An Increase in Western Political Clout?

First off, just like to apologize for the lack of posts during the last week.  Seems that every once in a while, life comes and gets in the way of blogging. But without further ado, here we go.

Saw this article on the CBC website a couple days ago.  A recently released StatsCan report shows that for the first time ever, B.C.'s and Alberta's combined population have surpassed that of Quebec.  The article then continues on to wonder if this will result in more political power for the West.  It certain could, in one respect. And that is through increased representation in both Houses of Parliament that may occur.  Currently, B.C. and Alberta currently have 64 seats in the lower House (as opposed to Quebec's 75), while the more glaring discrepancy is in the Senate where B.C. and Alberta have 12 and Quebec has 24 seats.  Now the House discrepancy I believe will take of itself the redistribution and allocating of new seats over time.  However the Senate may take a little longer, then again maybe not.  One proposal out there to correct this is the Murray-Austin amendment.

However, this may not really increase the West's political clout.  And the reason for that is due to who else, Ontario.  Ontario, with its 106 seats,  is still the main objective for any party trying to come to power under our "first past the post" system.  And many in Ontario are much more concerned with (and closer to) those in Quebec and issues affecting Quebec.  So sure, we might get a few more seats out here, but will anyone be listening?


And a few little tidbits I've found in my wanderings on the net:

I encourage you to check out the Praire Wrangler's "interesting" daily news round-ups. Just remember to take everything he says with a grain of salt (heck you'll need more than a grain, try a whole handful).

Looks like the Liberal Party has fined Joe Volpe $20,000 for signing up dead people.  Werner Patels and Steve over at Far and Wide have some great commentary on the issue.

Finally DazzlinDino over at the Blogging Party of Canada has this hilarious clip of a little Irish girl's solution for her teachers giving her too much homework.


Technorati Tags: B.C., Alberta, Quebec

Give it up already

Looks like good ol' Joe could be up to something again (h/t Prairie Wrangler). The Liberal Party is currently investigating a complaint from Montreal's Papineau riding regarding new members signed up by Volpe. It appears a significant number of the new members had not paid their membership fees or filled out their membership forms themselves. The complaint is still under investigation, so its possible that there is nothing to this but given Volpe's previous track record it wouldn't suprise me. The Volpe campaign has denied this (of course) and says "[t]his is dirty political games being played by the other camps." Now the final paragraph states that only one other candidate managed to recruit a large number of members (Ignatieff) but there were "no anomalies" found. So it is possible that one campaign is trying to cause problems for Volpe. Guess we'll just have to wait and find out.

There is one thing above all else that bothers me about Volpe and his leadership campaign. And its the fact that he is using this purely for personal gain. He doesn't have a chance of winning (at least I hope not) but will play a huge role in the determination of who eventually wins. Many already see him as the "kingmaker" who will give his delegates to the highest bidder. And god only knows what he'll be promised to get those votes.

Finally, Jason Cherniak noticed an interesting similarity between Joe Volpe and Francis Griffin (Peter's dad on Family Guy).

UPDATE:
The Toronto Star has done some more digging into this issue. Appears a few of the new members the Volpe campaign signed up are no longer with us. One of them passed away nearly 17 years ago.

Also, this story is beginning to gain some traction in the blogosphere, check out these great posts on the issue:
Far and Wide
Nate Dawg
And CTV's Parliament correspondent David Akin

Technorati Tags: Joe Volpe, Liberals, Papineau

Swearing an oath to Canada?

Pat Martin, NDP MP for Winnipeg-Centre, has come out with a great idea. Yes I know, I've actually admitted the NDP had a good idea. Anyways, Martin has said he intends to table a private members bill in the House of Commons to require every sitting MP to swear an oath to Canada (ht to Praire Wrangler). Now as some of you may or may not be aware, currently an MP is required (by the Constitution) to swear an oath to the Queen but only to the Queen. His bill would amend the Parliament of Canada act requiring the following oath to be read:

"I, (name), do swear (or solemnly affirm) that I will be loyal to
Canada and that I will perform the duties of a member of the House of
Commons honestly and justly."

If a MP refused to take the oath, they would be prohibited from sitting in the House and would be stripped of their parliamentary budgets (including their salaries). Tom Brodbeck (who wrote the Winnipeg Sun article) notes that this type of legislation has been introduced before in 2003 and made it to a 2nd reading before Parliament was dissolved.

Now obviously this is meant to hurt the Bloc Quebecois, whose goal is the breakup of Canada. And this seems to be Martin's intent:

"If you won't swear an oath of absolute loyalty and allegiance to

Canada, then you have no business sitting in the Canadian House of
Commons," Martin, the MP for Winnipeg-Centre, told the Sun. "We'll fill
your chair with someone who loves this country instead."

Personally I see this as a no-brainer and hope it passes. But one must wonder if it will. The cynic in me observes that many of the bills the Conservatives have passed have only gotten through due to BQ support. If this bill passes, many in the BQ may be opposed to helping the Conservatives get anything else passed. Many accuse/praise Stephen Harper for being a very shrewd politician, would he see this bill as an obstacle? Although his western Canadian base would see this as a must pass issue. Then again, I think this bill would pass with support from all of the parties (minus the BQ obviously) w/o the Conservatives having to take much of a lead on it.

