For My Democracy Today I am Donating to a Political Party

If we have any hope of removing this corrupt and dangerous government from power, and taking our country back; we must donate a bit of money to the progressive party of our choice.

Join them if you're able, so they know you're on their side. Most membership fees are about $ 10.00.

And if you can, throw a few bucks their way now and then. They'll need it to be able to campaign effectively.

Harper has the backing of the corporate elite and the wealthy religious right (though he's still using OUR money to campaign), while the other parties have to compete with each other for support.

I can't just sit and do nothing, while they destroy this beautiful country, and tarnish our good name.

We have to get them out of office and hopefully have Jason Kenney committed, because that boy needs some serious help.

So here are the links. If you have other parties you would like me to add, send them to me and I'll post them. But remember, this election it has to be about getting rid of this horror show. We can't let vote-splitting hang us up again.

I'm listing them in alphabetical order

You can join or donate to the Green Party here.

You can join or donate to the Liberal Party here.

You can join or donate to the NDP here.

Read their platforms. Email them if you need more information.

But above all: VOTE

Elizabeth May Comments on Afghan Torture Allegations

I really like Elizabeth May, which is why I wish the left would unite. She needs to be in cabinet and we need her as our environmental minister. It's that simple.

Ms May offered her comments on the Afghan abuse story that is unfolding in Ottawa now, and I thought I'd share it.

Rarely does the news of the government’s failures and abuses have such impact as to make one feel physically ill. But the looming possibility that Canadian soldiers routinely arrested civilians in Afghanistan, on no evidence whatsoever, and turned them over to be tortured, made one ill.

That we, as a nation, may have been responsible for many (hundreds?) of innocent people to be snatched from their families and cast into those hell-holes of prisons to be tortured is devastating. These are war crimes we are talking about, but it is also people whose lives we were supposed to be protecting.

I remember the constant denials that Government members knew anything. The explanations of former Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor that when Canadian forces turned over Afghan prisoners we could rely on the International Red Cross to monitor their condition.

Mr. O’Connor gave this answer for a full year, even though there was no truth to it. None at all.

Even though Mr. O’Connor was briefed by the head of the International Red Cross in September, 2006, he stuck to this fairy tale that we relied on the Red Cross for any information about inhumane treatment of prisoners once they left our custody.

His apology once the fiction was exposed was lame and evasive. In Question Period on March 21, 2007, the Prime Minister attacked the former Liberal Opposition Leader Stéphane Dion when he demanded O’Connor’s resignation. Stephen Harper deflected the question, saying “I can understand the passion that the Leader of the Opposition and members of his party feel for Taliban prisoners. I just wish occasionally they would show the same passion for Canadian soldiers.”

Now the evidence of a brave and well-respected diplomat, Richard Colvin, who claims that the torture was routine, that it was known and that his efforts to document and report such treatment were blocked at every turn. He testified that the government would not even take phone calls from the Red Cross.

His evidence demands that a responsible government dig to get the facts. Instead, the Harper government has gone on a media offensive, attacking Mr. Colvin as someone duped by the Taliban. Peter MacKay went on the attack.

Colvin was painted as someone with a crazy theory, or as Don Martin noted a “Taliban stooge,” noting that “Defence Minister Peter MacKay went much further on Thursday, blasting the ‘holes’ in his testimony and wondering why Mr. Colvin never raised such concerns with him directly.”

But as Macleans reporter John Geddes pointed out, these accusations were swirling for some time: “In a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations way back on Nov. 27, 2006, here’s what Human Rights Watch had to say about the situation Canadian troops, and others, were embroiled in:

NATO forces have stated that they have detained only a few detainees, even in the heavy combat zones of southern Afghanistan. Dutch forces operating in Oruzgan announced their first five detainees two weeks ago, while British and Canadian forces operating in Helmand and Kandahar, respectively, have publicly acknowledged fewer than 100 detainees. Given the ferocity of the fighting in these areas, the absence of more detainees raises two alarming alternatives: either that NATO forces are not taking detainees, or, more likely, that NATO forces are circumventing their bilateral agreements by immediately turning over detainees to Afghan authorities and thus abrogating their responsibility to monitor the detainees’ treatment.

We have received credible reports about mistreatment of detainees transferred by NATO to Afghan authorities. It is our understanding that the Afghan Ministry of Defense does not have in place a legal framework for holding detainees. We understand that the Afghan government has not yet ratified a law on military tribunals drafted with the assistance of US authorities.

For now, we understand that in practice most NATO detainees are transferred to the National Directorate of Security (NDS), an opaque, unaccountable and abusive institution still governed by classified laws promulgated during Afghanistan’s communist era. The NDS operates detention centers that fail to meet international standards for the treatment of detainees.”

Other NATO nations took greater care to follow up on detainees. Canada didn’t. The implications of Colvin’s testimony shake us to our moral foundations as a country.

Now we have a government not only bent on ignoring and sabotaging global climate negotiations, we have a government intent on ignoring, and even defending torture. I have seen this movie before. It used to star George W. Bush.

Is This a Good Time to Unite the Left?

With the media picking up their big cardboard cheques and all but handing Stephen Harper a majority, would this be a good time to talk seriously about uniting the left?

Michael Byers wrote a piece not long ago about a strategic uniting for the next election, to remove the neo-Conservative government that is threatening our country, while the nation sleeps. He seems very passionate and maybe we should listen, especially after Harper's former campaign manager admitted that Harper lied about the coalition.

I read a comment on one of the boards "Heard Elizabeth May and Michael Byers yesterday on Michael Enright's Sunday talk show! A discussion on how Stephen Harper could be defeated by the left developing a strategy of the parties working together. Would be a good first mission for Mr. Ignatieff to send Peter Donolo on...to explore the possibilities?"

