Canadian Election: Silly Side of Things

Well, we are into the “promise the sun and stars” phase of the election campaigns. But I will get to that in another posting. I was reading about something this week that needs to be addressed first. We are in a campaign where not every recognized political party in Canada is treated equal. Somewhere a decision was made by the broadcasters that not everyone is equal in this election. Exactly when was a consortium, composed of five broadcast executives, ordained with the right to determine which Canadian political parties should participate in the leaders' debate? How dare they? Shouldn't the voters of Canada have the right to listen to every party who has a point to make? Especially a party, like the Green Party, that has a candidate in every riding in Canada. Who made them the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-wise group to decide who and what should be included?

Some may say that since they are not an official party they shouldn't be included. To be an official party you must have 12 seats in parliament. This can't be the reason. Equally, since 1993, the NDP, Bloc Québecois, the Progressive Conservatives and the Reform Party have all been invited to participate in the debate without holding official party status. In fact, in 1993 the Reform Party held only one seat and the Bloc was not officially recognized in the House of Commons, its members and only elected MP sat as independents. The Bloc, with only 75 candidates, participates in both the English and French debates, despite the fact that voters in 233 predominantly English-speaking ridings cannot even vote for their candidates.

And then some may argue that the debates are not that important anyway. Green Party of Canada leader Jim Harris has other thoughts. Here are some of his quotes on this matter. "Do Canadians really believe that five executives meeting on a conference call should arbitrarily decide the political choices for over 22 million voters?" He then added "The importance of the leaders' debate cannot be overstated. There is widespread agreement that televised leaders’ debates are defining moments in Canadian elections. The latest Ipsos-Reid poll shows support for the federal Green Party at 5 per cent federally and 14 per cent in B.C. Based on these polls, over 640,000 Canadians are ready to vote for the Green Party. To these and other Canadians, the consortium is saying, your issues and concerns will not be debated.“

The question of time constraints and the number of participants has also been mentioned as the reason for not including the party. Well unfortunately this can't be the reason that the broadcasters don't want to include the Green Party. You see, since 1993 there has been 5 parties included in the leaders' debates. This year there are only 4 parties invited. Inviting the Green Party to the debate would only fill an existing seat. So what gives? Maybe it is time for the CRTC to get involved. It is their duty as the federal regulator of everything radio and television in this country to say that the broadcasters don't have the right to chose who we can and can't listen to...especially when it comes to something as important as the running of our country for the next 4 to 5 years.

I think that the consortium's decision to exclude the Green Party and other registered parties discourages voter participation. It’s clear that voters want to see more and hear more of the other alternatives to the big 4 parties. In the last election, over 8.2 million voters disapproved of the political choices available to them and instead chose "none-of-the-above" by not voting. Polls indicate that the alternative parties draw the most support from voters between the ages of 18 and 35. This is also the demographic least likely to vote based on the 2000 returns. These are also the same Canadians who feel particularly disenchanted with the old-line parties and are willing to listen to what the alternatives have to say. So I say give all parties a chance to speak their points in front of a national audience at the same time as every other party gets to make their points. If they are given a chance to speak and what they say doesn't make sense then the Canadian voters can show them at election time. This should go for all parties. Are you listening voters of Ontario and Quebec?

Canada's Party???

So the Canadian election has been called and I figured I would go read the various party sites and see what bull they are offering us, the poor voting public, to try and buy...I mean bribe...I mean convince us into voting for their candidate. So I started off by visiting the Conservative Party of Canada web site. I discovered that the party doesn't consider the NWT part of Canada. At least we are not listed in their database. Put in the postal code for Inuvik and you get “The postal code you entered was not found in our database. Please check it and try again.” Now how can a party (and one that I support) forget to make sure that the entire postal code listing for Canada is in the database. Come on guys...get with it or my vote might have to go somewhere else (not Liberal).

