reed writes

As I promised, for the next 25 days I will be writing on and off about the election coming up in my Canadian province of Ontario on Wednesday, October 10th.

I’ll be talking about the voting system we have now and the opportunity we are being given to change it.

At the moment we operate on a system called "First Past the Post". That means that the candidate who gets the most votes wins.  On october 10th, we’ll have a chance to vote yes or no on a referendum question concerning the way in which we elect our representatives. If we want to, we can change the system to one of "proportional representation". It’s called "Mixed Member Proportional" (MMP).

What that means – basically – if we vote for it – is that the representatives elected to our provincial parliament will reflect approximately the percentage of votes each political party gets in the general election. I’ll explain more about that in future posts. But put simply, it means that if a political party receives 38% of the popular vote, it will be awarded approximately 38% of the seats in parliament. It’s a more representative system and in my opinion a lot more democratic.

In Ontario we have 3 main political parties.

The Liberal Party, which now forms our government, led by Dalton McGuinty.

The Conservative Party, which is presently in opposition to the government, led by  John Tory, and the other main one,

  The New Democratic Party led by Howard Hampton.

Then there’s The Green Party, led by Frank de Jong; the Greens typically get about 5-7% of the popular vote, but never gets a seat in parliament   and therefore does not have a voice with which to speak for the hundreds of thousands of citizens who regularly vote for it.

Then there’s a smattering of smaller parties and independents.

You can read more about the recent Leaders’ Debate here.

U.S. soldiers have killed hundreds of  Afghan civilians, including women and children. This morning we learned that U.S. Special Forces have been allowed legally, to kill certain Afghan men on sight, even if they are unarmed.  This has been going on since shortly after the invasion.

Canada, by its silence, is complicit.

read more

The Atomic Dance

Stephane Dion is finally making a serious effort to get out in front on some serious issues. For one thing, he has objected to Canadian participation in George Bush’s scheme to form a so-called Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.
That’s a fancy name for dumping America’s nuclear waste on others.

I don’t believe in using expletives in my blogs and so I have deleted them here in my final edit. One of the more idiotic ideas to come along since the invasion of Iraq is the unbelievable one of a proposed American joke…pardon me, America…I should say a "Bush joke". But of course it’s not a joke. Bush wants Canada and a bunch of other countries to climb on board a train to no good destination.

The American government is up to its proverbial (expletive deleted) in nuclear waste. As I said at the outset, I don’t normally use profanity; but this (expletive deleted) proposal burns my own (expletive deleted)"real bad", as Bush might say.

The idea…being Bushed is called "The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership".

This (expletive deleted) partnership idea will force all countries, which have exported uranium abroad, or sold reactors abroad, to take back the waste produced by the importing countries. It has to be the craziest, stupidest, most insanely idiotic idea since God supposedly used a man’s rib to create the female gender. It’s beyond insane.

Just picture the scene. Ships and airplanes crisscross the oceans and skies of this planet carrying deadly cargoes of lethal radioactive waste.

Even unemployed suicide bombers might balk at the idea…like what’s the point they might ask.

If Bush
persuades the 2 (expletive deleted) H-Men,
S. Harper and
J Howard to  sign this proposal into effect, it may well mean that all that nuclear waste from all those bombs built by all those (expletive deleted)’s we sold uranium and plutonium to, will come floating back to our doorstep.
Ah, you say,  but the Americans have special planes that can carry this stuff and even if they crash, no danger will be felt by the people they crash on. Yeah right!

Ah, you say- but we are culpable – because we sold these morons the radioactive (expletive deleted) in the first place, so we deserve to suffer these dire consequences.

If this were not such a tragic and stupid situation, it would be fodder for late night comedy shows. But it’s real, folks. These guys are serious. They don’t give a (expletive deleted) about the rest of us.

Time to rise up

Most Canadians, including me, are usually passive about their domestic politics. We may agree or disagree with our leaders and their policies, but few of us ever go out and demonstrate in the streets. We don’t get too worked up about most things.

But my inbox contained a bit of news this morning that giave me pause.

There was a sort of echoey ringing in my right ear that I found bothersome. I realized finally that it was the distant sound of levers being pushed and pulled, reminding me of that great scene in the Wizard of Oz.

(You know the one, where the curtain is pulled aside and the "magic "of Oz is revealed- it turns out to be just the sneaky machinations of a little man who thrived on secrecy and deception).

The item concerned a delay in the opening of this fall’s session of Parliament, because our Prime Minister had decided he needed a slightly longer vacation. Things in his domain appeared to be moving along smoothly, so he felt he could just sit back and enjoy.

That venerable Ottawa insider, my former colleague Mike Duffy, had learned that Parliament would reconvene 29 days later than originally planned.

Perhaps there’s nothing to this news really …and it’s not worth demonstrating in the streets about…but  it did make me wonder. Does the "emperor" need time to put on some new clothes…for a coming election.

Hmmm.

Anyway, here’s the story.

Our Prime Minister  is in Australia today for a conference of leaders of APEC ( Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group).

Harper has finally accepted the reality of Global Warming as a major issue for the human race.  Here’s part of what he said at the meeting: "…the weight of scientific evidence holds that our atmosphere is getting hotter and that human activity is a significant contributor."  This is, of course a reversal of his position just a few years ago, when he dismissed evidence of Global Warming out of hand. Still, good for him that he is willing to admit that he was wrong.

But if he was wrong about that…what else could he be wrong about?

Canadians are struggling with the problem of what to do about our steadily growing demand for electricity and other forms of energy. Harper is promoting the creation of more nuclear reactors. Considering the cost of construction and the emissions created by mining, processing and transporting uranium…not to mention the growing problem of what to do about nuclear waste…more reactors may not be the right way to go.

I wonder if he has read the commentary published today in The Sydney Morning Herald. It’s written by Ian Lowe, the president of the Australian Conservation Foundation.  (the link to Lowe’s commentary may take a moment to load).

Food For Thought