Monthly Archives: October 2007

Those Status Quo Folks Are Hilarious

ontario referendum on mmp,

“No MMP” just put out the following in a press release:

While the No MMP campaign’s organizers agree that they have more public support leading up to October 10th vote, they are also aware of the fact that more support does not necessarily translate into more votes. They point to past elections where political parties with fewer members won surprise victories over larger parties.

Wait, WHAT? Got a problem with the results of past elections, huh? Not sure they accurately reflect voter intention? Interesting point. Perhaps we should strike some kind of Citizens’ Assembly to explore the issue and report back with recommendations.

They go on to complain that “many voters are either apathetic or confused about the upcoming referendum on October 10th.” Yeah, um, do you think that might have something to do with the fact that you guys blocked the distribution of materials from the Citizens’ Assembly explaining what they’re proposing and why? Think it might have something to do with the mass-circulation of anonymous emails that paint MMP as a mysterious government-driven plot? Just maybe?

TVO Battle Blog: Losing Faith

democracy and good government

Crossposted to tvo.org. Today’s question: “How would you interpret John Tory’s announcement of a free vote on the religious schools question?” (400 word limit)

I’ll need a few days to know for sure, but at the moment I can’t help but feel it represents the death of my hope that this campaign would rise above the useless partisan wedge-issue fear-fest it’s been.

Is John Tory’s position on religious school funding divisive? Yes. Should he have raised it in the first place? I don’t know. I disagree with almost every position the man’s taken over the last few months, but at least he’s not so politically cynical as the Liberals and NDP that he would spend a whole campaign pretending to “oppose the funding of religious schools” when really what they mean is “unless they’re Catholic schools, because they’re not as scary as those Muslims over there.” Or, at least, that’s what I keep hearing whenever they talk about it. (The Green position, that we should merge the Catholic board into the public board and create one publicly funded school system, is explained here.)

Regardless, the reality is that the Liberals have kept this issue on the agenda to the exclusion of all others because that’s what’s best for their party–what’s best for the province be damned. Didn’t someone say something about spending $40,000,000,000 on nuclear power? Should we maybe talk about that before we create deadly radioactive waste that will be around for a million years? Should we maybe talk about the tritium that will seep into our children’s drinking water?

Didn’t someone say something about a climate crisis? Should we maybe talk about what we’ll do when the farms that produce our food can no longer grow as much (or anything) due to shifting weather patterns?

Didn’t someone say something about a referendum? Should we maybe talk about this once-in-a-lifetime chance to make democracy better? Should we maybe talk about how MMP tends to create more positive, issues-based election campaigns?

Now that Tory’s made this announcement, I fear that instead of allowing us to move on he’s simply thrown more wood on the fire, ensuring that we’ll never get around to the list of issues that matter more. For example, today’s blog question was going to be about the doctor shortage. Sorry folks, we’re not going to deal with that problem in this election. Please take a magazine and wait. The doctor will see you in four more years. Maybe.

How Do You Get To Massey Hall?

green party, social justice, ,

“It’s hard to beat the system / when we’re standing at a distance / so we keep waiting / waiting on the world to change.” -John Mayer

I don’t know, I only came close. I can at least tell you that practice has nothing to do with it. I’d practiced my speech a lot.

This evening I was invited to represent the Green Party of Canada at Vote Out Poverty, a sold-out event at Massey Hall put on by Make Poverty History and the Ontario Coalition for Social Justice. I was really excited about it. Poverty–domestically and internationally–must be aggressively addressed, and I looked forward to explaining what we propose to do about it. Besides, it would be an honour to share the stage with the likes of Mary Walsh, Stephen Lewis, The Nylons, and others. When I arrived, I was greeted outside by a nice woman with a headset and a clipboard, given my ticket and told that someone would come get me before it was my turn to speak along with the other federal representatives (Ken Dryden and Jack Layton).

Then, before the event started, a twist. The woman with the headset came back and told me that I wouldn’t be allowed to speak, because we’d “RSVPed too late” and there wasn’t time to change the script. (My attendance was confirmed this morning. There’d previously been a mix-up at the federal office since the invitation was sent to Elizabeth a day before her surgery.) I expressed my disappointment (politely, it wasn’t her fault after all) and asked if she could double-check if it really was impossible to add the words “and, from the Green Party, Chris Tindal” to the script. She went off to see what she could do.

Then, with the event already underway (The Nylons were singing John Mayer’s “Waiting for the World to Change”) she came back and told me that I’d been added to the script and would be able to speak after all. “Great, thanks,” I said.

First, the provincial representatives spoke. It was a very NDP-friendly room. The Liberal was heckled, the Conservative John Tory’s Candidate was outright booed, and Howard Hampton was given several standing ovations. Then, the federal representatives spoke. Um, except for me. I don’t really know why. They just never introduced me as I stood in the wings, waiting. Once Jack was done doing his thing they moved on to the next part of the evening.

Regardless of the fact that I’d canceled two other events to be there, I was already becoming profoundly discouraged at the way this campaign is going. Just a little more than one week left and we’ve talked about almost nothing other than funding for religious schools, as if that’s the only thing that mattered. And then there’s the referendum, which, we’re told by polls and news articles, Ontarians like when they understand it, but might vote it down since they don’t. Add to my frustration-pile that Howard Hampton reportedly went on CTV last night and told outright lies (sorry, but there’s just no other word for it) about what the Green Party stands for. You can only get away with that if people don’t actually know what we stand for. And you can only ensure that if you make sure we’re not allowed to speak for ourselves.

Ontario, you wouldn’t really keep voting for the same parties, using the same voting system, and expect a different result, would you? After all, you’re not insane.

ps. Yes, I’m aware that this has been a bit of a disjointed and emotional rant. Maybe I’d be wise to sleep on this before posting. Then again, it’ll be hard to get to sleep without getting this out first.

pps. Sorry I haven’t been blogging very much the past few days. If someone could please arrange for the federal government to award me a $20,000 communications contract, that could really help subsidize my income and free-up some time.