Another issue this brings up is: What happens to those seats? If a Bloc MP is elected and refuses to take the oath, does this seat remain unfilled? Or is another by-election called? And then what happens if the same MP is elected? And what happens in the case of large number of MP-elects refusing to take the oath, does this then affect majority/quorom status in the House?

If any one understands Parliamentary procedure better than I do (which isn't very well) some clarifaction would be greatly appreciated.

Technorati Tags: NDP, Pat Martin, Bloc Quebecois

Parkdale-High Park By-election

So today is the day when we find out if the Liberal smear machine was effective. Here's the Elections Ontario page, which states they'll have live results at 8 pm (guessing thats EST (or is it EDT?)). The G&M's Karen Howlett has a story today about the race along with this CBC article from yesterday. To hear both Sylvia Watson and Dalton McGuinty dismiss this nasty attack on another candidate makes on wonder about the fortunes of the Ontario Liberals. Could they be growing a little to close to the habits of their federal counterparts? When will politicians realize that this stuff disgusts the voting public?

And now, a few blogs with posts on the by-election:

James Bow has a great post on the attacks against Cheri DiNovo.
J Kelly at On the Fence has yet another (h/t James Bow)
Another from Steve at Nice Comfy Fur.
Mark at Ottawa Watch has a post criticizing Kinsella's role in this whole affair.
BigCityLib has one on Kinsella and another regarding McGuinty's role.
Canadian Cerberus has a post on another of her articles. (Here's the full article)
Toronto Mike has a great post on the Homolka sermon (including the sermon in its entirety).
Finally Lobster Thermidor has a great post on how this reflects on Sylvia Watson.

One notices, that after starting this whole thing with Cerberus and Kinsella, Jason Cherniak has been conspicously absent in recent days on this topic.

Well, I guess all we can do now is wait and see what the voters of Parkdale-High Park decide.

UPDATE:
Damn, knew I forgot someone. Greg at democraticSPACE has an interesting prediction on the results.

UPDATE:
Alright, just got home and checked the Elections Ontario page. Unoffically, Cheri DiNovo has won the riding with 41% of the vote (33% for Watson (Lib) and 17% for Hutcheon (Con)).

Technorati Tags: Cheri DiNovo, NDP, Liberals, Parkdale, High Park

Layton and the Military

Would somebody please give Jack Layton a refresher class on the military and how it works. In a interview with CBC radio, Layton suggested that the troops in Afghanistan would be better used protecting our coastline from foreign fishermen (h/t Chimera for the story).

Now, most of the men and women over in Afghanistan are soldiers, part of the Army, which generally refers to the Land element of a countries armed forces. To have the CF take on more of a role we would need more seamen (yeah I know, haha), part of the Navy, or the Sea element of the forces. There is no way that one could take those serving in Afghanistan and assign them to this new role, not without a serious amount of retraining (probably slightly less than training a brand new recruit in the Navy). These service members are not interchangeable and can't be switched between missions willy-nilly. Mark at The Torch has a piece on this issue as well.

Also to those on the left that were criticizing the Conservative's efforts at protecting our sovereignty in the North as unnecessary, it appears that Jack doesn't agree with you (from the same article):

"We feel a big part of our role should be our sovereignty issues, such as up North, and also in dealing with the fishing with fleets off our coastline who are coming in and destroying the ecosystems," he said.

UPDATE:

Attila Vass has a great post (IMHO) regarding our mission in Afghanistan. He presents a well reasoned and thought out view on the current situation.

Even if he is an Oilers fan.

Tags: Canadian Forces, Jack Layton, Afghanistan

Will they ever learn?

Well, I never thought I'd see a Liberal work so hard to get a dipper elected. Actually so far its been Jason Cherniak (here, here, here and here, plus some I've missed), Cerberus, and Warren Kinsella. From reading the comments on Cherniak's blog, he appears to have single-handedly raised at least $1000 (rough estimate) for the DiNovo campaign, including a $200 donation from a couple in Saskatchewan. And he's convinced at least one person in her riding to vote for her and probably more. James Bow, Politblogo and BigCityLib have some excellent posts concerning this issue. I guess we should all be happy that this slimy partisan attack on another candidate seems to have backfired(link goes to a G&M article).

For all the talk of cleaning up politics and election campaigns, it appears that at least the Liberals haven't been paying attention.

UPDATE:
Greg Morrow at democraticSPACE has a great breakdown on the by-election, including predictions, past results and new articles about the race.

Tags: Cherniak, DiNovo, Liberal, NDP

Blogging, Partisans and Voters

Ever have a problem trying to figure how to start a post?

This article by DazzlinDino and this one at democracticSPACE.com plus a conversation I had with a friend recently got me thinking on this issue.

One thing I've always liked doing was educating others on politics.  During the last election, a friend of mine told me that I was the reason she was reading up on the issues and voting.  And I got a big kick out of that (too bad she didn't vote for my guy).

