VOTE
A step by step reasoning as to why I think you should vote out Conservatives (and why I think you should vote at all)
I know the information in this post may be a lot. But this is our future we're talking about. It seriously affects you. Don't for a second think that it doesn't.
It's voting week. And normally I wouldn't be blogging about my political views on the election. I'm a live and let live type of person. I have extremely strong values and beliefs, but I also am open to the fact that others people's values and beliefs are different than mine. Although I find our election system extremely flawed, I also believe that it's the only way we currently have to allow the majority of people to be involved in the decisions and values that make up our country. And I stand by the process, (even if I think it could use some adjusting).
But this election is different. It would be one thing if the information was all out on the table, and people could be making informed decisions. Then, if people still wanted to stand behind the Conservative party, that is their choice and I respect that. But this election and this political regime is really different than most others. The lying that has gone on in this campaign and in the last ten years, the hiding of information, and the blatant catastrophizing of irrational fears so that important issues are ignored, is just out of control.
The majority of Conservative-voting people that I know are good people who have really similar values to mine on the most part. They care about their families, they care about their communities. They vote Conservative because they feel like the Conservatives will help them keep their jobs, help keep them safe, and help them keep their family values. That is the platform that the Conservative party totes. And it sounds nice. But the reality of what the Conservative party has actually done in the last ten years is much, much different than what they state their values are.
I used to be so proud to be Canadian. Proud of our compassion, proud of our care for our citizens, proud of our international reputation. When I first started backpacking in the world, I would always have a Canadian flag on my backpack, because to me it meant something. I felt aligned with where I was from.
But, in the last ten years I have watched all the values I care about, all of the things that I thought made me Canadian, get stripped away. Now, there's no way I would wear our flag out of the house. And I am terrified of what could continue to happen to this country if the Harper regime is allowed to continue.
Economy
One thing that Harper has "stood for" this whole time, and the reason most people stand behind the Conservative party, is that he promises to fix the economy. I know that it's difficult to fix an economy, especially in the midst of a global recession. But fixing the economy is almost Harper's entire platform, and yet it's worse now than when he took power.
Currently the deficit stands at $127 billion dollars and 236,000 more people are unemployed now than when he took power in 2006. I personally have seen my entire industry collapse in the last ten years, with massive funding cuts, irresponsible choices, and focusing on putting money into international hands instead of keeping the local industries going.
Currently the deficit stands at $127 billion dollars and 236,000 more people are unemployed now than when he took power in 2006. I personally have seen my entire industry collapse in the last ten years, with massive funding cuts, irresponsible choices, and focusing on putting money into international hands instead of keeping the local industries going.
The Conservatives have deployed a well-oiled communications plan using catch phrases like "we're focused on jobs, growth and long term prosperity" or branding the federal budget as the "Economic Action Plan."
The Conservatives spend tens of millions of dollars of your money each year on partisan advertising -- selling Canadians a very tall tale.
Here are actual facts you will never see in one of those Conservative "Economic Action Plan" ads this coming fall and beyond -- usually during a hockey game.
• Stephen Harper has managed to turn 10 consecutive federal budget surpluses of the Martin-Chretien era into 7 straight consecutive deficits.
• Stephen Harper has the worst record of economic growth of any Prime Minister since RB Bennett and the great depression.
• Under Stephen Harper, household debt has exploded. The average household debt-to-income ratio (i.e., the amount of debt the average Canadian household owes for every dollar of their annual disposable income) has risen from $1.31 to $1.64 -- which is where the United States was before the housing market crashed.
-Sean Casey
The Myth of Harper's Economic Competence
Huffington Post, 2013
For more actual numbers on Harpers economic report cars, feel free to go here, where the Ottawa Citizen has put together some of the numbers from Statistics Canada, Trading Economics, Globe and Mail, Bank of Canada, Toronto Stock Exchange, Decima Research, the Economist Magazine, Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, and Parliamentary Budget Officer.
"The Harper regime has cheated or stole every election. Yet not even the Conservative robo-call fraud to deprive up to 500,000 citizens of their votes in the 2011 election has been raised in the official campaign. No-one on stage remembers any of it back to the first Harper theft of power in 2006, featuring the Harper-RCMP deal to falsely accuse the Liberal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale in criminal investigation just prior to the election. Nor is Harper’s violation of his own Election Act in calling the 2008 election and its massive illegal spending on attacks ads filling the airwaves with public hate just before the vote. All has been proven off the campaign stage, but all has been silenced on it. The regime’s near-daily record of lies, scandals and violations has gone the memory hole of the electoral campaign, with $54 million on hand for attack ads."