I decided that if the Conservatives had this problem then maybe some of the others might also forget we are here. I checked the Liberals web site. Nope, they think we are part of Canada. But then again they should. The one vote from the NWT always goes to the Liberal candidate Ethel Blondin-Andrew. So next I checked the NDP web site. Damn, they too know who we are. Next on the list was the Green Party of Canada. They too know who we are. Well surely the Canadian Action Party doesn't know who we are. Wrong, they do too. There is no candidate for the riding but they want to know if I want to be their candidate. hmmm...Let me think on that. Anyway, do all the other parties know who we are? Let's continue to push on. Next it was on to the Canadian Heritage Party website. They don't have a postal code search that I could find but at least they have the Western Arctic riding listed even though they don't have a candidate. They don't however want to know if I want to be their candidate. That's okay, I really don't know their platform (if they have one). On to the next one on the list. Aha!!! Surely those red/pinko commies don't know we are here. Sure enough. The Communist Party of Canada doesn't have a search and only have listed ridings where they have a candidate. That's good to know. No chance of a comrade MP from the NWT. Next I checked out the stoners party known as the Marijuana Party. Yes you read that right. Joint central of Canada. Damn...no chance of a stoner MP as it appears they only run candidates in Ontario and Quebec. Hahaha, that figures. I knew the stink coming out of Ottawa at times couldn't be from the Liberals (or could it). Next it was on to another pinko commie party. The Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. No way could they know who we were. Well after looking at this horrible site for 5 minutes I couldn't find any place to search for candidates...I couldn't even find a list of ridings or candidates. I assume they won't have an NWT candidate, at least I hope not. Continuing my journey it was on to the Progressive Canadian Party. This is the bunch of sore losers who didn't want to join the Conservative Party of Canada when the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance Parties joined last year. They too don't have a search or list of candidates. Last and least there was the Bloc Quebecois. oops, maybe I should say Bloc Québécois. I guess I better spell it correctly as not to offend anyone. I checked the site even though we knew that they only had candidates from Québéc and really don't care about the rest of Canada. Checking proved us correct.

Well it appears that most of the larger parties knew who we were or where we were at least. Hopefully the nasty e-mail I sent to the Conservative party will wake them up and have them include us in their database. If they don't do it soon I may have to look for an alternative choice. Green Party anyone? Keep checking for more insight into the Canadian election and afterwards as we look forward to the US election.

COMMENT

Election Call Canada

Spring has finally come to Inuvik and it is about time. This past long weekend was nice and I finally got to wash the Pilot. I also got to plant our vegetable garden at the Inuvik Community Greenhouse where we decided to rent a plot this year. We helped Kimmi look after the plot for the high school last year and we really wanted to grow our own fresh vegetables this year. Anyway, in the middle of this nice weekend, Prime Minister Paul Martin decided to call a federal election for June 28th.

So we in Canada have to chose a new Prime Minister. Unlike the US who know they are going to have their elections in November every 4 years, the Canadian Prime Minister can call an election anytime within their 5 year appointment. This is usually done when the current Prime Minister is leading in the polls and has little chance of losing. The proof of this is the fact that the liberals have won the elections and held power 61 out of the last 83 years. Only 4 times in the last 108 years have non-Liberals held office for more than 4 years. So is there any point in voting?

There is one main reason to vote. If you don't vote then you can't complain when the government does something you don't like. Voting gives you that right. If you don't vote you are telling whoever wins that whatever they do is fine with you.

Does anyone really think that the Liberals are going to lose? The biggest problem with Canadian politics in the last 20 years is that it has been tough to chose which idiot leader you want as Prime Minister. Canada hasn't had a real leader since Pierre Trudeau. Now don't get me wrong, there were several things that PET did as Prime Minister that sucked, especially if you were a westerner. But the fact is that everyone respected him. There were never any rumors of kickbacks, payoffs or other improprieties. Since his departure in 1984, every government has had its scandals. The current government has been going through adscam, and before the current Liberal government, the Conservatives lead by Brian Mulroney had their own similar scandal. The problem is that the people of Quebec and Ontario are to chicken to give the power to another party as most Liberal leaders are from that area of Canada. The Liberals have never had a party leader born west of Ontario. None of them have ever lived in the west. They have no idea what problems happen in the west. At least with the Conservative party there have been leaders from the west and from Atlantic Canada. People who know what happens in other parts of Canada.

