Anybody Want to Start a Pool?

I wonder what the voter turnout will be this year.

Since Confederation we've averaged just over 70 per cent. The highest turnout came during the Diefenbaker/Pearson era when 79 per cent came out to vote ('58, '60, '63).

The lowest turnout was just under 59 per cent when Harper defeated the Dion Liberals in 2008. Three years later, 61 per cent turned out to see Harper trounce the Ignatieff Liberals who dropped 34 seats, handing Harper his ill-deserved majority.

In 2015 the turnout bumped up to just over 68 per cent as Canadians voted for the fresh-faced Justin Trudeau and/or against Stephen Harper.

So what do you think it'll be this time? There's no hated Harper this time around but no unsullied Liberal either. We've got a 'summer help' counter-clerk up against a disappointing school marm. The campaign has been a pissing contest between Scheer and Trudeau. Nothing there to inspire a big turnout. If there was a "none of the above" option on the ballot, Mr. None might take it in a landslide.

I just don't see a big voter turnout this time around. What do you think?

What Are You Hearing?

I've recently had some interesting conversations with friends in Vancouver and Ontario. In each case the other side brought up the issue of climate change and, specifically, how it might be a factor in the October elections.

These are highly-educated, politically active, individuals even if not always scientifically inclined. They mentioned that, in their circles, people who might not have been particularly concerned about climate change before are now becoming quite worried about what's happening and may happen in the next decade or two.

Too little, too late? I don't know. How much change does there have to be in public opinion to shift our political caste?

When you look at what's already happening and what's building for the 2020s it's insane, utter madness, to be pimping fossil fuels.  Yet both of our conservative parties, the far-right Conservatives and the centre-right Liberals, are still firmly in the pocket of the fossil fuelers.  And, in keeping with the now customary pattern, they expect to take, between them, about three quarters of the votes cast this October.

What I want to know is whether there's anything to what I'm hearing. Are our fellow Canadians becoming discernibly worried? Is climate change an increasing priority?

What are you hearing?

I'm Voting for Her This October. Will You?

This year's general elections will be like none other. This may be our very last, best chance to compel our federal government to act commensurately with the scope of the climate change peril.

Had the prime minister not reneged on his promise of electoral reform we might not be at risk of yet another false majority, do-next-to-nothing government whether Liberal or Conservative. That, of course, has not happened. And so, as Mr. Trudeau has ensured we will remain under the threat of these unmandated majorities, I have no hesitation in voting for the future.

I'm voting for her and her entire generation. Another four years from now it will be too late. We know what must be done and how very little time we have to meet our obligation. Our mainstream parties and their leaders have not accepted that responsibility and, for that, they don't deserve our votes.

So What's Our Excuse?

Amnesty International is urging Britain's Cameron government to stop arms shipments to Saudi Arabia.  Amnesty claims the weapons are being used to deliberately slaughter civilians in Houthi-rebel controlled parts of Yemen.

Amnesty said it found a pattern of “appalling disregard” for civilian lives by the Saudi-led coalition in an investigation of 13 air strikes in north-eastern Saada governorate during May, June and July: these killed some 100 civilians – including 59 children and 22 women and injured a further 56, including 18 children.

Since last March coalition air strikes have hit homes, schools, markets and other civilian infrastructure, as well as miltiary objectives. Saada, a Houthi stronghold, has been badly hit. Thousands who remain in the governorate “live in constant fear of the airstrikes and dire humanitarian conditions”, Amnesty says.

Canada is also on the Saudi weapons of indiscriminate destruction/war crimes gravy train with Harper having inked a $15-billion deal for the sale of light armoured fighting vehicles (light tanks) presumably for democracy suppression patrols. The deal supposedly gags Harper from discussing (having to explain) the sale but seemingly leaves him quite free to excuse it on the basis that, if we didn't sell Saudis its instruments of carnage then some other nation would.