"The so-called Fair Elections Act stirred controversy from the moment it was introduced in February 2014. At the time,
Poilievre said the law would put “special interests on the sidelines and rule-breakers out of business.”
But academics, students and other concerned groups came forward to warn that the changes would actually make it harder for some Canadians to cast a ballot.
For example, the law prohibits the use of the voter information card as a document that can be used as proof of residency. This has sparked concerns that some voters — notably students living away from home, seniors in long-term care homes and aboriginals — may lack the necessary identification, which must show their address, to vote.
There have also been changes to vouching, where one voter with proper identification could vouch for the identity of another voter at the polling station. An estimated 120,000 Canadians used vouching to vote in 2011.
“We can expect that a significant proportion of them would not be able to vote under the rules proposed,” Mayrand told a parliamentary committee in March 2014.
Mayrand noted that the worry around Canadian elections wasn’t fraud, but declining turnout.
“It is essential to understand that the main challenge for our electoral democracy is not voter fraud, but voter participation,” Mayrand told MPs.
Eliminating vouching and the information card would do little to improve the integrity of the voting process but “have taken away the ability of many qualified electors to vote,” he said."
Harper would rather not talk about women. Plans for a women's-issues debate in the current federal election campaign collapsed after the Prime Minister declined to participate and NDP Leader Tom Mulcair later chose not to participate without Harper's attendance.
They voted against a national action plan to end violence against women, despite the fact that on average, every six days a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner.
They
closed 75% of Status of Women offices.
They voted against a pay equity bill despite the fact that Canadian women make $8000 less yearly than their male counterparts at the same job - a gap that’s double the global average.
They closed the long gun registry, a crucial form of gun control created in the wake of the 1989 Ecole Polytechnique femicide, where 14 women were shot and killed by a man. Long guns are the most common type of firearm used in spousal homicides. Over the past decade, 71% of spousal homicides involved rifles and shotguns.
The Conservatives removed a question on unpaid work like domestic chores and childcare (done primarily by women) from the long-form census. In the 2006 census, StatsCan reports that, on average, “ women spend about an hour a day more on basic housework chores than their male counterparts."
Omnibus bills C-38 and C-45 significantly dismantled Canada's environmental protection WAVAW (Women Against Violence Against Women) staff suggested this item for this list because, “as Lee Maracle Says, “Feminism begins with considering the earth our Mother. All violence against earth is violence to us.”
Harper ended the Court Challenges Program which provided an essential source of financial assistance for important court cases that advance equality rights guaranteed under Canada’s Constitution. The cuts effectively silence very marginalized groups of Canadians as it removes from them an opportunity to challenge federal and provincial laws which may affect them at some point in the future. When questioned, Harper said, “Mr. Speaker, this government intends to behave in a constitutional manner.”
They cut $1 billion in childcare funding within 3 hours of being elected.
There are 1181 documented murdered and missing Indigenous women across Canada and the United Nations has called for urgent action. In response the Prime Minister said the issue “isn’t really high on our radar” then lied and said “I haven’t said that all.”
They eliminated funding to six different Canadian women’s health organizations.
They changed immigration rules to force women to stay with a spouse who sponsors them for a minimum of two years. This forces untold numbers of migrant women to stay in relationships with abusive spouses.
They eliminated a human rights agency that provided women's health, training and counselling projects in 17 countries around the world.
Women of colour are 48% more likely to be unemployed than white men. The Conservatives have eliminated the National Council on Welfare which had existed to advise the government on effective welfare policy for 43 years. They then changed Employment Insurance rules require laid-off workers to take jobs they might previously have considered unsuitable, possibly with up to 30 per cent less pay or lose their EI benefits.
Canada has fallen to 23rd in the United Nations world ranking of gender inequality.
The Conservatives have the lowest percentage of female politicians and Canada now ranks 42nd in the world in terms of female political empowerment.
Here are some of the many ways the Conservative party has completely gutted all attempts to solve a very real issue.