To someone new to politics and the blogosphere and trying to learn more, its a pretty ugly scene to look upon.  The screeching from those on all sides of the debate can be pretty intimidating.  The semi-anonymous nature of blogging and commenting only serve to amplify this, given that many people don't apply the same amount of control they use when talking in public.   And this only heightens the negative view that most have of politics in general. 

Now, I'm not painting all bloggers with the same brush.  There are a lot of bloggers out there with well-reasoned arguments that refrain from partisan attacks.  Where the debates on the issue at hand don't dissolve into name-calling and other nonsense.  Its just quite the mess to wade through to find it. For the average voter, its just not worth the trouble.

Technorati Tags: Partisan, Blogging

Red-Ribbon?

Last week, the Liberal Party's Red Ribbon Task Force released its report, entitled "A party built for everyone, A party built to win". They detailed several challenges facing the party and what should be done about them. (Check it out here)

A few things jumped out at me right off the bat. One regarded Bill C-24 passed during the Chretien government. Seems that the Liberals, even though they brought it in, are having the worst time adapting to the changes it brought about. The task force comes out to say that the Party has always been one of large corporate donations (did you really need a task force to figure that one out?) and that other parties have been much quicker at coping with the changes.

They go on further to talk about Bill C-2 from the Harper government. To quote the authors: (pg 10 in the report)

The Conservatives claim that this is being done for reasons of "accountability". However, Liberals should be under no illusion that this Bill C-2 is anything but a blatant attack aimed squarely at our Party's political jugular. We can, and must, respond.

I don't know but when I read this a picture pops into my head of the schoolyard bully crying when the other kids finally stand up to him and give him the beatdown he deserves. One other thing I think needs pointing out, Harper has a minority government, which means it wasn't just the Conservatives that passed the bill.

Of course there is the talk about a return to the "grass roots" but seriously, is there a single political party that hasn't talked about getting back to its "roots" in the last decade?

An interesting point (or "inconvenient truth" as they term it) is the acknowledgement that the rules in nomination contests are skewed to favour one candidate over another. WOW, really, wouldn't have thought that. This has been going on for a while now, glad to see you guys have at least finally admitted it. Now if only we can get the other parties to recognize this fact as well. As much as I don't like the idea of growing the bureaucracy it seems like Elections Canada should be supervising these to larger extent.

Tags: Liberals, Chretien, Harper

Elizabeth May and the Greens

I had the oppurtunity to catch Elizabeth May on Michael Smyth's "Nightline" on CKNW last night. And I have to admit, I'm impressed. She spoke well, articulating her points and coming across as a well reasoned person, unlike the stereotypical enviro you think of, running around like Chicken Little swearing the sky is falling.

Most of us by now have heard about the fact she doesn't carry a cell phone. Michael brought that up last night, right at the beginning of the interview. It was the way she answered the question that impressed me the most. She explained that it had to with the EMF's (electro magnetic fields) generated by them and the possibility of health risks. However, she did state several times that the reports she had seen were unconfirmed. She just said she personally felt more comfortable not taking the chance and I can't really argue against that.

She also brought up something I've had a problem with for awhile. Why is the Green Party excluded from the leadership debates? Alright, I know that the TV networks have stated that the rule is you must have a seat in the House of Commons to be in. BS, I say. To paraphrase Michael from last night, "if I'm paying to support you, I wanna hear what you have to say" refering to the fact that the Green Party will receive a little over a million dollars of taxpayer money for getting 4.5% of the vote in the recent election(due to the campaign finance reform under Chretien). CBC carries the debate, right? And we, the taxpayers, are footing the bill there, aren't we? If Bell and co. don't want to carry the Greens we can't do much, but I think with enough public support we can get at least CBC to include them.

Technorati Tags: Elizabeth May, Green Party, CBC

Good ol' Jack

Now I know where Jack Layton wants to get the troops for Lebanon from: Afghanistan.

Typically, he uses the great tactic of anti-americanism to bolster his arguement.

From the article:

"Why are we blindly following the defence policy prescriptions of the Bush administration?''

and

"Canadians want a foreign policy rooted in fact, not fear,'' he said.
"One that is uniquely independent, not ideologically imported. And one
that leads the world into peace, not follows the U.S. into wars.'"

Now, I maybe be wrong on this but I thought Afghanistan was NATO mission. And before that a UN mission. Unlike the Iraqi quagmire that Bush & Co. have gotten themselves into, the Afghani struggle was not unilaterally initiated. Jack is running around sprouting a modified version of history that suits his politics better, too bad it doesn't agree with reality.

For those interested in a soldiers view of the conflict, look for an interview the retiring RSM Jim Butters of 2(??) PPCLI did on Adler Online. I only heard the repeat of it this afternoon and haven't been able to find it on the net yet but I will post a link as soon as I find it.

For those of with family members and/or close friends serving over in Afghanistan, listening to Layton speak can drive you up the wall. One can only hope that his comments are not given too much weight by everyone else.

UPDATE:

Chris Selley at TartCider has a great take on this as well as Cam at The Natural Society.

Tags: Jack Layton, NDP, Afghanistan, PPCLI