Openers

Election Notebook

In a week full of stereotype-busting gone amok, Jack Layton was on Bay Street affirming Canada's financial sector and promising no new taxes. Meanwhile, Stephen Harper was talking about giving out money to people, albeit a paltry $25 a week for child care that only mocks those who can't afford it and provides more pocket change for those who already can. It's kinda like Michael Jackson and Eminem were running for President – each trying to look like the other guy.

In the meantime, the Liberals stayed the course, pulling random spending and policy promises out of their butt like a drunken poker player: “OK, how about six... um... BILLION dollars for child care. Yeah, that's it. And let's ban something... nobody likes handguns – cool. Yippee – we're making policies! Pass the whiskey.”

Of course, the proposed Liberal handgun ban went over like a vegetarian restaurant in Red Deer. Both the right and the left understand that, on its own, a ban is a bandaid solution to far deeper problems of poverty, an underfunded and broken public school system, and society's disastrous disconnection to large portions of its youth. But creative crime prevention initiatives – community building, recreation, co-op and employment opportunities, in-school social skill development – aren't the first thing off the lips of law-abiding handgun collectors, who feel criminalized and are unwilling to surrender their inalienable right to own something whose only purpose is shooting people and things: will someone please think of the aluminum cans?

At least the dubious “collector” exemption is finally being challenged, adding handgun afficionados to the growing club of collectors of nuclear missile, vials of ebola virus strains and 18^th-century guillotines lobbying to end their systemic oppression. “You can be fascinated with dangerous things without wanting to use them,” argued Ted Morris, a fictional boxcutter collector whose briefcase was recently confiscated by airport security in Chicago. “I just like to look at them.” [e]

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Don't say the B-word... no seriously, don't

U.S. air marshalls – those Wyatt Earps of the skyward frontier, proudly added to their heritage by notching their first shoot-out kill at the new OK Corral – Miami Airport. A man waving his arms wildly and shouting that he had a bomb was shot and killed by the sky sheriffs. Untrue rumours circulated that the man was overheard just before the shooting arguing with his spouse, “Nah, it'll be hilarious, sweetie. I'll go all crazy-like and everybody'll get a good laugh... what are they gonna do – shoot me?”

In this Christmas season, shoppers are strongly advised against the age-old prank of pointing your friend out to the mall cops and shouting, “Hey, this guy just shoplifted some toothpaste!” [e]

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Do as I say: Liberals and Leadership

Poor Paul Martin got called on the gas-guzzling campaign plane he flew into the Climate Change Conference, canceling out the One-Tonne Challenge successes of every Manitoban. Of course, Martin could offset the greenhouse emissions of the whole election if he could stand up to corporate polluters and enact real emissions standards on cars.

However, to be fair, the Liberal leader is just the McDonalds of galavanting party leaders oblivious to their electoral footprints. Only the Bloc Québécois have committed to a carbon-neutral campaign by traveling smartly and investing in clean energy credits – easier if you only have one province to visit, but nevertheless achievable if a party is genuinely committed to the environment.

When will we have the country's first bike-only campaign? We have TV and the Internet to communicate party policy – why is it so necessary to have a different cityscape each day?

Maybe politicians can win back the lost confidence of Canadians if they actually begin displaying the courage to lead by example rather than by rhetoric. [e]

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Suburbia's burden

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty can shove his fiscal imbalance crocodile tears back in his province's overstuffed pockets. Each of the ten richest ridings in Canada and none of the ten poorest are in Ontario.

The most affluent riding – Halton, between Hamilton and Toronto – is over three times richer than the least – Winnipeg Centre. Sounds like our strong economy is handing out prosperity to some people and provinces more than others. The volunteers and beneficiaries of Winnipeg food banks can be forgiven for being cynical about the federal election when flat tax cuts are promoted instead of boosting social services. Then again, as Halton's Conservative candidate argues, Canada's richest have troubles too – and this is an actual quote: “They have to heat those big homes, pay mortgages and house taxes. Often, one parent stays home to watch the kids so they are living on a sole [$85,563 median] income. Tax breaks and child-care subsidies appeal to them.”

So does cutting the GST on their new SUV and 52” flatscreen TV. And they say Conservatives don't care about the poor...

But wait – the Liberals aren't leaving Ontarians in the cold of their big furnished basements. Their income tax cuts give the same $350 or more to the very wealthiest Canadians as they do to low and middle-income Canadians, and don't forget the recent dividend tax cut for Canadian investors, the beaver's share of which go to the top 10% of Canada's wealthy elite. The long-downtrodden rich may finally have their day. [e]

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Ed Musing

I re-watched Donnie Brasco last week, the film about an undercover CIA officer who infiltrates the Bronx mob. One dryly humourous scene has Al Pacino and Johnny Depp exchanging Christmas gifts – both envelopes full of cash, one assumes approximately if not the precise same amount. They embrace and thank each other for the thoughtful gesture, though we all get the ironic emptiness of it all.

This week, CBC's business report had an article about Christmas gift cards, the sneaky replacement to gift certificates, long ago dismissed as impersonal gifts, especially when exchanged much like envelopes full of cash. Handy for those “hard-to-buy-for” family members who nevertheless require something under the tree according to ancient Christian tradition, gift cards have earned the same stigma.

But in the modern Christmas season, the gift of consuming is an unquestioned practice, and apparently knowing where your loved ones shop (or where you want them to shop) is the only requirement of a healthy relationship. Over two-thirds of Canadians report giving and receiving stacks of gift cards, replacing time by the fireplace with time in line at the checkout on Boxing Day, and handknitted sweaters with sweatshop ones. We may as well exchange cheques with “I love you” on the memo line.

If this season of joy, mirth and family has not completely become a cynical season of saving the retail industry, we have to retrieve the idea that our time, our creativity, and homemade cookies are more valuable and representative of our caring for each other than any material gift, and that an apple in the bottom of a sock beats an envelope of cash any day. [e]

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Action Items:

E-Mail:

(1) To each federal political party leader: make your campaign carbon neutral. Offset your travel's greenhouse emissions through the financial support of carbon reduction projects in the fields of energy conservation, renewable energy, or carbon sequestration. pm@pm.gc.ca; harpes@parl.gc.ca; jacklayton@ndp.ca; leader@greenparty.ca

Vote with your gifts:

(1) Simplify your Christmas: give time, creativity or homemade cookies. Go to Otesha's consumerless holidays ideas list: www.otesha.ca/files/surviving%20the%20holidays%20otesha-style.doc

Vote with your... vote!

(1) Tell your local candidates that handgun bans without genuinely addressing the root causes of crime is useless, and that you will vote for the candidate who runs a carbon-neutral campaign, offsetting their emissions with compact fluorescent light bulbs. [e]

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Good News Story of the Week

(1) U.S.-based Center for a New American Dream is giving away an eco-trip to Costa Rica – all it takes to enter is to commit to taking sustainable actions! [e]

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