Huffington Post, 2013
For more actual numbers on Harpers economic report cars, feel free to go here, where the Ottawa Citizen has put together some of the numbers from Statistics Canada, Trading Economics, Globe and Mail, Bank of Canada, Toronto Stock Exchange, Decima Research, the Economist Magazine, Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, and Parliamentary Budget Officer.
Democracy
Democracy is something that the Conservative party totes that they will stand by and believe in, even to the point of invading other countries to enforce it. But in every single election that the Conservatives have won, there have been citations against the Conservative party for electoral fraud.
"The Harper regime has cheated or stole every election. Yet not even the Conservative robo-call fraud to deprive up to 500,000 citizens of their votes in the 2011 election has been raised in the official campaign. No-one on stage remembers any of it back to the first Harper theft of power in 2006, featuring the Harper-RCMP deal to falsely accuse the Liberal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale in criminal investigation just prior to the election. Nor is Harper’s violation of his own Election Act in calling the 2008 election and its massive illegal spending on attacks ads filling the airwaves with public hate just before the vote. All has been proven off the campaign stage, but all has been silenced on it. The regime’s near-daily record of lies, scandals and violations has gone the memory hole of the electoral campaign, with $54 million on hand for attack ads."
-Proff John MucMurtry
Global Research 2015
In this election in particular, Harper has instated the "Fair" Elections Act, which he says will cut out voter fraud (ironically as his party is the one accused of it), but in reality makes it a lot more difficult for people to vote.
But academics, students and other concerned groups came forward to warn that the changes would actually make it harder for some Canadians to cast a ballot.
For example, the law prohibits the use of the voter information card as a document that can be used as proof of residency. This has sparked concerns that some voters — notably students living away from home, seniors in long-term care homes and aboriginals — may lack the necessary identification, which must show their address, to vote.
There have also been changes to vouching, where one voter with proper identification could vouch for the identity of another voter at the polling station. An estimated 120,000 Canadians used vouching to vote in 2011.
“We can expect that a significant proportion of them would not be able to vote under the rules proposed,” Mayrand told a parliamentary committee in March 2014.
Mayrand noted that the worry around Canadian elections wasn’t fraud, but declining turnout.
“It is essential to understand that the main challenge for our electoral democracy is not voter fraud, but voter participation,” Mayrand told MPs.
Eliminating vouching and the information card would do little to improve the integrity of the voting process but “have taken away the ability of many qualified electors to vote,” he said."
-Bruce Campion-Smith
Toronto Star, 2015
More things that are horrifically undemocratic-
-The bill that was passed that could allow the government to
revoke your citizenship if you are found guilty of treason (the definition of which is tenuous at best).
-
Bill C-51, which allows the government almost endless freedom to play around with collecting personal information, targeting whatever groups it wants with no regard to the constitution, and has the capacity to criminalize free speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of travel.
"With the enhanced UCCB, Canadians will receive an extra $720 annually for each child under 18, including the lump-sum payments this week retroactive to the start of the year.
However, on the same day the UCCB came into effect (Jan. 1), the federal government also eliminated an existing child tax credit of $2,255, which was worth $337.50 per child annually in 2015. That change alone wipes out almost half of the UCCB increase for taxpayers.
The UCCB goes to parents of minor children whether they pay tax or not — but it is also taxable, both federally and provincially. An Ontario parent earning $50,000, for example, pays income tax at a combined marginal rate of 31.15 per cent. So, with $720 of added income from the UCCB, an additional $224.28 would be clawed back as taxes next year.
Those two factors leave $158.22 a year per child for that Ontario parent, or an additional $13.18 a month net."
Family
The Conservative party says that they are focused on family and family values. But in the last ten years, Harper has completely cut funding for families. He scraped the Child Care Tax Credit. Changed the amount that he thinks it should take to raise a child to $13 a month, and instated the Child Care Benefit plan, which gave him something to point to saying "See? We care," but in reality cut massive funding.
However, on the same day the UCCB came into effect (Jan. 1), the federal government also eliminated an existing child tax credit of $2,255, which was worth $337.50 per child annually in 2015. That change alone wipes out almost half of the UCCB increase for taxpayers.
The UCCB goes to parents of minor children whether they pay tax or not — but it is also taxable, both federally and provincially. An Ontario parent earning $50,000, for example, pays income tax at a combined marginal rate of 31.15 per cent. So, with $720 of added income from the UCCB, an additional $224.28 would be clawed back as taxes next year.
