I love dogs, have two little darlings of my own, have always had dogs since leaving my mothers home and my kids both have dogs. We are a dog family. One of these days coming up, I'm going to give you another story about dogs that gives me hope that there is a change in the making in this world, but that is for another day. Right now, I want to talk about why I voted for the underdog in this Canadian election and why I love the internet.
Yes, I voted in advance polling last Saturday and I put my X firmly beside the Green Party's named representative in Nova Scotia, Jason Blanch. And my husband, who did it because he figured that he wanted to 'spoil' his ballot, but at the same time couldn't bring himself to not vote, put an X beside Jason's name. At this point, four days later, after I've done a bit of reading and passed on what I've learned to him, he says he's glad he 'spoiled' his ballot the way he did. You see, as we have gotten older, we've become even more focused on things like honesty and integrity than we were as young adults and we are fed up with governments and corporate manipulations of said governments and to be quite honest, there was a point a few weeks ago when we were verging on just not bothering. To hell with civic duty because it makes no difference anyway, you know what I mean.
But then the news media decided that the Green Party was not going to be included in the leadership debate and that was when I began to do some investigation of my own. That is why I love, love, love the interent. You got a question? Google it! You can find out how to do anything or get the answers to anything. I once wanted to put up crown moldings in my dining room and was too cheap to hire someone, but I found a video that explained it and got out my old mitre saw and I gotta say, my dining room and living room and kitchen looks great. So anyway, I spent some time reading about Elizabeth May, read most of the party platform and as a result of that and my general feelings of outrage at someone who's name is on the ballot that I was going to be marking, not being allowed to speak to our country, I voted for Jason Blanch. Sort of a 'that'll teach'em' reaction.
Today I was going to call my mom who lives on the other side of the country and is a staunch Conservative supporter and while I have no intention of talking to her about my vote because I'm not overly interested in getting into any kind of debate with "my mother" because you know how that can turn out, I was moved to find some reasons why I could feel that at least in some small measure, Elizabeth May was no worse than Harper as a leader. So yes, basically looking for dirt. And there again, I gotta say that I love, love, love the internet. I got to read about Harper wanting to get rid of the per-vote subsidy which basically protects Canada from governments who are in the pockets of big corporations. While Steven Harper is giving tax cuts to corporations (who have deep pockets), from 25% down to today's 16% and tomorrows 15%, and subsidies to help fund research and development by those same corporations, and is unwilling to charge polluters for cleanup, hence no cap and trade rules, he also would like to, and will if/when he is back in office get rid of the measly $2.04 that each of our votes, yours and mine, benefits the party that we want to vote for. That means that if those other parties aren't going to suck up to the corporations, they will have to run their campaigns with less money because the corporations aren't going to be donating to them.
I also found out how the Conservatives would like to start internet surveillance of citizens and warrantless wiretapping. Does this sound like big brother to the south of us? Mr. Harper also refuses to close a number of donation loopholes because doing so would cut that party off from the easy access to corporate monies. Here's how it works: Elections Canada only gets notified of individual donations over $200. So a corporation can donate $200 to each riding association of the party and that is how they can get around the limit of $1100 .For example: in 2007 conservatives had about 308 riding associations. Multiply that by $200 and a corporation can donate $60,500. instead of being limited to $1100.00 like everyone else. There is also no age limit and so in 2007 a Liberal member received about $27,000.00 from three people, two twin boys, aged 11 years and a 14 year old boy who turned out to be children of some big shot in a pharmaceutical company. So it seems that this is a loophole that is used by more than just the Conservatives.
I also got to read about the 'in and out' scandal which has been used by a couple parties, one of them the Conservatives, so that they can go over the legal limit of their advertising budget. This is an issue that is still before the courts today in Canada and while I'm not going to go into all the details here as this would indeed get a little wordy, if you are curious you can find out more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_and_Out_scandal. I also got to find out more about Helena Guergis, who alleges that she was initially approached in 2006 to go along with the 'in/out' ploy and refused, and was later kicked out of cabinet after allegations of fraud, extortion and various other nasties. She has since been cleared by the RCMP of all those allegations which apparently started in the office of the Conservatives lawyer according to the Wikipedia link mentioned above. Punishment for not playing the game.....do you think?
I used to watch more of the US politics and found our own dull, but frankly, I just wasn't paying attention. Now more than ever, I'm glad I voted for the Green Party. And I know that it will be many, many years before they are a recognized force to be reckoned with, but here's the thing; change starts with the first step and if just one of the people running gets a seat, those of us who care about our country and our environment and the air we breathe and the water we drink, and our reputation before the world, than we will have a squeaky wheel that stands up for the things we believe in. An underdog today maybe, but here's hoping ............
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