Navel Gazing

I've been thinking a lot about this post by Jason Cherniak and my husband.

First, Jason. He's realizing that upping the ante with the CPC might just not be worth it. But it might be the only thing that works or gets attention.

My husband, a liberal American, thinks that the problem with liberals is that they don't use the *bs* the conservatives/republicans spew against them to show how stupid and vile they really are. He'll vote for liberals, but he won't associate himself with them.

I don't comment on what the Blogging Tories or anyone else is saying about Stephane Dion, the Liberal Party of Canada or whomever is trying to do something that ... shows how far we've come as a country when it comes to recognizing the separation of church and life.

I don't because perhaps I do have that "Liberal arrogance". I know that I'm right most of the time about what my country needs to do. My earliest memories of government were Brian Mulroney making my $0.25 Gobstoppers cost $0.27, even though the price tag still said $0.25. I remember my parents being really worried about the future of my dad's job when the FTA started. None of my memories of the only Conservative government I have ever known have been good.

But I did start my professional life more than half way through Jean Chretien's majorities. I've had a relatively stable and upwardly mobile working life since. The Liberals did great things for my country during my adult life, and other than my dislike for Paul Martin, (Name one good [even great] finance minister that made a good PM. G'wan... I dare you.) things have been pretty good. Stable democracies rarely are exciting.

Jean Chretien wasn't Prime Minister for 10 years by some sort of fluke. It wasn't an accident that he won 3 majority governments. He did it because the Canadian people knew that he'd never do anything that would piss the majority of us off. That's the way Canadians like their governments. Always have.

I don't bother engaging the Tories or the Dippers because I know that the Liberal Party will get further just by being right. By just speaking their truth, sharing their plan, giving the information and showing up when it counts.

That's not flashy or glamourous and it makes for little press coverage, but I really, really think that the majority of Canadians don't get their political views from the MSM or talk radio or wherever. They just know, and they'll vote for Dave or Kathy for their MP because they know them from city council or local hockey or from provincial parliament.

I think that the LPC should spend more time attracting and recruiting candidates who are known in each individual riding. I think they should appoint them if necessary. I think that the policy of parachuting candidates into ridings should be reconsidered, and be used only when someone the stature of Wayne Gretzky or Donald Sutherland decides to run. (Not that I'm saying either one of them is running, just someone that well known.)

I think that the LPC needs to run their version of a 50-State Strategy. That means there should be more Stephane Dion, Bob Rae, Martha Hall-Findlay, Gerard Kennedy, etc. out here in BC talking about the Green Shift this summer. I think that the LPC has got to do more to stop treating people from BC (especially from Metro Vancouver) like they only exist at election time.

Perhaps it's naive of me, but I really think that engaging the CPC should be saved for the dark arts of Question Period, and the Liberal Party Team should be out there, from sea to sea to sea sharing our vision and speaking our truth as if the Sideshow Steves of the world have been sucked into the black hole that is Calgary.

Maybe it's just that my mother taught me that I shouldn't stare at or tease the mentally deficient, and you shouldn't pick on people smaller than you.

;)

By-elections September 8, 2008

Marc Garneau

Frank Valeriote

Roxane Stanners

2 out of 3 is our only hope.

3 out of 3 would be a resounding message.

And another thing...

In response to this blog post,

I started a Facebook group.

Check it out. Join the group. Send to all your Canadian friends.

The fact that this is even an issue should be a public scandal.

ICE is different in Canada.

Part One:

US = ICE

Created in March 2003, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the largest investigative branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The agency was created after 9/11, by combining the law enforcement arms of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the former U.S. Customs Service, to more effectively enforce our immigration and customs laws and to protect the United States against terrorist attacks.

Canada = ICE

Innovative Clean Energy Fund

British Columbia's increasing energy requirements and our ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction and clean energy targets require greater investment and innovation in the area of alternative energy by both the public and private sector.

To lead this effort, the government will establish an Innovative Clean Energy Fund of $25 million to help promising clean power technology projects succeed. The fund will be established through a small charge on energy utilities. The Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources will consult with the energy utilities on the implementation of this charge.

This post inspired by this story in the Vancouver Sun

Sewer gas goes mainstream: Energy from human waste will soon be pumped into Metro Vancouver homes

I think this is a fabulous bit of technology. The kind of innovation that could be developed and shot for trouble in Canada and SOLD AROUND THE WORLD at a profit.

This is the problem with conservatives; they want to keep doing things the way we've always done them. It keeps the stuff they learned during their schooling current.

But the exceptional thing about liberals is that they're looking for new ways of doing things, and new ways to earn money.

And Sideshow Steve fancies himself an economist. I'm sure he would've been one of those "experts" that were sure that those horseless carriages wouldn't catch on because they were unreliable.

The Prime Minister Hates My Country.

(h/t to Edstock over at The Galloping Beaver.

First, facts about Canada. Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.

In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.

Text of Stephen Harper's speech to the Council for National Policy, June 1997

I've never lived in Europe, but I have many friends that do or have, and Canada can only *wish* to have the kind of social safety nets that the UK, Scandinavia, and Switzerland have. To read the words of my now Prime Minister speaking of the basic humanitarianism of Canada c. 1997 in what I can only presume is a mocking tone really bothers me.

It bothers me to read this today. I spent a while this morning trying to watch the Khadr interrogation tapes, and as soon as it gets to the part with Omar putting his head down on the table and seeming to wail "Kiiiillll Meeeee" over and over I burst into tears and I have to shut it off. It bothers me that the Prime Minister of my country has "no real alternative" but to let a young man go through that.

Stephen Harper's Conservatives are to blame for extending the abuse and neglect of a Canadian in a situation involving a foreign government. It's not surprising that that is happening given the less than stellar record they've had with dealing with Canadians arrested, assaulted and even killed in foreign countries. However, Stephen Harper is just towing the Liberal Party line that was drawn when Paul Martin was PM. We can hardly blame the man for not having an "original" idea he didn't steal from the Liberals.

I was accused by an earlier anonymous commenter of suffering from "typical Liberal arrogance" because I'm not an idealist. I too am not interested in expediency, especially political expediency. I'm a pragmatist, I believe that sometimes you have to decide not to do things to get further ahead. You've got to give a little to get a lot in the future and sometimes giving that little leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

I'm not interested in trying to change the world tomorrow, but I am interested in making today just a little bit better than yesterday. Small, incremental steps will get you a lot further than trying to force massive changes over night. Look at the history of social progress in Canada and you'll see that I'm right.

The Conservative Party of Canada doesn't respect Canadians, doesn't respect the rights of citizenship and doesn't respect the nation they're supposed to be leading.

What a sick, cruel joke. He'll dismantle everything in this country that keeps us safe if given half a chance. This needs to end this fall. Help make that happen.