With a 34% approval rating for Harper, that hardly warrants his new 'king' status, but we're talking the Canadian media here? Since when did they put Canadian interests ahead of their own?

Harper's success is because he united the right and eliminated the competition.

The only thing that could be a problem is that Jack Layton now has a Harper complex, and fancies he could be the next PM. He used to care though and maybe we could get him to care again.

I think we should really push this.

A Great Idea to Fight Neo-Conservatism and Restore Democracy in Canada

We now know that the Reform Conservatives' attacks on the Canadian people during the parliamentary crisis, were a complete load of crap; so maybe it's now time to rethink some kind of coalition to fight this horrendous neo-conservative movement.

It is absolutely wrong for Canada, but since the Ref-Cons continue to make politics in Canada ugly, in order to bore us into giving them a majority; columnist Michael Byers has come up with a suggestion for the next election.

However, I would like to take this one step further. I think that the opposition parties, whose policies are not that different, should form a loose coalition now.

With no new confidence motions on the table, they could simply band together to make sure that none of the Ref-Con horrendous bills get passed. Now I know our government has resorted to blackmail, not that we should be surprised, but we can't let that stop us.

The opposition parties must also quit fighting each other. This is getting us nowhere. We have to take our country back, and let Harper know that Leo Strauss ideology is not welcome here.

Ironically in 2005, 62% of Canadians claimed that they would never vote for Stephen Harper, and that's exactly what happened last election. However, vote-splitting is hurting Canadians and threatening our existence as a sovereign nation.

Liberals and New Democrats together could unseat Harper: Electoral ceasefire would put nation's centre-left majority in political control

Negative ads have prejudiced voters against Michael Ignatieff, and brought Stephen Harper within reach of a majority government. The Conservatives
now lead the Liberals by about 10 percentage points. The situation seems unlikely to improve. The Prime Minister's divisive partisan tactics have diminished the public's respect for politicians in general. In just four years, he has changed the tone of media coverage and public discourse, shifting the mood of the nation toward cynicism and selfishness.

Liberal infighting has not helped, while the NDP has missed two opportunities – on climate change and macroeconomic policy – to capture the national imagination with bold ideas. There is only one surefire way to prevent a Harper majority. The Liberals and NDP should agree to not run candidates against each other in the next campaign ...

The Numbers Don't Lie. The Conservatives Did Not Get a Stronger Mandate

Despite the fact that the Conservatives continue to claim that Canadians gave them a stronger mandate in 2008, the numbers tell a different story.

Only vote splitting and apathy, brought on by the horrendous Conservative attack ads, gave them more seats.

After the story broke about the "In and Out" scheme, Harper's Party was in serious trouble. Breaking the rules may have put his legitimacy into question, but alleged fraud was a criminal matter.

So how did he deal with it?

He abused his executive powers to hamper the investigation, shut down the ethics committee and called an illegal election. He then launched a ridiculous civil suit, that put the case on the back burner.

However, the allegations are still there and hopefully soon Canadians will get their day in court. They cheated US and Harper is now suing US. What does that tell you about this government?


But back to the numbers and why I believe a coalition or an alliance of the left, is the best option for our country; if we want to get on track to solving the multitude of problems we are facing.

A serious attempt was made during the last election to initiate strategic voting. Sadly it didn't work, and the Conservatives ended up with more seats, despite the fact that they received less votes.

The election also saw the lowest voter turnout in our history. On election night it was felt that this would play in favour of the incumbents because by and large, Conservative voters were said to be older and wealthier and more apt to get out and vote. Do we really want old rich guys having all the power?

But lets compare the results from 2006 to 2008.

Conservatives
2006 - Total votes 5,374,071 which represented 36.27% of ballots cast for 124 seats
(Note: This was the election where they broke the rules and the alleged fraud involving 66 candidates is still on the table)

2008 - Total votes 5,208,793 which represented 37.63 of ballots cast for 143 seats
Their percentage went up slightly but despite the fact that they were able to drive voters away from the Liberals, none of those were driven in their direction, because they received 173,210 fewer than in 2006.

Liberals

2006 - Total votes 4,479,415 which represented 30.23% of ballots cast for 103 seats

2008 - Total votes 3,627,890 which represented 26.24 of ballots cast for 77 seats
(The horrendous attacks on Dion led to the Liberals downfall, but ironically their numbers were climbing until Steve Murphy and Mike Duffy created a mini scandal with the Liberal leader's false starts. Both men have been charged with ethics violations, but Duffy was rewarded with a senate seat and Murphy a one on one interview with the PM during the Parliamentary crisis. Is their a senate seat in his future too, since he did what the Conservatives couldn't at that time .... knock Mr. Dion out of the race?) As a result the Liberal numbers were down by 851,525 but none of them went to the Conservatives.

NDP

2006 - Total votes 2,589,597 which represented 17.48% of ballots cast for 29 seats

2008 - Total votes 2,512,886 which represented 18.2 of ballots cast for 37 seats
(The NDP were down by 76,711 votes but still managed to get a few more seats)

Bloc

2006 - Total votes 1,553,201 which represented 10.48% of ballots cast for 51 seats

2008 - Total votes 1,379,991 which represented 9.97 of ballots cast for 49 seats
(The Bloc were down by 173,210 and they lost two seats)

Green Party

2006 - Total votes 664,068 which represented 5.2% of ballots cast for 0 seats

2008 - Total votes 940,297 which represented 6.8 of ballots cast for 0 seats
(The Green Party was the only one to gain votes and yet they still have no seats.)

This is why we need either proportional representation or a coalition of the left, because as it is, the majority of Canadians are without a voice.