Terahertz

People generally acknowledge that BC politics is messed up, but this push to regain the corporate municipal vote [pdf] here really takes puts the ass in asylum.

The claim is that businesses are being unfairly taxed without representation, ergo businesses ought to have a vote at the municipal level.

Never mind that every business owner and employee that actually lives in the city they operate in already has a vote.

Never mind that the only other place in the world that shills like this is the business district of London, England.

Never mind that the guy who wrote that trite in the Vancouver Sun is “known for showing up at Burnaby council meetings wearing his scoutmaster uniform.”

Just remember that democracy is, in it’s most pure form, a system of people governing themselves. In Canada, at least, corporations are not people.

The two new members of the Wildrose Alliance won’t resign their seats and run in byelections under their new banner because apparently democracy costs too much. So much for accountability.

NDP Leader Brian Mason is calling the Wildrose Alliance’s two newest members to take their decision to cross the floor back to voters.

…

Anderson and Forsyth said Monday they do not plan to resign their seats because byelections would be too expensive.

Here I thought it was just a curious quirk of a by-election that New-Westminster – Coquitlam Conservative candidate Diana Dilworth hadn’t (and didn’t plan to) attended any all-candidates’ forums, but now it turns out that she’s actively avoiding the media too. The outlets that she’s avoided include:

In the Georgia Straight, I found this: "Conservative candidate Diana Dilworth didn’t return The Straight’s call before deadline."

In the Vancouver Sun: "Dilworth, a Port Moody councillor, was unavailable for comment Monday. However, her campaign manager issued a press release highlighting the economy and crime as the top election issues."

And, a week later in the Tri-City News: "Dilworth wasn’t available to comment before the Tri-City News’ deadline."

 

And of course the Tyee, who did eventually get a few token responses after essentially cornering the candidate at a Conservative rally.

Sounds like a bang-up candidate the Tories found with this shell.

(h/t Accidental Deliberations)

To all my friends in the New Westminster-Coquitlam federal riding that has an upcoming by-election next week, if you vote Tory, this is the sort of representation you could have:

Conservative candidate Diana Dilworth will attend neither [all-candidates forum], according to her campaign manager.

She is boycotting one meeting “because of concerns the venue isn’t a ‘credible venue for citizens to find out what the candidates are all about,’” and “scheduling conflicts” prevent her from attending the other. The hosts of the supposedly biased forum had this to say:

Those criticisms come as a surprise to Burquitlam Residents Association president Don Violette, whose group has hosted all-candidates meetings for elections at all levels of government for 10 years and is usually praised by candidates for fairness.

“I find that strange to believe… all we did is ask the questions that are in writing,” said Violette, who said when he moderates, he takes pains to ensure all candidates get a chance to respond and makes sure questions aren’t slanderous or simply full of political posturing.

“I’ve been focused on being totally unbiased…”

Dilworth would attend a Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce candidates forum, but they don’t hold them for by-elections.

Looking at the results of the past elections and the fact Ignatieff continues to lead the Liberals closer to the Conservatives, your real progressive choice (that actually shows up in the riding) is Fin Donnelly (but of course, I’m biased).

Since the by-election that “Sent Ed a message,” no one in the NDP has really admitted what it means to the party.

Sure, most of the Dippers in Alberta were finishing off their convention mere hours before the polls opened in Calgary-Glenmore. They were patting Brian Mason on the back and making promises about running candidates in every riding. You’d think it was a good’er except the “Biggest in Recent History” was five years ago.

Then the byelection happened and I don’t even think the members from the Calgary-Glenmore riding association showed up to vote. In fact, Eric Carpendale (the parachute candidate) got a mere 27 votes more than his Facebook Group (which I think was the extent of his campaign).

The worst part, that no one really seems to care about, is that the NDP was nearly beat by the defunct Social Credit party! I mean, even in the general election, the worst NDP ridings garnered 3-5% of the vote. In 2008 we got 3.8% in that same riding. Over 300 votes vanished.

No one really asked why the Alberta NDP caucus was cut in half in 2008, and were merely proud to have Rachel Notley join Brian Mason in the Legislature, and no one really seems to care that the NDP is throwing away ridings.

