang.

That's fine. What really stunk about the motion was the bald political manoeuvring that was tacked on to pigeonhole the opposition parties, civil servants, and women in the workforce.

Most people now know that the Conservatives were going to cancel party subsidy funding to save the government money. Thirty million? That's a drop in the bucket. It's less than Harper's security staff budget, in fact. Peanuts. However, it would cripple the opposition and allow them to possibly gain a majority in the next election.

Sneaky enough, but the sneaky part of me admires a good political handcuffing. The opposition wouldn't dare force another election, right? So they have to say yes.

The Straw that Seized the Zamboni

But the Conservatives tipped their hand. They decided to tie a little more pesky policy to the motion white they were at it. What did that include? Taking away civil servants' rights to strike for 3 years, and a woman's right to sue for pay equity.

That's right. We females don't need the right to demand fair and equal pay. We should be barefoot, in the kitchen, looking after our children. After all, it's not like the measly childcare subsidy the Conservatives hand out would actually pay for childcare and allow us to work anyway. So much for the word "progressive".

Infringing on worker's rights and women's rights is a sure fire way to rile up the NDP and the Bloc. Rile them up so much that they'd consider having a sleepover with the Liberals. They've all decided they hate the Conservatives more than they hate each other. Isn't that sweet?

Clearing up the air

I don' t particularly care for the Liberals, and I don't think Dion would make an effective leader, particularly in this situation.

Having said that, Stephen Harper continues to anger me with his patriotic bullshit attacks so much that I'd just like to point out the following:

1. Harper repeatedly states that the public hasn't voted for Dion as PM. They never voted for Harper, either. WE DO NOT ELECT A PRIME MINISTER. Ask Kim Campbell about that. You don't even need to be a member of the House to be PM.

2. Harper also says that his party was elected to govern. It wasn't. It is a minority. This coalition could have been formed and given power immediately after the election, if the Governor General approved.

3. The attacks for working with separatists are hypocritical. The Alliance and the Conservatives have both worked with the Bloc in the past to bring down the Liberals. It's called politics. Someone has to work with someone else, or minorities don't work. Obviously.

4. The opposition parties were elected to represent the people in the same way the conservatives were. Saying they weren't chosen to govern isn't correct; they were voted to govern, but no single party collected enough seats to form a majority.

So that's my two cents on all of that.

Now, it's very likely that the GG will either put the brakes on all this until January or call an election. I don't want to see another election. I dislike hugely Harper's style of governing, his secrecy, and his dictator-like control of his party.

Most importantly, I don't want to see a coalition take power which is, essentially, controlled by the Bloc.

Gilles Duceppe is an intelligent, forceful man. The NDP think they are gaining power through cabinet posts and such, but the real power lies in the ability to push a bill through the House, and that rests entirely on the Bloc.

Allowing the coalition to come to power means that, yes, the three parties that supported Kyoto and other environmental measures will be able to push through important legislation. But it also means that control of the House will lie entirely with a regional party with very specific interests.

Do you think Duceppe is going to be concerned about BC? About Newfoundland and its equalization disputes? (We all know how Quebec loves Newfie natural resources.) No.

I don't particularly care that they're separatists. I care that they don't have the country's best interests at heart.

So that's where I stand on this whole issue. Take from it what you will.

Clarity and Transparency for...?

Well folks, it's not even nine thirty in the morning, and I've already had my exercise for the day. Exercise in futility, that is.

After listening to the local CBC morning host speak to various campaign organizers this morning, I decided that most Canadians don't have two sweet clues about individual party policy. My brilliant idea was to provide a simple breakdown of each party's particular policy on key issues, with a new post each day on a new issue.

Fairly simple, right? That's what I thought. Zip onto each party website, download and read their party policies, and sum it up without all the political gobblygook so the four people who read my blog can make an informed choice. That way, we should end up with four Canadians who at least know why they voted in the way they did.

The first website I searched was the Green Party of Canada, mainly because I was rather disgusted by the representative who had just spoken on the radio. The Greens have a link from their main page directly to a policy page. From there, they have further divided their policy documents into key issues, which can be viewed online or downloaded for convenience. Simple. Effective. This is what they stand for, this is what they want to do.

Next, I searched the Conservatives. Crafty as they are, the top Google search brings up the French version of their site, not English (hmm, wonder where they are campaigning?) and the alternate language button was hard to discern, but I found it. After reading about how cool Stephen Harper is, all the horrible things the Liberals did in the past fifteen years, how awkward Stephane Dion is (they have cartoon like pictures of him along the bottom, quite amusing), how incompetent the NDP are, and how the Bloc are destroying the country, I was still no closer to finding any policy documents. I gave myself a five minute search limit and hadn't found anything by the end of my time. If I couldn't find what I wanted in five minutes, the average click and go Net user isn't going to bother. So, I don't know what the Conservatives are planning, beyond a continuation of what we've seen this minority government do.

After that came the NDP, because Jack Layton sends me amusing emails telling me about how he's fighting big banks to reduce my credit card interest. The NDP are also conducting a leader-driven campaign-the site is all about Jack. Policy documents weren't anywhere easily found here, either. There was an abundance of information about the horrors of the Conservative government's recent decisions, Liberal bumbling, and how Jack Layton has been single-handedly saving Canadians from the Conservative horde. From what I understood, the NDP are going to do the opposite of whatever the Conservatives say they are going to do.

On the Liberal site, you can request a lawn sign. They like their lawn signs. There is also a large section on Dion and honesty (which talks about all the promises broken by the Conservatives). There is a small amount of general policy on the economy, the proposed green tax shift, and...that's it.

The Bloc Quebecois site, of course, is in French, so the English speaking parts of Canada may miss out on their policy. Which is sad, considering it isn't half bad. The only sticky part is that it is focused only on Quebec, and oh yeah, they want to separate from the country. In terms of finding policy documents, though, the Bloc have links directly from their index page to the key issues, again downloadable by PDF.

So I apologize that I couldn't give you an immediate, lazy researcher's overview of the Canadian election. I'll dig a little deeper, but if you want my opinion, the parties that seem to know what they want to do (other than slag their competition) are the Bloc and the Greens.

Let the games begin.