Those two factors leave $158.22 a year per child for that Ontario parent, or an additional $13.18 a month net."
-Evan Dyer
3 things to know about the UCCB payments' impact
This one's a big one.
Harper just can’t really be bothered to address gender inequality. “According to a report issued by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives last fall, Canada lacks the political will to achieve equality between men and women.”
CBC News 2015
Women
This one's a big one.
Harper just can’t really be bothered to address gender inequality. “According to a report issued by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives last fall, Canada lacks the political will to achieve equality between men and women.”
Harper would rather not talk about women. Plans for a women's-issues debate in the current federal election campaign collapsed after the Prime Minister declined to participate and NDP Leader Tom Mulcair later chose not to participate without Harper's attendance.
They voted against a national action plan to end violence against women, despite the fact that on average, every six days a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner.
They voted against a pay equity bill despite the fact that Canadian women make $8000 less yearly than their male counterparts at the same job - a gap that’s double the global average.
They closed the long gun registry, a crucial form of gun control created in the wake of the 1989 Ecole Polytechnique femicide, where 14 women were shot and killed by a man. Long guns are the most common type of firearm used in spousal homicides. Over the past decade, 71% of spousal homicides involved rifles and shotguns.
The Conservatives removed a question on unpaid work like domestic chores and childcare (done primarily by women) from the long-form census. In the 2006 census, StatsCan reports that, on average, “ women spend about an hour a day more on basic housework chores than their male counterparts."
Omnibus bills C-38 and C-45 significantly dismantled Canada's environmental protection WAVAW (Women Against Violence Against Women) staff suggested this item for this list because, “as Lee Maracle Says, “Feminism begins with considering the earth our Mother. All violence against earth is violence to us.”
Harper ended the Court Challenges Program which provided an essential source of financial assistance for important court cases that advance equality rights guaranteed under Canada’s Constitution. The cuts effectively silence very marginalized groups of Canadians as it removes from them an opportunity to challenge federal and provincial laws which may affect them at some point in the future. When questioned, Harper said, “Mr. Speaker, this government intends to behave in a constitutional manner.”
They cut $1 billion in childcare funding within 3 hours of being elected.
There are 1181 documented murdered and missing Indigenous women across Canada and the United Nations has called for urgent action. In response the Prime Minister said the issue “isn’t really high on our radar” then lied and said “I haven’t said that all.”
They eliminated funding to six different Canadian women’s health organizations.
They changed immigration rules to force women to stay with a spouse who sponsors them for a minimum of two years. This forces untold numbers of migrant women to stay in relationships with abusive spouses.
They eliminated a human rights agency that provided women's health, training and counselling projects in 17 countries around the world.
Women of colour are 48% more likely to be unemployed than white men. The Conservatives have eliminated the National Council on Welfare which had existed to advise the government on effective welfare policy for 43 years. They then changed Employment Insurance rules require laid-off workers to take jobs they might previously have considered unsuitable, possibly with up to 30 per cent less pay or lose their EI benefits.
Canada has fallen to 23rd in the United Nations world ranking of gender inequality.
The Conservatives have the lowest percentage of female politicians and Canada now ranks 42nd in the world in terms of female political empowerment.
-Alicia Tobin
SHD.ca, 2015
"Canada “has the dubious honor of being the only CDI country with an environment score which has gone down since we first calculated the CDI [in 2003],” the report said. “This reflects rising fossil fuel production and its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, the world’s only treaty governing the emissions of heat-trapping gasses. Canada has dropped below the U.S. into bottom place on the environment component.”
Environment
Now I know "the environment" may seem to you like this pie in the sky thing that doesn't affect us right now. You may be thinking, "why do I care if they cut a couple more trees up north, or if some clean drinking water is polluted with a little bit of oil? We're still fine. I still have food. I still have water." Yeah, you do. Right now. But drought, famine and a lack of clean drinking water is the end game of environmental devastation. That's a fact. And I know that may seem like a far away thing in Canada, but that doesn't mean we should squander our resources just because it will only affect our grandkids and not us.
As far as I'm concerned, this should be the biggest issue on the table. If we keep going with the way we've been going, it is a reality that we'll be in big trouble. You can't drink money, and it's a reality that a water and food crisis is up and coming in the next couple generations if we keep going the way we've been going. The rest of the world has realized this and has gotten on board, but the Conservatives jumped off that ship as soon as they came to power.