Could we have converted any of the PC/WRAP votes to NDP votes with a heavy campaign? Probably not. But then again, a wide majority of people stayed home again. Until you show some initiative and get those voters inspired, you’ll either be locked in the opposition bench, or obliterated.

Sometimes sites like this may be meant more as an actual message then a mere prank [note: I did not start that site and it likely was just a prank].

But don’t take solace, Alberta Liberals. You didn’t pick up any votes either.

So the NDP is slipping down the hill and the Liberals are spinning their tires. All this while the right gains strengths and pushes Stelmach to do something stupid.

The Liberal advertising machine is out of control, first TV ads (well, I’ve only seen them on YouTube so far, the HarperCon ones are back though), some 10%ers, now Facebook ads!

I hope they have a poster campaign coming up! Or maybe Google AdWords (then there could be Liberal party ads on my site – the Liberal party could actually pay me). We’ll have to wait and see.

We all knew Stephen Harper had a hidden agenda, it’s not really news to progressives, and those who are on his side will merely support his agenda, and agree with his talk about “socialist and separatist” coalitions and liberal-infiltrated benches.

The only hope is that a leak like this will swing some moderate-apathetic voters who have shrugged and said he’s good enough or “not doing anything that bad” and get them to vote for a more progressive option.

The challenge for the NDP is convincing Canada that Ignatieff is just the same political/economic mindset as Harper, just without the right-wing Christian fundamentalism.

This video was sent to me by a reader, it’s only had a couple hundred views, and bears no party signatures, and was posted by “thecanadianblogger” who only signed up a few days ago…

Reading the info attached to the video definitely points to this being a Conservative video, maybe we’ll get to see it on TV soon (which would be an awesome way to go from Liberal bland but positive to Con muddy attack):

Who is Michael Ignatieff. After living abroad for three decades, calling America his country, he now says he shares your values. But does he?

Original idea from Kinch Blog and remix inspired by Accidental Deliberations.

Remains free to be spread.

And just to note: The confidence vote button will remain up until we actually see Ignatieff back his tough talk up with a vote.

Update:Kudos to Devin Johnston for the final version.

The new Liberal ads are out to much fanfare and swooning at Libblogs, although to be fair, any video with Ignatieff in it would have that crowd swooning.

The Jurist at Accidental Deliberations points out that these ads are “inoffensive and vaguely positive” and bare a resemblance to a certain sweater-vest wearing politician of the last election.

This of course prompted me to find the sweater vest ads and compare.

First, Ignatieff’s new English ad (there’s just the one for now):

Lot’s of big notions and words and attempts to reach at “hope” and working with China and India. Oddly enough he still hasn’t given us one Liberal plank. Basically he’s saying “I’m better than Harper because I say so.” Please, Iggy, let us know what you stand for, because so far you don’t seem to stand for anything. And you know what they say about those who stand for nothing.

Now, Harper and the Conservatives released eight different warm and fuzzy sweater vest ads!

Not to defend the man, but at least his team knows about media strategy (like not launching your ad online on Labour Day weekend when no one’s paying attention). I won’t post all eight embedded (the links are below), but he does approach a number of different issues and some really try to play to his base with talk of family and foreign policy.

• Soft on crime does not work
• A nation of immigrants
• Family is everything
• Strong foundation
• True North strong and free
• Lest we forget

And since it somewhat relates to Ignatieff’s “Worldview” ad, here’s Canada has to stand for something:

So all-in-all, I’d have to say that Harper’s sweater vest ads are actually better on the whole than Iggy’s vague lost in the woods thing.

Still my favourite is Marg, Princess Warrior’s take on the Sweater Vests:

Finally, let’s remember that even though the NDP ran radio ads criticizing Ignatieff for backing out of the coalition in January, they had these classy “Chalk Talk” ads during the election (of course I may be biased):

Update: Here’s the comment I left at BigCityLib Strikes Back who’s trying to defend the use of Bland ads:

There’s positive and then there’s bland. While I have nothing against positive ads, why does Iggy refuse to give anything of substance? Where does he stand on Afghanistan, EI, the tar sands and other issues? Instead of answering this we get bland, and that’s what’s wrong about these ads.