Category Archives: green party

That’s A Funny Lookin’ Surge

conservative party, green party, ndp, polls

Headline in today’s Globe and Mail: “Tories surge on Harper’s leadership.” You probably read that and thought, “oh, I guess that means that the Tories have surged.” But you’d be wrong, you silly fool you.

Read the first paragraph to see that the poll found that, “Stephen Harper is the most decisive federal leader.” He’s decisive alright, in a George Bush “I’m the decider” kind of way. Never mind that just because you’re “decisive” doesn’t mean you’re making the right decisions.

Get to the third paragraph, and you find out that the Harper government is at thirty four per cent. Only zero-point-seven per cent more than a third, and two percentage points less than they got in the last election.

Where’s the surge?

Oh wait, there it is. “The main beneficiary appears to be the Green Party, which has the support of twelve per cent of voters.” That puts us ahead of the Bloc at eleven per cent, and just two points behind the NDP at fourteen.

Ok, so I tracked down the surge. The only thing I’m missing now is the part where the electorate is being accurately represented. The whole article is writen as if thirty four per cent is a huge amount of support. It’s not, and Harper should stop behaving otherwise.

Public Safety

climate crisis, conservative party, ecology, economy, foreign affairs, green party

The headline on my free Metro newspaper this morning was dramatic and to the point: “Terrorists threaten Canada.” The story stems from an internet post made by an al Qaeda group that said “cutting oil supplies to the United States, or at least curtailing it, would contribute to the ending of the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan,” and called for attacks on Canadian petroleum facilities as one way of accomplishing that.

Of course, this isn’t really new news. Canada’s been a target of al Qaeda and similar groups since before 9/11. All the same, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day reacted by saying, “we’ve always said that Canada is not immune to threats. We take this threat seriously.” (Between the lines, it sounds like he’s almost excited to get his first real threat as Public Safety Minister, but hopefully that’s just my over-active cynicism.)

Day also added that it’s possible to protect “all of our assets, both human and structural.” (Nice to know that the protection of human life and the protection of oil drilling operations are of equal priority.)

One of the more interesting quotes, however, came from Stephen Harper, who told MPs that “the most important responsibility of government is the preservation of order and the protection of its citizens.” (And its structures. Don’t forget its structures.)

I’m not the first to point this out, but we’re currently facing an even greater threat to order and our protection. We now know that even if Harper and Bush see the light (or, say, a bunch of Green MPs get elected) and start enacting plans to actually reduce our greenhouse gas emissions dramatically, the planet will continue to get hotter for centuries. It’s past time to start thinking not just about preventing further climate change, but about how we’ll manage with the changes we’ve already set in motion.

For example, where, and how, will we grow our food? Where will our water come from? How will we deal with increased pressure from the United States and China for the freshwater in our boarders? How will we prepare against new diseases? What plan do we have for replacing all of the infrastructure we’ve built on the now-melting permafrost? How might rising ocean levels affect our coastal provinces? How can we build secure, local economies as international ones become less stable and viable? How will we keep our national economy strong as more jurisdictions like California refuse to buy our tar-sands oil because it’s too dirty?

There are answers, but there’s also much work to be done. Terrorism is a real threat that needs to be guarded against, but if our government really cares about public safety, order, and the protection of its citizens, there are other threats that deserve more of their attention.

Searching for Honourable Governance

conservative party, democracy and good government, green party, toronto

Yes, I know dear reader, I’ve been neglecting you. My apologies. Many thoughts running around in my head; very little time to convert them into words. You’ll be glad to know, however, that I’ve had a busy and productive week. We had our first Toronto Centre campaign team meeting, and we’ve got a great group of people who are excited and ready to go, whenever the election comes. I’ve also been active at the national level as our shadow cabinet continues to gear up for a solid national campaign.

Internationally, this week a bunch of Toronto Greens met with Roberta Moreno, who works for one of thirteen elected Green Party of Brazil representatives (Partido Verde). We had several great conversations over two days, and discussed ways in which we can work together on global issues.

That being said, I still believe you deserve something of substance for waiting so patiently for a new post. For that, I leave you in the capable hands of Lawrence Martin, who will walk you through an efficient summary of this government’s hypocrisies and negativity (taken from yesterday’s globe column), and conclude with what I think is good advice. Enjoy!

The environment? [Stephen Harper] was a right-wing agnostic. Now, presto! He’s a leaf-licking true believer. Health care? He was once in with the privatization crowd. Now he is statist Stephen.

Gay rights? He used to hang out in social conservative precincts. Now, so long dinosaurs; he’s the moderate man. Quebec? He believed in no special status for the province. Presto, its people are suddenly a nation.

Iraq? He supported President George W. Bush’s war. Now, he wouldn’t touch it with a barge poll…

…The Liberals lost the last election because of regime fatigue and ugly ethics. Although winning fans with his clarity and resolve, Mr. Harper has lowered himself in the eyes of many by running a one-man uptight government steeped in the politics of negativity.

It was Margot Asquith who said of Lloyd George, “He could not see a belt without hitting below it.”

Mr. Harper and his ministers are incapable of answering a question in the House without resorting to the intellectually vacuous tactic of referencing the previous government’s record and claiming it was worse. Every government does this to a certain extent. None as much as this one…

…Canadians, having seen so much of the Grits, are pretty well fed up with the old-style political skulduggery and lack of civility. They’re looking for more honourable governance, and if the Conservatives want to get out of the big stall, they would be wise to demonstrate they are capable of it.

Open Up

democracy and good government, green party, social justice, the internets

When Microsoft released Vista (the latest version of Windows) this week, the general reaction from a usability standpoint was underwhelming. It’s been five years since Windows XP, so computer users were expecting a lot. Instead, most of the new features seem to focus on ensuring that it’s a little bit harder to steal Hollywood movies or Vista itself, causing thieves and non-thieves to respond with “damnit!” and “who cares?,” respectively.

Then, the more substantive criticisms emerged. First, from Canadian internet law expert Michael Geist, who points out that Vista’s fine print gives it the right to delete certain programs without the user’s knowledge, and provides that “this agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights.”

Also, Vista intentionally degrades the picture quality of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs when played on most computer monitors. In other words, you’ll pay more for less. And don’t bother trying to fix that, because the terms and conditions state that “you may not work around any technical limitations in the software.”

Then, the UK Green Party pointed out that Vista is also bad for the environment because, even though it doesn’t have many new features, it “requires more expensive and energy-hungry hardware, passing the cost on to consumers and the environment…Future archaeologists will be able to identify a ‘Vista Upgrade Layer’ when they go through our landfill sites.”

I didn’t think that was worth mentioning until I saw Microsoft’s ultra-lame response, which basically just said, “environmental issues are important to us.” Um, good to hear. What are you doing about it?

Taken together with Geist’s concerns about user rights, and the fact that Vista isn’t that great of an upgrade anyway, the case against using Microsoft’s new OS is strong. In addition, the critical importance that computers have to our lives and economy makes this a political issue.

Fortunately, there’s a ready alternative. Open source software is the democratic way of designing computer programs. This website, for example, runs on a free, open source programming language called PHP, instead of Microsoft’s almost identical (and much more expensive than free) ASP. There are also open source alternatives to Windows, Microsoft Office, and almost any other application you’d use on a day-to-day basis.

The Green Party of Canada has called for “federal departments and agencies to transition to open source or free software for general applications and provide free technical support to Canadian companies who use this software.” It’s one of our wackier ideas, but I like it. And, the more bloated and intrusive closed source products like Microsoft’s get, the less wacky it will seem.