For the radical Sunni Muslim House of Saud, being a Shiite Muslim is enough to qualify you for live-fire target practice.  Fortunately, that exempts the devoutly Sunni al Qaeda, al Nusra and ISIS terrorists/insurgents from Saudi bloodlust. Yemen's Houthi rebels daily fight ISIS and al Qaeda forces while the Saudis, with the active support of Canada, Britain and the US, wage a ground and air war against the Houthis.

If you're interested in this curious murderous mess, check out this episode of VICE TV. The Houthi segment begins at the 17:00 minute mark. It's an eye-opener.



Keeping with the theme of "So What's Our Excuse?" let's talk bitumen and the armada of supertankers that may soon ply British Columbia's coast.  Roger Annis has written an important report, "The Canadian Election and the Global Climate Crisis," for CounterPunch that should be required reading for every British Columbian before they vote in the federal election.  The only party that's even partly standing up for this province and our incredibly fragile ecosystems is Elizabeth May's Green Party and even May is a bit wobbly on bitumen trafficking.

Which brings us to the first segment of the VICE TV episode above concerning the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and how BP used a highly toxic chemical, Corexit, that, instead of dispersing the oil as promised simply made it far more lethal and sank it to contaminate the bottom and the marine life that is found there. Watch it. It's a genuine call to arms.

h/t Northern PoV

Of Feet and Fires

Accountability is one of the cornerstones of our democracy.  We want a government that is accountable to the people and we expect our opposition parties to ensure that happens.   We expect the opposition to hold the government's "feet to the fire."   This isn't supposed to be just a matter of hollow, self-serving criticism or denunciation.  That sort of thing may benefit the opposition politicians but it holds little of any real use for the public.   We need, our democracy needs, legitimate criticism and thoughtful, realistic proposals for reform and improvement.  That's what works for the public.

But what happens when government policy is rotten and the opposition, for its own self-serving purposes, doesn't hold the government's feet to the fire, doesn't expose and criticize its failures, doesn't offer proposals to set the government back to the service of the nation and the public?  Surely when that occurs, what good is the legislature at all?   What  happens when Parliament falls silent, wilfully mute about pressing problems of the day?

We have no shortage of politicians wanting to rule our country but an astonishing dearth of those interested in governing.   Ruling is arbitrary, whimsical, unguided, reactionary.   It is building mega-prisons in an ongoing era of reduced crime.  It is creating fears where fear is unfounded and ignoring legitimate anxiety over real threats as though, by not speaking of them, they'll go away.

Governing is political husbandry.   It is administration and management.  It is acceptance of a fiduciary responsibility for the country and its people, both now and for generations to come.  Governing is acknowledging and confronting the challenges of the day and leading the public to the best solutions.  It is leaving the land better than we found it, the people stronger and more cohesive.  Even the architect of conservatism, Edmund Burke, espoused this.   It was wholeheartedly embraced by Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.

I like the Liberal election platform, as far as it goes.   I like the education proposal, the health care and pension platforms.   Yet, to me, those are all Tier 2 issues.  They're important, necessary but surely not the great issues and challenges of the day.   Education, health care, pensions are pretty thin gruel in contrast to the destructive problems that already beset our society - the growing gap between rich and poor, the need to arrest global warming, and the long-neglected imperative of assisting Canadians to meet the challenges, domestic and foreign, that the climate change already coming will pose.   These will affect the stability, strength and resilience of Canada and the Canadian people, qualities we need to bolster to meet the changes that are already setting in and will tax us greatly in the coming decades.   To me these are Tier 1 issues.

When Tier 1 issues aren't prominent on political agendas, aren't even incorporated in platforms, what it tells me is that I'm not looking at a party interested in governing but one merely seeking to rule.  It's not a party that genuinely wants to build a better Canada but merely wants to hold the reins of power for an intermediate term of years.   That's a party that stands, however unintentionally, to add itself as just another layer to all our other problems.

If our country didn't stand at a crossroads I might, as I have a few times in the past, accepted the "lesser of two evils" rationale and voted Liberal.   But we are at this crossroads and the two evils, Greater and Lesser, plan to steer us in the wrong direction.   I just can't go down that road.