Election Notebook

Did you hear the news? Voters are “swaying towards the Conservative Party” - well, at least the tiny percentage of voters who happen to be home and don’t hang up on EKOS pollsters are... Meanwhile, the two federal leaders EKOS says are “winning” have abandoned their “wimpy insult exchange” strategies, and focused on policy.

The Conservatives stuck with their tried-and-true “stupid policy” theme. Hot on the heels of such head-scratchers as cutting the GST, privatizing crown corporations, subsidizing hockey equipment, and the “Even rich families could use an extra $25 a week” child-care plan, came a tough-on-crime pledge that includes scrapping the gun registry.

“Social exclusion does not excuse turning Yonge Street into a shooting gallery,” said leader Stephen Harper, omitting the next line on his paper of which I have no proof: “The socially excluded should stay in their shabby, desolate neighbourhoods and shoot each other up there ’stead of shooting at white upper-middle-class consumers downtown.

“The only shooting gallery on Yonge Street should be INSIDE the mall like in Edmonton, usable only by law-abiding handgun collectors. That is, if their handguns haven’t been stolen by criminals.”

Meanwhile, the Liberals reverted to an old-school tactic: reverting to old-school promises they haven’t delivered on yet. Their $7 billion post-secondary education promise is the exact same one they made eighteen months ago. The Liberals next surprise announcements may ressurect 1993 Red Book promises to repeal the GST, to tear up NAFTA, to establish an independent ethics watchdog to prevent serious misuse of taxpayer funds, to run the “cleanest administration in history” and to reduce greenhouse gases by 20% by 2005.

“People vote based on our promises, dude,” explained a Liberal spokesperson who could not be named because I made him up. “Wait – they don’t expect us to KEEP our promises, do they?”

On a side note, this week’s edSpective poll found that 80% of Canadians hang up on pollsters. If I may take this opportunity to interpret this random poll inserting my own political opinions, this poll clearly shows that polls are full of baloney. [e]

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The World's Drunk Uncles

As the world holds its breath waiting for either a miracle or the seemingly imminent passing of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the two human beings in most need of laryngitis these days couldn't keep their mouths shut.

U.S. hyper-evangelist Pat Robertson, fresh off of adding Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to his list of people to assassinate, suggested that Sharon’s potentially fatal stroke was sent in divine retribution for “dividing God’s land.” Asked how an apparently health-related stroke could signify God’s divine will, Robertson may have replied, “What’s God gonna do, throw a thunderbolt at him? Make him spontaneously combust? Whip up a hurricane?

“Everybody knows that those punishments are reserved, respectively, for abortion doctors, anti-capitalist Latin American guerrillas, and gay debaucherers in New Orleans.”

Not to be outdone, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the world’s self-made human bullseye, was “hopeful” that Sharon’s death “is final.” Frustrated that his unrepentant stance of wanting to “wipe Israel off the map” hasn’t attracted an American invasion yet, Ahmadinejad may also be planning an invasion of its neighbouring country, Armenia.

“Mahmoud, you idiot,” cursed Saddam Hussein during one of the daily “uncruel, non-degrading” tongue-boiling and toenail-removing sessions I imagine with U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney. “If you want the Americans to attack you, don't go for Armenia. Look for a target country whose government the Americans are propping up. Why not start selling your oil in Euros (like I did), get your friends to cancel your defence contracts with [Cheney’s] Halliburton, manufacture pharmaceuticals in Sudan, or at least send elite spies to pee “Stanford rules” in the snow on the White House lawn.

“Faxing pictures of naked ladies to John Ashcroft used to work, but no longer, my friend. If you don’t have Pat Robertson calling for your assassination, you’re a nobody.” [e]

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This Week's Puzzle: Teaching today's leaders

Paul Martin’s minority government received a “C” report card from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, for “some progress.”

It appears as though Martin would have failed his report card were it not for peeking off of Jack Layton’s exam. The only concrete accomplishments of the minority parliament cited by the CCPA are the NDP budget that redirected Liberal corporate tax cuts towards education, affordable housing, energy efficiency and protecting workers, and the decision to stay, rhetorically, out of U.S. missile defence. The national child care program and First Nations package were also cited, but in exquisite Liberal style, haven’t happened yet.

Some painstaking research dug up the following report cards from the elementary schoool careers of Canada's party leaders. If you thought matching the Liberal with the scandal they’re involved in was fun,* try matching these edSpective report cards to the appropriate party leader! (Names have be changed)

“Raoul is gifted academically, but unfortunately severely misguided. While his capacity to create complex reasoning and deduce detailed conclusions is extraordinary, his departure from deeply flawed initial premises leaves him muddled in a confused and irrational state that he has come to earnestly believe as reality. Unhappily, he has a circle of friends who have lost all classroom decorum, chanting Raoul's garbled and warped logic while incessantly launching poorly constructed paper airplanes at their classmates and impairing all progressive movement forward for all students. Raoul's presence in the classroom frankly sets us further behind than when we started.”

“Jacques is a confused boy, within whom I suspect some conflict of identity. He alternates quite frequently between happy collaboration with his classmates one moment, and then patent refusal to participate the next. He often asks to have a new teacher for him and his friends, yet cooperates quiet readily, especially during snack time. Jacques articulates his positions exceptionally well and is able to understand complex concepts very easily, with the mysterious exception of history. He appears to have concocted an entire parallel history in French to the one we teach in the English textbook, beginning with the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which he contends “wasn’t fair.” On the bright side, Jacques proudly displays his magnificent singing voice during “O Canada” each morning.”