Current Conservative Party of Canada leader Stephen Harper, while being born in Ontario, has spent a great deal of his adult life in Alberta and knows what it is like to live in the west. Now this is not an endorsement of the Conservative Party as you have to decide who is best suited to represent your riding, but it is more a question of whether we have let the liberal party screw us too much over the last 11 years. The current Liberal party has blown billions of dollars with the current adscam fiasco, the continuing joke called the federal gun registry, the failure of promises to end the GST and many other numerous incidents. But those are things that you have to weigh when you make your decision.

Whether you chose to vote for the Liberals, Conservative, NDP, Rhinos, Bloc it is important to make sure you vote. June 28th...get to the polls and VOTE!!! Many men and women have died for you to have that right. Make sure you are part of the democratic freedom we enjoy. VOTE!!!

COMMENT

Photo of the Week

The utilidors travel all through Inuvik carrying the water and waste to and from each building. For more pictures visit EclecticBlogs

Back to the 1970's???

The big debate that was raised in the 1960's and 1970's about the culling of baby harp seals has again come to light. Pushed by the cod fisherman who are claiming that the increase in the harp seal population has seriously affected the cod stocks, the Canadian government has agreed to increase the numbers of young seals that are slaughtered. The increase this year to 350,000 animals from the approximate 15,000 that it has been was due in part to the fact that harp seal populations have increased to 5.2 million from the 1.7 million of the early 1970s. A management plan announced in 2003 by Ottawa will see up to 975,000 harp seals to be taken by 2005.

While the seal hunt has been a long-time tradition in Atlantic Canada, it has come under the scrutiny of many people, groups, organizations, and governments. The Canadian government claims that the commercial seal hunt is humane and well regulated, but animal rights groups and journalists who scrutinize the seal hunts and document the happenings often delivering evidence of probable violations of various regulations. Some fishermen, fisheries and politicians claim that culling more harp seals will help the recovery of the Atlantic cod stocks. Both the debate and the seal hunt continue.

In Toronto this week, the International Fund for Animal Welfare screened graphic videos they say were taken late last month. Rebecca Aldworth of IFAW said she has monitored hundreds of hunts on the ice floes and was especially disturbed by what she saw this time. IFAW has been campaigning against the hunt for decades. IFAW accuses Ottawa of allowing the hunt to gain political support in the Atlantic provinces. Some have argued the exploding seal population is one reason why the cod population hasn't recovered off Newfoundland, but IFAW claims fish only forms a small proportion of a seal's diet.

For some additional facts on the seal hunt visit here.

Am I in favor of the seal hunts? I am not really sure. I mean if they are hunting young seals to reduce the numbers and this reduction will help to raise the cod stocks, then I am in favor of it. There is much information out there both proving and disproving this point and I guess that this is something that needs to take place for several years in order to see the results. If the results don't prove out then we should outlaw it or reduce it again. I am also not in favor of the government subsidizing this killing. $15 million to the hunters for this? Aren't they already subsidizing the fish industry in the Atlantic provinces? I am sure the federal government has better places to use this money. It took them almost a year to announce relief funding to the beef farmers after the loss of business from last years “Mad Cow Disease“ fiasco yet they seem not to have problems subsidizing the fish industry because of the low cod stocks. The other thing that bothers me about this is the way that the hunts are conducted and the way the hunters deal with their catch. It has been described that the hunters are more worried about the numbers they hunt rather than making sure that their prey is killed in a humane way. Several onlookers described hunters as dumping a load of still moving seals so that they could go out for more. This is disgusting and needs to be better regulated by the federal government.

