rabble.ca Canadian federal election blog

Without further comment …

by Sharon Fraser

I have just sent this letter to Avaaz.ca who have written — once again — urging the use of the site VoteForEnvironment.ca as a voting aid.

___________________________________________________

I am very impatient with you people — and I’m not the only one — with your continuing campaign for Elizabeth May in Central Nova.   

Elizabeth May never had a chance to beat Peter MacKay — and she’s still not going to.  The NDP, however, did have a chance but has had to fight, not just the usual opponents who were running but know-it-alls from all over the country who, somehow, seem to think that they have inside knowledge that the people in Central Nova don’t have. 

I guess it’s pretty late for me to be saying this but to Avaaz, VoteForEnvironment and all the other voting busybodies around the country — lay off.  Let the people of Central Nova spend these last hours before the election doing their own thinking — as they’ve always done. 

Peter MacKay is — without much doubt — going back to Ottawa.  If he exercises restraint on Tuesday evening, he may avoid saying thank you to Elizabeth May and her wrong-headed supporters far beyond the borders of Central Nova. 

Yours most sincerely etc. etc. 

Poll puts May in third place

by Sharon Fraser

At this hour, CTV in the Maritimes is releasing a poll done in Central Nova, showing Elizabeth May — narrrowly — in third place, running behind Peter MacKay (Conservative) and Louise Lorifice (NDP).

The poll shows:

MacKay: 44 %
Lorefice: 25 %
May: 23 % 

The poll also asked self-identified Liberals how they planned to vote:

NDP: 49 %
Con: 25 %
Green: 16 %
None: 8 %
Won’t Vote: 3 %

This afternoon, the CAW endorsed Elizabeth May and are now helping to split the anti-Harper vote — thanks, no doubt, to the misleading national news coverage and the strategic voting sites which keep insisting that this has been a two-way race between May and MacKay.

Is there any chance that the CAW will withdraw the endorsement now that an in-riding poll shows that the NDP remains the best choice for anti-Harper voters in Central Nova?

You’re voting for her … excuse me? why again?

by Sharon Fraser

There’s a Seinfeld episode with a scene that takes place in a menswear shop:

Jerry: “Excuse me, I’d like to return this jacket.”

Shopkeeper: “Certainly. May I ask why?”

Jerry: “For spite …”

Shopkeeper: “Spite?”

Jerry: “That’s right. I don’t care for the salesman that sold it to me.”

Shopkeeper: “I don’t think you can return an item for spite.”

Jerry: “What do you mean?”

Shopkeeper: “Well, if there was some problem with the garment, if it were unsatisfactory in some way, then we could do it for you, but I’m afraid spite doesn’t fit into any of our conditions for a refund.”

Does “spite” fit into any of your conditions for deciding which party you’re going to vote for?

I don’t know if Elizabeth May should be included in the leaders’ debates or not.  Personally, I find her flakey and self-absorbed, opportunistic and manipulative, but that, in itself, is no reason to keep her out of the debates.

Yesterday, she was a guest on CBC’s Maritime Noon phone-in and today, the program has shared some of the email and phone messages they’ve received since then — the largest response to any issue they’ve ever got in the show’s history.

Most of those who responded announced that they had been undecided or committed to vote for another party but were now changing their minds and voting Green.

Come on, you people!  You’re deciding how to vote based on spite?  This is an election!  There are issues involved!

Canada is at war, where we shouldn’t be.  We have public health care which is in danger of being privatized. We have no national child care.  Women’s reproductive choices are being threatened. Our arts and cultural communities are under attack and the CBC is surely on the endangered list.

And Elizabeth is not the only person in the country who understands the importance of the environment.  In fact, the NDP consistently scores higher than the Green Party on environmental issues.

Yes, I agree, the media networks should have clear rules as to who gets to participate in the debates and this kind of acrimony should be avoided in the future.  But meanwhile, all this is a dangerous distraction.  It’s time to get back to what matters while there’s still time.

Culture of defeat? Defeat this!

by Sharon Fraser

In the circles I move in,  the issue is leadership all right.  From my 13-year-old son who disdainfully imitates the ads that channel Mr. Rodgers, to my 95-year-old mother-in-law who says, in no uncertain terms, “I want to see him defeated,” the issue is Stephen Harper.

Harper is not popular in the Maritimes.  Even some Conservatives will run their campaigns trying not to mention him and depending on local issues and traditional voting patterns to see them through. I’ll come back to that another day.

I forced myself to listen to Cross-Country Check-up on CBC Radio today.  The invited guests and the callers were – without many exceptions – all on the same page:  Stephen Harper is the only leader we can trust to run the country right now, in perilous economic times.

Why do people feel this way about him?  He’s a mean guy.  His ads say, “We’re better off with Harper,” although I can’t imagine any real person saying that.  He’s presided over the most anti-woman government in recent history.  He’s led a government that’s targeted less advantaged groups and the arts and cultural communities and has deepened our involvement in a war that most Canadians profoundly disagree with.

I ask myself all the time why so many people are so willing to vote against their own self-interest.  The people who phone in to Cross Country Check-up – do they consider that the CBC may be sold to private interests if Harper leads a majority government?  And that get-tough-on-crime bill that they’re always talking about – do they know (or care) that the prisons in a Harper-majority Canada will be privately owned for profit and staffed by minimum wage workers?

Today, I’ve heard people say that Stéphane Dion is a decent guy, intelligent and has integrity.  I’ve never heard anyone, ever, say that about Harper and yet one of them is considered to be qualified to be prime minister and the other isn’t. Go figure.

And so I worry about what will happen in other parts of the country.  My mother-in-law – now in Nova Scotia but someone who lived for many years in the notorious 905 zone in Ontario – can’t believe that her former neighbours will be guilty of helping Harper realize his majority dream.  My husband has reminded her that they twice elected Mike Harris.

Harper has accused Maritimers of living in a culture of defeat.  If Quebec and Ontario and points west vote for enough Conservatives to give Harper a majority government,  the culture of defeat will have spread far beyond the Maritimes.