-Paul Waldie
Globe and Mail, 2015
Here are some of the many ways the Conservative party has completely gutted all attempts to solve a very real issue.
"1. Pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol.
Canada pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2011, citing “jobs” and “growth.” Environment Minister Peter Kent said: "It's now clear that Kyoto is not the path forward to a global solution to climate change. If anything it's an impediment."
2. Lobbying the US and EU to accept tar sand oil. “ The Canadian government has been accused of an ‘unprecedented’ lobbying effortinvolving 110 meetings in less than two years in Britain and Europe in a bid to derail new fuel legislation that could impede exports from its tar sands.” This is “a strategy that involves undermining independent science and deliberate misleading of its international partners.”
3. Gutting the Fisheries Act. Habitat protections were removed from the federal Fisheries Act, despite scientists’ warnings that doing so “would jeopardize many important fish stocks and the lakes, estuaries and rivers that support them.” Previously, all fish habitats were protected; now, with the removal of a prohibition on "harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat", 80% of the 71 freshwater fish species at risk of extinction have lost the protection previously afforded to them.
4. Destroying DFO libraries. Vice reported that Harper’s plan to close 7 of Canada’s 11 world-renowned Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries was already underway when the scheme was uncovered in early 2014. “The process was undertaken in careless haste, with the officials sent to gather and transfer the documents allegedly neglecting to take proper inventory of the centuries' worth of documents containing vital information on environmental life... with some
documents reportedly dumped in landfills or burned.”
5. Changing the park act to allow industry to move in. Once upon a time, park use permits were only granted to those able to demonstrate that the proposed activity was “necessary for the preservation or maintenance of the recreational values of the park involved.” Bill 4 rid the Park Act of this safeguard, sending “a clear signal that it is open to having pipelines cut through our globally renowned protected areas,” and allowing for “industrial expansion in some of B.C.’s most beloved parks.”
6. Replaced Navigable Waters Protection Act with Navigation Protection Act. The old act protected every body of water you could float a canoe in and required ministerial approval to be sought for any structure that went over, under or through a waterway. “When the Harper government included a radical overhaul of the Navigable Waters Protection Act in it's second omnibus bill, removing protection from thousands of lakes and rivers, outsiders scratched their heads and wondered out loud where that idea had come from. Documents obtained through the Access to Information Act show it came, in part, from the pipeline industry."
7. Bill C-38, the “jobs, growth, and long-term prosperity act,” was used to push through some of the policy changes mentioned above while limiting debate. Before the omnibus bill passed, West Coast Environmental Law warned that “the 2012 budget bill ( Bill C-38) will weaken Canada’s most important environmental laws and silence Canadians who want to defend them.”
8. Auditing ENGO’s. The CRA conducted extensive audits on prominent environmental groups that are critical of the Conservative government. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty allocated $8 million to monitoring the political activity of these groups.
9. Surveillance of environmental activists. The Guardian reported that Canadian “ security and police agencies have been increasingly conflating terrorism and extremism with peaceful citizens exercising their democratic rights to organize petitions, protest and question government policies.” With the help of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, local law-enforcement agencies have been tracking protesters, particularly in BC, according to declassified documents.
10. Appointing a natural resources minister that downplays urgency of addressing climate change. Joe Oliver said in an interview that “people aren’t as worried as they were before about global warming of two degrees.” He said, “Scientists have recently told us that our fears (on climate change) are exaggerated” but was not able to identify which scientists he was using as a source.
11. Appointed Steven Kelly, Kinder Morgan’s main energy consultant, to the National Energy Board for a 7-year term. A National Energy Board panel postponed hearings regarding the Trans Mountain expansion after the Harper government appointed a consultant who had prepared evidence in favour of the project to the National Energy Board. “ It’s utterly incredible the Government of Canada would appoint such an industry consultant to a regulatory agency that presumably is interested in the public interest, and not in the interest of multinational oil corporations.”'
2. Lobbying the US and EU to accept tar sand oil. “ The Canadian government has been accused of an ‘unprecedented’ lobbying effortinvolving 110 meetings in less than two years in Britain and Europe in a bid to derail new fuel legislation that could impede exports from its tar sands.” This is “a strategy that involves undermining independent science and deliberate misleading of its international partners.”
