Oh Canada! – a new anthem for a new day from missjdub on Vimeo.
Things here in the Toronto Centre riding are rather boring this election season. Nobody has come to the door nor have any political fliers passed through the mail slot. It is lonely and we feel left out of the fun. There are a few Bob Rae signs here and there, but the joint Bob Rae – George Smitherman community office over on Parliament isn’t exactly an election war room (either a remarkable example of Federal-Provincial cooperation or simply the Liberals keeping the family together). Most excitement in this election (as well as last year’s byelection) has been provided by the Conservatives, who have near-zero chance of winning in these parts, but have had some high profile fumbles in a riding that doesn’t matter to them. Today we learn that Conservative Candidate Chris Reid has withdawn for remarks he has made on his now-offline blog. BlogTO links to the cached copy of it here, and part of it refers to the Greyhound murder back in July:
Passengers and the bus driver stood by and watched another person being butchered, and couldn’t muster up any courage or self sacrifice to intervene. This is where socialism as gotten us folks, a castrated effeminate population.
It is remarkable at how low in the Reform Partyish barrel goo Conservatives scrape to get some of their local candidates. The low score of this current Conservative casualty was easily avoidable as the party had an extremely talented and hardworking candidate in Mark Warner who was fired, as I wrote last year, for discussing urban issues that weren’t part of Stephen Harper’s official agenda. With the attack on Warner, I have been amazed at the ability of the Red Tories who can suck such offenses up and continue to support a party that has moved away from their traditional values.
So, indeed, things are quiet here in Toronto Centre this year and there is lots of time to poke around the net looking at various initiatives attempting to prevent a Harper majority such as the Anyone But Harper site that launched today, a
non-partisan group of Canadians appalled at the thought that Stephen Harper might form the next government of Canada. We want anyonebutHarper.ca to tell Canadians about the consequences of a Harper win, to help Canadians maximize the value of their vote on October 14, and to mobilize the creativity of anti-Harper Canadians.
We started as a group of digital media folks noodling on Facebook about an anti-harper campaign, largely video and technology based. Specifically, we were and are interested in making sure people vote strategically. Today, we number in the hundreds — from video artists, new media designers, musicians, programmers; from Liberals, NDPrs, Greens and Bloc. We come from all across Canada. And we invite you to join us!
The video above was produced by Anyone But Harper (see more on the site) and their hope is to get people to vote strategically and to spread this idea virally (which means Toronto readers sending the links to their relatives and friends in the rest of Canada where most of the election-that-matters is taking place). In a post last week here on Spacing there was a discussion of the pros and cons of strategic voting and vote swapping, but the interesting anecdotal observation I’ve made during this election is that apart from partisan supporters and true believers there are a great many Canadians somewhat panicked in the face of no clear popular non-Harper leader and are asking for “anything but.” Even Toronto area artists and folks working in the creative culture sector have banded together at the Department of Culture and produced videos and material around the massive cuts to funding recently announced.
As an undecided voter in a riding that does not matter, I masochistically envy folks in those exciting swing ridings who are being courted and fawned over. Bob Rae, where are you? Come by and chat at least. I won’t ask about your past, and we’ll appreciate your visit more than you know, because we, the people of Toronto Centre, feel left out.
10 comments
What are you undecided about in regard to voting?
I am undecided about who I am going to vote for.
I know who I’m not going to vote for, but not who I will vote for. That is about as deep as it gets.
Toronto-Centre is unexciting? My friend, you haven’t met El-Farouk Khaki, your NDP candidate! He is anything but boring, that’s for sure.
Toronto-Centre is Ryerson University’s riding, so I go campaiging for El-Farouk around campus. (Shameless plug: http://www.rundp.org) This can be frustrating – because of Bob Rae’s celebrity, many feel there isn’t much point in voting at all.
The truth about strategic voting, as well as not voting against a star candidate, is that it is a self-fufilling prophecy. By telling yourself “Well, nobody else is going to vote for the candidate I want – I guess I have no choice”, you effectively advance your own argument.
Our system is certainly flawed – and Ontario voters certainly have a nerve to whine about it after recently voting down a referendum to change it – but that doesn’t make voting irrelevant.
Bob Rae himself should know best, unpredictable things can happen. The NDP won a majority government in Ontario, believe it. The outcome is never a certainity.
The only way our democracy can ever hope to be truly representative is if people vote for their ideal and not the lesser of two evils. If you chose to vote against your own beliefs, you deserve what you get.
I’m with William 100%. If you can’t make up your mind, you should at least be able to vote with your heart.
It is also interesting to note that generally, Alberta’s being ignored this time around as well. The Tories don’t care that much since they know they have it locked in, while the other parties are pretty much avoiding Alberta since there’s little hope in hell. In the end, it might end up causing resentment (yet again) and we’ll have another grassroots Alberta party starting up, which will split the right yet again. It’s a never ending cycle under our current electoral system.
Agh. Don’t tell them that! I was enjoying how nice and quiet it was, versus the byelection, where people from each party called me six times each.
Even though I told them to stop calling every time.
I almost unplugged the phone.
The only people who think Warner was a good candidate are people who aren’t familiar with him. He’s been very vocal in his support of Robert Mugabe and seeing a white conspiracy against him.
I can only imagine what would have be done during a genera election with a PC candidate vocally supporting genocide. Dumping the recent candidate was stupid, since his writings were all mainstream conservatism. It doesn’t play well in TO of course, but who cares?
Toronto is irrelevant and always will be irrelevant as long as the only viable candidates are various flavours of NDP. It gets ignored by Liberal governments and by Conservative ones and always will.
As to Red Tories – they have pretty much all left to join the Liberals. Good riddance to bad rubbish. They are horrible at governing, at politics, and stake their politics solely on class. John Tory and Ernie Eves (from when Ms. Basset gained her influence) are perfect examples of this. The only Red Tories left in the party are in Alberta, where you have to be a party member to do anything in politics.
It would help your political reporting if you gained some actual information, rather than simply displaying your knee-jerk, conventionally Toronto leftist reactions.
Nice smear job, Reality Check. Provide links to Warner’s support of Mugabe. That’s the respectable thing to do when you’re willing to assissinate someone’s character.
Someone might have taken your rant seriously if you hadn’t written that Toronto is irrelevant. NO ONE IS IRRELEVANT. Voters pick a candidate that represent their views. A government is to serve voters, not just those who voted for them.
Reality Check> What can I do but acquiesce to your obvious close knowledge of the party — but as for your unfounded allegations about Mr. Warner: why not use your real name AND back up your accusations with some proof? But I bet you won’t do either.
I tell you this for you own benefit of course, because on the Internet, when you do what you just did, nobody believes you and you appear to be no more than an anonymous, cowardly, wingnut.
Alot of the ‘red Tories’, from the former PROGRESSIVE Conservative Party, now find a comfortable home in the Green Party of Canada. (Think of how moderate the federal PCs were, in hindsight, compared with Harper’s Conservative Reform Alliance Party.)
The Greens also attract people who have leaned left in the past. I, for example, was a member of the NDP, for about twenty-five years in fact, until a year or so ago. In this campaign, while at the campaign office of Ellen Michelson in Toronto Centre, I have run into others who were formerly aligned with the NDP.
It was the Greens’ more aggressive proposals on the climate change crisis that won me over and it is the sound platform, viewed through that paradigm, that convinces me that the party has new ideas and energy in so many other areas of public policy.
It’s worth looking at greenparty.ca