“Jim is a fabulous student. Charming and articulate, he leaves all the other students far behind. As Class President, he has established a fine network of hall monitors, exam stewards, and class hamster feeders. Jim demonstrates fierce loyalty to his friends and a strong understanding of forgiveness. After his friend Andy fed rat posion to the hamster, Jim refused to remove Andy from his post. And when his friend Ralph was suspecting of leaking exam questions, Jim stood by him. Jim has also honed his conception of justice: when his French friends stole the proceeds of the playground fundraiser, he made them pay half of it back. The one area in need of improvement is that, while he scores very high on his written tests, Jim has a severe inability to apply his knowledge in action. On a similar note, Jim is pathologically tardy in remitting his term work – in fact, I haven’t received one assignment since he was in Kindergarten. Yet, for some unknown reason, I pass him every year and am considering letting things slide again this year so that Jim can finish Grade 12 and move on to University.”

“Brian is a well-meaning student with many innovative (I daresay revolutionary) ideas. I am unable to give him a grade, however, because the other students always slam the door before he can make it into class. From what I can make out from his hollerings through the window from the schoolyard, he may have considerable potential given a chance.”

Answers:

Raoul – (if you're a New Democrat): Stephen Harper
(if you're a Conservative): Jack Layton
(if you're a Liberal): both
Jacques – Gilles Duceppe
Jim – [insert Liberal leader here] (may still be Paul Martin)
Brian – Green Party Leader Jim Harris

* Last week’s solution: Match the Liberal to the scandal

Liberal Scandal

All of ‘em! ------------------------------------ All of ‘em!

[e]

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edSSAY: Don’t believe the hype

A day after making front-page news of the record levels of the Canadian stock market, The Globe and Mail printed a cartoon depicting the three federal opposition leaders standing out in the snow crying calls of “doom and gloom” about the economy, while the newspaper boxboasted the headline, “Stocks hit record high.”

Funny thing is that only Conservative leader Stephen Harper is out in the cold with the stock records, accompanied as always by his parrot Monte Solberg crawing on his shoulder about overtaxation. The Conservatives’ myopic dwelling on GDP and stock markets as measures of economic well-being certainly does have an eggy face – it turns out that the Liberals are doing a fine job of looking out for corporate profits and wealthy stock brokers and investors.

However, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe's concerns about the economy don't relate to stocks or the GDP. They don’t fret over the fortunes of the well-off. They know currency traders can afford rent and CEOs’ kids can afford university. They see the 1,200 lost jobs in December not as a “surprising slide” in an indicator, but as 1,200 individual cases – often families – in trouble. And they look deeper into the new jobs statistics touted by Paul Martin and find that only 36% are full-time permanent ones.

Indeed, as our GDP grows steadily and our stock markets roar, poverty numbers rise, as do wait times, tuition, energy prices, and crime.

But the Liberals have enacted record tax cuts, including an incredible 28% to 21% corporate tax cut in 2000, and they plan more. Where are the tricklings?

They’re in offshore tax havens, and they’re in pockets. Big pockets. And they’re invested again into the stock market, the Martin-load of which pays out to people who already have a buttload of money.

Why do we let them get away with it? Well, polls (for what they’re worth) find that Canadians are overwhelmingly confident about the economy, but realize very little real change in their everyday life. Raises are scarce among the minimum- and low-waged. If you have received a raise in the last year, or five years, you are fortunate. If you received a raise commensurate with the growing “economy”, you are rare.

Getting excited about “our strong economy” is like running naked down the street when Canada wins a gold hockey medal: you probably had nothing to do with it, and you get nothing out of it except maybe frost bite. Only a select few get the riches, but somehow we’re all made to feel involved.

Thing is, in hockey nobody goes hungry, has to wait six months for a cat scan, or retires in poverty.

Don’t let the numbers fool you: Canada’s economy isn’t run for you or me. Looks like we’re the ones left in the cold. [e]

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Action Items

1. Ignore the polls. Focus on the issues and vote on principle.

2. If ever you're chowing on caviar, ask the concierge if it's from sustainable sources. Oh and wear a jacket and tie.

3. Buy a composting toilet!


Good News of the Week

1. The import and export of wild caviar has been suspended until producing countries can jointly devise a plan to more sustainably harvest it. The Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has refused to release quotas, effectively halting import and export, and standing up for the recklessly exploited and endangered global sturgeon stock, mostly in the Caspian Sea between Eastern Europe and the Middle East. To have the ban lifted, countries must adopt conservation strategies based on scientific surveys of the stocks. Good news, except that the current black market in poached caviar (harvested by killing the fish) is five times larger ($500 million a year) than the legal trade. The best news: almost all caviar served in Canadian restaurants is from sustainable sources. The bad news: caviar is fish eggs. Uck.

2. The cost of household composting toilets is steadly becoming more accessible. Envirolet Canada even has a sale during the month of January – $500 off, bringing the lowest-price model to under $1,125. If that sounds expensive, consider the savings in water. And when the Americans invade us for our mass reserves in clean water, you can just wave 'em on to the next house. “I got a composting toilet! Move along, nothing to see here, friend! Unless you want some fresh compost, you want some fresh compost?” Then chase them with a shovel full of poop and bam! You're the new Laura Secord (for being a hero in a Canada-U.S. War, not for being associated wth small, round brown items)! [e]