3. Gutting the Fisheries Act. Habitat protections were removed from the federal Fisheries Act, despite scientists’ warnings that doing so “would jeopardize many important fish stocks and the lakes, estuaries and rivers that support them.” Previously, all fish habitats were protected; now, with the removal of a prohibition on "harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat", 80% of the 71 freshwater fish species at risk of extinction have lost the protection previously afforded to them.
5. Changing the park act to allow industry to move in. Once upon a time, park use permits were only granted to those able to demonstrate that the proposed activity was “necessary for the preservation or maintenance of the recreational values of the park involved.” Bill 4 rid the Park Act of this safeguard, sending “a clear signal that it is open to having pipelines cut through our globally renowned protected areas,” and allowing for “industrial expansion in some of B.C.’s most beloved parks.”
6. Replaced Navigable Waters Protection Act with Navigation Protection Act. The old act protected every body of water you could float a canoe in and required ministerial approval to be sought for any structure that went over, under or through a waterway. “When the Harper government included a radical overhaul of the Navigable Waters Protection Act in it's second omnibus bill, removing protection from thousands of lakes and rivers, outsiders scratched their heads and wondered out loud where that idea had come from. Documents obtained through the Access to Information Act show it came, in part, from the pipeline industry."
7. Bill C-38, the “jobs, growth, and long-term prosperity act,” was used to push through some of the policy changes mentioned above while limiting debate. Before the omnibus bill passed, West Coast Environmental Law warned that “the 2012 budget bill ( Bill C-38) will weaken Canada’s most important environmental laws and silence Canadians who want to defend them.”
8. Auditing ENGO’s. The CRA conducted extensive audits on prominent environmental groups that are critical of the Conservative government. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty allocated $8 million to monitoring the political activity of these groups.
9. Surveillance of environmental activists. The Guardian reported that Canadian “ security and police agencies have been increasingly conflating terrorism and extremism with peaceful citizens exercising their democratic rights to organize petitions, protest and question government policies.” With the help of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, local law-enforcement agencies have been tracking protesters, particularly in BC, according to declassified documents.
10. Appointing a natural resources minister that downplays urgency of addressing climate change. Joe Oliver said in an interview that “people aren’t as worried as they were before about global warming of two degrees.” He said, “Scientists have recently told us that our fears (on climate change) are exaggerated” but was not able to identify which scientists he was using as a source.
11. Appointed Steven Kelly, Kinder Morgan’s main energy consultant, to the National Energy Board for a 7-year term. A National Energy Board panel postponed hearings regarding the Trans Mountain expansion after the Harper government appointed a consultant who had prepared evidence in favour of the project to the National Energy Board. “ It’s utterly incredible the Government of Canada would appoint such an industry consultant to a regulatory agency that presumably is interested in the public interest, and not in the interest of multinational oil corporations.”'
SHD.ca, 2015
SO, VOTE!
With a government elected by its citizens and that effects every aspect of our lives from schools to health care to security, voting is an important right in our society. By voting, you are making your voice heard and registering your opinion on how you think the government should operate.
We have seen in the last 10 years just what having a party with certain values can do to our country. It DOES make a difference who gets in. It affects every part of your life, now and in the future.
All around the world people die or encounter violence just for the right to vote. We in Canada have it free and easy. We are allowed to vote without threat to a personal security. So, anytime this week, head out to your local voting station and make your voice heard.
I for one, want my Canada back. And I will do whatever I can to make that happen.
One of those ways is to vote strategically in your riding. For information on how to do that, go here-
http://www.strategicvoting.ca/
Make sure that you're registered by October 13th at the latest! And don't assume that just because you've voted at your address before you are still registered. The "Fair" elections act changed that. Check HERE- Are you registered to vote?
I do not like your government
I do not like your squelched dissent
I do not like your sneery ads
I do not like your slimy lads
I do not like your thought control
I do not like your budget hole
I do not like your science cuts
I do not like your right-wing nuts
I do not like your robocall
I do not like your gang at all
I do not like your ruination
Of air and lakes and reputation
I do not like your senate scams
I do not like your tax-paid spams
I do not like your corporate masters
Your foreign policy disasters
Your scorn for treaties, scorn for facts
Your anti-democratic acts
And on and on and on and on
I do not like you, Steve the Con.
-Found in the comments of
The Closing of the Canadian Mind
New York Times, August 14
And just a little America election humor for ya-
