Politics

[danaeris]

It looks like we're going to have a June election here in Canada, and that makes me a little anxious. I don't feel like I have an adequately firm grasp on what's going on out there politically; I also need to make sure that I'm registered here to vote.

The one thing I'm fairly certain of, at this point, is that I don't like ANY of the options.

My current impression, on the negative side of all of them:
-The NDP is too whiny, fluffy and fiscally unsound.
-The Liberals are corrupt, complacent politicos who are repeatedly elected on a middle of the road platform, but really should be running on a "whatever benefits the politicians" platform if they were only honest (yeah right!)
-The Conservatives are, well, conservative, and may move to eradicate or withold rights which I am eager to keep/gain.

And, the Green party is not yet viable, from my understanding.

What a headache.

Anyone have any suggestions on sites I can read to bone up on national and local politics?

Comments

[hopeforyou.livejournal.com]

You might want to start here:
http://www.blogscanada.ca/politics/default.aspx

It not only contains blogs, it contains other informative party and opinion websites.

It seems like the master jump-point for many other political web sites.

Good luck getting a grip on it all!

[thebitterguy]

I like to check bloggers. They tend to have opinions, but they also tend to have good info.

My faves are pogge (www.pogge.ca, IIRC) and Tilting at Windmills (http://www.la-mancha.net).

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

There's a very active Green Party in Hamilton West/Dundas area; several of our D&D players are involved in it, if you're interested. I'm not sure where the riding boundaries are, though.

I really don't know what to think about the conservatives. I'm hearing people say that they're not anti-gay, that that came out of bad Liberal press and the party policy is not like that at all; then I remember some comments I've heard from Reform, Alliance and Conservative MP's or hopefuls over the years, and I wonder. It seems to me you're in David Christopherson's riding, though. He's NDP, and he's practically a shoo-in.

Once the election is called, you can look up your local riding office and go with a birth certificate and a piece of ID that has your current address on it, and they'll put you on the voters' list. In fact, you may be able to do that now, but you may have to go downtown for it. I don't know if they have the riding offices set up yet. With all the furor the last two weeks, they soon will.

[iclysdale.livejournal.com]

Oh, the Greens here in Canada have several problems beyond not being viable, too. The Canadian Green party describes itself as "eco-capitalist," supports incredibly regressive taxation schemes, and has completely abandoned any kind of socially progressive platform. Last election, almost all of the major environmental groups (Sierra, Greenpeace, Suzuki Foundation, etc.) endorsed the NDP over the Greens, putting out a really unusual joint press release saying that they felt that the NDP had better environmental policies. The current leader came to the Greens from the Conservatives, and at least in Ontario they've been draining much more of the Conservative vote than the quasi-left-wing vote. Canadian Greens are an entirely different kettle of fish from American or European Greens.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

That's definitely interesting to know. Thanks for the info!

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

The green party is only viable because they're not getting enough votes yet. If you're only not voting for them because of that, then you're part of the problem.

That said, I'll be voting Tory - because despite the fear campaign that the Liberals are trying to smear them with, they arn't as evil as people think.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

I don't know enough to vote for the green party for any reason. That's why I'm doing my research.

I've been known to vote with the numbers, but I've also been known to vote for the party that stands no chance. This election is likely to be no different.

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

GOod luck with your reasearch; while it is certainly more difficult, don't forget to look into any independants who may be running in your riding.

Tories: Not evil, but not trustworthy

[asfi.livejournal.com]

The Conservative party can't figure out whether or not they're dyed-in-the-wool social conservatives. If you go to the "Defence of Marriage" page which is linked from their main English-language page, you learn from:

http://www.conservative.ca/english/marriage4.asp

that "We have always said that this is a matter to be decided by elected MPs who represent the democratic mandate handed to them by their constituents." This implies that they wouldn't fight against gay marriage without a clear mandate to do so from their constituents.

Elsewhere, there's a "donation box" button with this text: "Please help the Conservative Party and Stephen Harper in their ongoing fight to protect the traditional definition of marriage". Granted, this statement isn't completely inconsistent with the first, but it is pandering to a certain demographic. And believe me, that demographic sure isn't me.

Whether the gay marriage issue is the sole aspect of a "social conservative agenda" or just the tip of the proverbial iceberg is of no consequence. I cannot trust Harper et al to keep their paws off my quality of life (or that of my friends, or even total strangers I'll never meet). This is far more important to me than punishing the wicked Liberal Party over a trumped-up corruption scandal.

Re: Tories: Not evil, but not trustworthy

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

If you look at the Conservative plank on gay marriage, you realize that it's strictly a nomenclature issue. The Tories are in support of giving gay couples every single privaledge that married couples currently enjoy - the only issue that some (and there are Tories who support calling it marriage) Conservatives would like it to be of a different name, but identical in all other respects.

Trumped-up corruption scandal???

The Liberals stole millions of dollars of taxpayers' dollars (by all accounts, sponsorship is just the tip of the iceberg) and funneled it back into Liberal Party coffers. There's nothing trumped up about that - it's the biggest scandal in Canadian history.

[cos]

Politics in a Democracy cannot work if all people do is look at the choices as given, and decide which to vote for. Democracy is government by the people, not government selected by the people. The concept that makes it work is participation, not voting. You can have a great, functional, vibrant, successful democracy without any voting at all. You absolutely cannot have a functional democracy without participation, no matter how much voting there is.

So the point is not to look for the party that is just right as is, and vote for it.

The point is to pick the party you think is the best vehicle for achieving your goals, voting for that party, and joining it, to play a role in shaping what it does. You participate in the party so that you can influence how it uses its power, and you vote for it so that it can have more power, which you intend influence how it wields. These two things reinforce each other.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

I agree with all you are saying, actually. I AM planning on getting involved... and I suspect that one of the existing parties is close enough to my beliefs that I should be able to make the differences I'm hoping for.