I guess this will be something that will be debated for a long time. Tell me what you think. Comment

Eating Ourselves to Death!

It was reported in March by the Centres for Disease Control in the U.S. that obesity is quickly catching tobacco as the leading cause of preventable deaths. There has been talk that governments need to levy higher taxes on junk food and fast food meals. They have also talked about regulating food ads and making sure that restaurants print the nutiritional values of all of the items on their menus. But somehow I think that the governments are making the same mistake that they made and continue to make with cigarettes. We all know that eating those carrot or celery sticks are healthier for us than that creme filled donut or that bag of chips or those fast food french fries, but most of us still eat those unhealthy items as a choice. Raising taxes on cigarettes hasn't really worked that well to prevent smoking...if you want to you will. The same thing applies to increasing taxes on junk and fast food. If we want that donut we are still going to buy that donut. It's the plain and simple truth. Are regulating food ads going to work? I don't know about you but I don't go to the fast food restaurant or donut shop because of the ads I see on TV or in magazines. I go because that is what I want to eat at that time. What about printing the nutiritional value of menu items? Ya right...I really care how many calories or how much fat the donut or french fries that I came to eat and enjoy have. But what is the solution?

Maybe the solutions that need to be considered with both the cigarette and obesity related health problems are through our health care system. Maybe those that have to go to the doctors or hospitals because of these problems need to pay more to the health system that they are continuing to deplete. Maybe it requires those people to pay higher premiums than the rest of the people. Maybe it will require mandatory yearly or bi-yearly physicals to ensure we are healthy and not smoking. I am not sure how this would work but I think that those people who are taxing the health system need to pay higher stakes. Maybe it is a combination of higher taxes on the cigarettes and junk food and higher health care costs to those that use the system because of preventable diseases. The ultimate solution lies there somewhere. There has to be a way to change the bad habits of the chain smoker or couch potato (or both). Making both cigarette and junk food expensive through taxation may work in helping us curb our bad habits. Knowing it is going to cost us or our loved ones a huge price to fight our sicknesses might also help. Maybe the combination of both will help. Maybe subsidizing healthier items such as fruits, vegetables, fitness centres etc. is also part of the solution. It is obvious though from all the reports we read, if we don't find a solution to preventable diseases soon and change our lifestyles and choices, we will kill our health care system. And the last thing we want is a health system that is available to only those that can afford it (assuming anyone can after we pay the increased taxes on our cigarettes and junk food). And don't get me wrong...I fit into the bad choices when it comes to eating so I am at fault as much as anyone.

What do you think??? Leave me a comment

Is Technology Harming our Children???

I have been reading lately about the many risks of children watching TV. How can this be you ask? TVs are safe these days, not like the old days when they gave off a small amount of radiation so how can the idiot box be harmful? Well, according to a recent study done in the US as little as 1 hour of TV for those children aged 1-3 can have harmful effects.

This most recent study found that 1-year-olds and 3-year-olds who watched just one hour of television daily had a 10 percent greater risk of attention problems by the age of 7 than children who watched no television at all. And the more television watched, the greater the risk. One year olds who watched three to four hours of television had a 30 percent to 40 percent increased risk of attention problems compared to children whose parents kept the TV off. How can this be?

Previous studies cited detrimental aftereffects of excessive television viewing, including violent behavior and obesity. Now add to that attention problems. This recently published study of 1 year olds and 3 year olds demonstrated that it wasn't the content of the programming that was causing attention span problems rather it was the unrealistically fast paced images on the screen. Those images, the researchers suggested, may alter normal brain development in very young children. Apparently the television has lasting negative effects on the developing brain and may actually permanently "rewire" youngsters’ brains with all the fast paced imagery. They went on to say that children 2 years of age and younger should not be allowed to watch any TV. Their brains aren't developed enough to handle what they are seeing.

