Greens not taking part in leaders debate

It's hard being the leader of a small party.

You have to constantly prove the to the world that you are a real party, a real option in the general election. You have some minor success, sure - a Grit backbencher defects and gives you a solitary seat in the house; you get invited to the leaders debate.

But by-and-large you get no respect. The Tories ignore you. The Liberals and NDP distrust you. Even the Bloc, which is almost vilified in English-speaking Canada, gets more respect than the greens.

And even though you grind and canvass hard for that 6.8 percent of public support, this doesn't translate into seats in Parliament. Any seats in parliament. Not under the first-past-the post system we live under, where the winner of the riding has to win more votes than anyone else.

And in a final blow, they overlook you for the leaders debate. According to the Globe and Mail, Elizabeth May and the Green party will not be taking part in the upcoming leaders debate.

The consortium of TV broadcasters which put on the debate have apparently decided to leave her out. The other parties told the Globe that they will not be disputing the decision. The article didn't mention whether they were tittering maliciously when they gave over this information, but I can picture it.

I feel this is a little like sabotage for the greens. No, they did not win any seats last time around, but keeping them out of the leaders debate makes it harder for them to reach voters. And that makes it even more likely that they won't win a seat this time around.

Also, I think the TV broadcasters haven't got the right to make that decision for Canadians. It's not exactly controlling who we can vote for, but it does sort of show us that some options are taken more seriously than others.

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The Red-Faced Chamber.

Last autumn, millions of Canadians became aware, for the first time, of how sinister the Senate has become. Unelected, unaccountable, these men and women lurking behind the scenes on capitol hill are answerable only to their master. When he tells them to kill legislation passed by parliament, they kill -- no questions asked. 

Here is their secret volcano layer

The bill at issue was bill C311 on climate change. It had passed parliament despite the opposition of the conservatives, only to be struck down on the second reading by Tory aligned senators.

 This came as something as a surprise to the general public. The senate were never seen before as the henchmen of a particular government. In fact they weren't thought about much at all. Their traditional role was something like a glorified rubber stamp: If parliament passed a law, the Senate would give it a going over, and then either pass it along to the Governor General for approval, or back to the parliament for another going over. They didn't have the legitimacy to vote things down, because they were not elected.

This is your job!

That was the understanding everyone had. That was how it was taught to me in Social Studies 11. But, this understanding is not written down in the constitution. It's one of those unwritten, traditional rules, which is so hard to enforce when broken.

And according to the Globe, they have been given orders to kill again. Tony Clement, the minister of finance and saviour of unnamed women in distress, has apparently ordered the Conservative senators to block an NDP bill that would allow companies to sell cheap versions of medication in the third world.

Apparently, this led the New Democrat MP Paul Dewer to ask: "Do the Conservatives understand democracy, or do they just not like it?" 
 
I'd like to think that Canada is a functioning democracy. Sure, there are weird antiquated parts, and unaccountable appointed public officials, and far too much ceremonial weaponry than should be deemed safe. But I'd like to believe the process is still basically accountable to the people and the parliament they elected.

But lately, it's beginning to look less like a democracy, and more like a certain game where you get to make up the rules as you go along.

The score is always Q to 12 in Canada

A couple of bills, killed by the election

All the signs point to an election being called within a week. The CBC's saying it. The Globe is saying it. My magic eight ball even said that it was likely.

Elections in Canada aren't the orderly things they are in the States. The come on very suddenly, causing all business to stop briefly. In that sense, it's more like an infectious disease than a government.

Interesting feature about the election: Not only does the parliament stop voting on bills, all legislation that is still before the house essentially dies. Any bill that doesn't pass the third reading by sometime this week is dead in the water and will have to be reintroduced in the next parliament.

So, let's have a look at a couple of the bills that will be killed this week if we go off to the polls.

Firstly, there's the Citizen's Arrest and Self Defense Act, which is in its second reading. This is my favorite bill, personally, because it allows me to carry out vigilante justice.

"The legislation would authorize an owner, a person in lawful possession of property, or a person authorized by them, to arrest a person within a reasonable amount of time after they find that person committing a criminal offence either:

* on their property (e.g. the offence occurs in their yard); or
* in relation to their property (e.g. their property is stolen from a public parking lot)."

This bill was in relation to that incident where a Toronto Chinatown Grocer, David Chen, tied up a shoplifter, and left him locked up in the back of his van for several hours. David Chen was charged with kidnapping, and forcible confinement, but was acquitted of both charges.

Not seen: three hogtied shoplifters, hidden beneath the counter.

It looks like that bill is going nowhere for the time being.

Another bill that's going to die an untimely death if we head off to the polls is Bill S-10. Called "An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act", essentially would raise minimum sentences for those caught in a possession of as little as four pot plants. It would also introduce mandatory jail-time for an non-violent crime.