So what can we do about this? First of all parents need to stop using the television as a babysitter. Up until the last 10 years or so most families only had the 1 or 2 TVs in the house along with the stereo and possibly a VCR and those were in the livingroom or family room. Recent studies have shown that 26% of parents are putting TVs, VCRs and DVD players right into their children's bedroom. This is not acceptable. How are children's brains supposed to develop when all they do is watch TV? The children should be allowed to free play to stimulate their brains, they should be read to in order to enhance their imagination. These are the things that we were allowed to do as children. Many children now are just plunked down in front of the TV. This is all that many children know. How are they supposed to develop properly?

ADD or ADHD are attention problems that have increased astronomically in the past 15 years amongst school age children. Much of this is probably due to the increase in television watching of toddlers. Many children are being prescribed Ritalin and other drugs to help control these problems. You know we look at mothers who drink while they are pregnant and whose children are born with FAE or FAS as irresponsible mothers. Same with mothers who do drugs while pregnant or parents who do drugs around their children. This even borders on criminal at least in my mind. So why are these things bad when they affect the mental growth of our children yet it is fine for us to damage our childrens brains and let them watch endless hours of television? Is society that 2 faced or do we not understand the damage we are doing? Dammit people, these children are the future of our society and if we continue to damage their brains how is our society going to succeed?

It is high time that we turn off the idiot box for our children and spend quality time with them. Instead of turning on the tube when we get home from work, talk to your children as you make supper or do the dishes or whatever. Read stories in the evenings instead of watching that television show. Instead of buying that DVD player or TV for the kids bedroom, buy them books to read or imagination stimulation toys such as Lego to build those brains. Any toy or book that allows the imagination to do its' thing within the child's brain will benefit them more than you know. And spend some time talking and asking about their play. Get to know what they like to pretend, even get involved with it and play pretend with them. Also, since most families have both parents working, do your research when chosing a daycare. Make sure that they are stimulating your child too, you don't want to take them to a place that is just going to plop them in front of the TV either. These are your choices...let's make the right one's for our children.

Let me know what you think about this. I am always interested in the views of others. Leave a comment at EclecticBlogs.

March Blizzard and Today's Aftermath

This is the result of yesterday's blizzard. This is a picture of the side of my driveway. There is actually a commercial garbage bin under that drift somewhere. To view more pictures of the blizzard or the aftermath visit the gallery.

March...Out Like a Lamb???

March came in like a lion...unfortunately it went out like a lion as you can see what it was like in Inuvik today.

Good Work Microsoft

$53 billion in the bank, fighting with the US Department of Justice, fighting with the European Union; Microsoft is used to playing big games with the big players. But Microsoft does do some good things for the little people. Their charitable foundation gives away millions every year in computers, software and other products and services to schools and those technologically challenged individuals that they can help. Now the big Microsoft machine is going to make its products in the Inuktitut language of the Eastern Arctic Inuit.

Nunavut, home to the Inuit, played host to some Microsoft representatives who were up taking a look at how they can make their product for the aboriginal language. Creating software in Inuktitut is going to be an extreme challenge for developers. Inuktitut is a language that is made up of symbols and consonants. It also doens't have words for many technical terms used in the computing world. The task for software engineers is to find words and concepts in the Inuit language that is applicable to computers. Concepts such as e-mail, shutdown, networking don't exist. Computers are a new idea to many Inuit; their culture has been passed down with storytelling, drum dancing and their skills consisted of hunting and fishing. “It is very important to us to make sure the composition of the words is acceptable to the community,” said Mina Gharbi-Hamel, Windows international programme manager to Microsoft Canada. The development of product will represent a substantial boost for a language, which like other ancient and native tongues is suffering from the global onslaught of English.

Microsoft says they are developing a so-called language interface pack, to be available as a free download. That means menus will drop down with Inuktitut commands. Applications from e-mail to databases will be available in Inuktitut. Inuktitut speakers will be able to use Windows and all its features in their own language. This is a good public relations coup for Microsoft. If this works out then this is something that they should be looking at for other aboriginal languages. Good Job Microsoft. If you would like to leave a comment please visit EclecticBlogs