You're within your legal limit with one?

This bill was introduced in parliament last December  after passing through the Senate. Which is funny: I might just be naïve, but I didn’t think that the Senate initiated much legislation. Or any. My high school social studies class taught me that it was there to go over legislation passed by parliament. Then again, I didn’t expect them to vote down a bill passed in the Parliament, either.

In any case, this bill also gets axed if we have an election.

The next government can reintroduce these bills when they get into power after winning the election. Question is, whether it will be another conservative minority, or whether Harper will get a shiny new Majority this time around. In the latter case, expect both these bills to be reintroduced.

Canadians get to be the first locked out of NY Times.

Do you like the New York Times? I do. Do you like paying for the newspaper on the internet? Well, I don't, but that's never really been an issue.  Till now.

Scrolling down the main page I found this article which told me that the NYT would be trying to encourage people to start paying for its coverage. They will be restricting the number of free accesses to 20 times a month, unless you pay a $15 a month subscription.

You can't really fault them for wanting to be paid. As much as I hate the idea, it might be good for the paper. Anyway, this doesn't take into effect until the 28th.

Except... if you live in Canada:

"The 20-article limit begins immediately for readers accessing NYTimes.com from Canada, which allows the company time to work out any software issues before the system begins in the United States and the rest of the world"

Out of all the countries in the world, they chose mine. Great.

Why would they choose Canada? Maybe they figure that demographically, we're very similar to them. Not in terms of size, but like them we're a wealthy, North American English speaking -- for the most part -- nation, and that it's a good idea to see how we react first.

Squeal, Canada, Squeal!

Well I wish them luck in this experiment. At least they're not testing on animals -- just Canadians.

   

US Republican congressman Asa Hutchinson is warning Canada to rethink the new "Tough on Crime" laws the conservatives are introducing. 

These polices have been responsible for a huge incarceration rate in the states. The costs of incarceration are staggering, at 50,000 per year per inmate in California according to the Economist.

At the moment, the Tories are officially "tough on crime". The government claims that the crime rate is going up in Canada, even though experts are skeptical. According to some commentators the crime rates have actually been going down.

Though it should be said that Hamburglary rates are rising.

Maybe in an effort to be tough on the remaining crime, they are bringing in tougher minimum sentences for various violent and introducing mandatory minimum sentences for non violent crimes.

Recently the government proposed bill S-10 which would apply harsher minimum sentences for people caught with a small quantity of pot plants. This would be Canada's first mandatory minimum sentence applied to a non-violent crime.

Also part of the "Tough on Crime" policy Hutchinson is warning us against, they are building new prisons. Many new prisons. Last year, the feds announced that they would build new prisons in Ontario and Quebec to the tune of $155.5 million.

Are they making an industry of imprisonment? In an editorial published last year in the Globe and Mail, Margaret Atwood expressed concerns about the creation of prisons on an industrial scale.  

"... When prisons are seen as an industry, prisoners become the raw material, and must be constantly supplied. The methods for creating criminals are well known; they include poverty, lack of employment and education, dehumanized prisons where novice criminals may learn from experts, and the criminalization of petty offenses."

The expansion of the prison system may have unintended consequences: this one article in the Globe says that inmates at one BC prison are in the final stages of becoming a labour union. Called ConFederation, this would be the first all-convict union in Canada.

"The Harper Government" is now the official name of Government of Canada.

I'm satisfied to see tax dollars at work where it matters, building a cult of personality around the prime minister.




According to this article from the Globe and Mail, the government released a directive last night saying that the Government of Canada should be referred as "the Harper Government" in federal communications.

It's his government. He can wear what he likes.

This is a bit much. Technically, it's not his government at all. In a strictly constitutional sense, he's just running it for the Queen, who presumably has better things to do. And if he is running the government at the moment, it's not because of overwhelming support from the electorate. It's been five years since he took power, and only now are the conservatives "flirting with a majority."

While the whole thing has a certain arrogance to it, it's small change. If you really want to discuss cults of personalities, let's look at Saparmurat Niyazov, the dictator of Turkmenistan. He was not content with having Turkmen schools, airports, streets and highways named after him. In 2002, Niyazov renamed months and days of the week after himself and his family members.

Now Niyazov could get things done. Crazy things. He banned dogs from the capital, lip syncing at concerts, and shut down the internet. He also made his people build a golden statue of himself which rotated to face the sun (which has since been dismantled). 

On a cloudy day it just spun in circles, presumably

Harper informally renaming the federal government pales in comparison. Until I find myself wondering what I'm doing Harper-day night, or planning to go skiing in Whistler next Harper-uary, or sewing my costume for Harper-ween, I'm just not impressed.