Plenty of Nothing

Wow, Nova Scotia

Mr Control

If tomorrow's election is remembered for anything it will be for the death of the political stump.  Gone are the days when a political leader could be counted on to roll into town and match wits with whatever crowd gathered round the wagon.  Today's political rallies are tightly choreographed television events at which local candidates and reporters are kept apart and the possibility of a party leader having to answer an unscripted question is firmly held at zero.  Note the door stamp on the back of the woman's hand.  (Photo from the Globe and Mail)  Douglas

Prenez la Ligne Orange

Chris Erb at Spacing Montreal offers an appreciation of an NDP campaign poster currently appearing in Metro stations.  The ad feels very urban and particular to Montreal, and should contribute to that increasingly urban party's advance into that heretofore Liberal downtown.  Here is the Metro map the ad references:

(picture from Hors des lieux communs)  (via Ottawa Citizen election blog)  Douglas

First Up, First Down

Second Vermont Republic

This sweet little banner pertains to the Green Mountain Independence Movement, who wouldn't mind dissolving Vermont's relationship with the US federal government.

Harper Moves Up Table

This is the second anniversary of Stephen Harper's swearing in as Prime Minister of Canada.  Two years aren't much, but they're enough to put him ahead of seven past prime ministers: Abbott, Bowell, Tupper, Meighen, Clark, Turner and Campbell all served shorter terms.  Next week Harper will surpass Thompson, and he has only to maintain power until April to rack up more PM time than Paul Martin.  After that, though, there's a nearly three year gap until the next pack: Bennett, Mackenzie, Pearson and Diefenbaker.  That'll take another election win.  Borden, St-Laurent, Mulroney, Chretien, Laurier, Trudeau, Macdonald and King are multiple wins ahead.  Harper is young enough to shoot for the top, but so far not well-loved enough.  Shall farmer and mechanic hoist Harper on their shoulders, in the name of Canada's Old Government?  Not soon.  Douglas

A Perfect Euphemism

A euphemism is a word or turn of phrase intended to replace another whose meaning is thought to be too blunt or harsh for the listener's sensibility.  (E.g. "to pass away" for "to die".)  Doublespeak is politically motivated euphemism which pretends that the removal of the offending word is the same as the removal of the thing it describes.  (E.g. "rendition" for "torture".)  A perfect euphemism is a word or phrase that calls a thing its opposite.  (E.g., when the Royal Bank began to replace tellers with ATMs in the 1980s they named the process Personal Touch Banking.)  In the past month the City of Ottawa has begun to install recycled parking meters called Kindness Meters in the Byword Market area.  The idea is to allow people to donate their pocket change to a variety of charities by plugging it into these meters.   The not-so-unstated purpose behind this idea is to discourage people from giving their change to other people who ask for it.  Mayor Larry O'Brien's has said that panhandlers are like pigeons, and if you don't feed them they'll go away.  So now when someone asks you for money for breakfast, just put the coin in the Kindness Meter instead. 
Douglas (who voted for Munter, and Lucky Ron the time before.)
 

Snow Not Extinct Yet

Compare this picture taken on Christmas Eve, 2006.

MMP for MPPs

Ontario is getting ready to vote on whether to trade in its traditional First Past the Post electoral system for a Mixed Member Proportional scheme drawn up by an assembly of citizens this past year.  Read their report here. While you're at it go see the MMP article in Wikipedia too, because there's a fair amount of jargon to be learned if you're going to discuss this stuff, plus some examples of how other countries have used and abused their proportional representation systems.  (Italy scores high on the abuse side.)

If MMP passes, each constituency will elect a member as before, but now there will be a second ballot calling on the voter to designate a favourite party.  Each party will get x number of extra seats depending on the results of this second ballot, which they will fill from a list of candidates submitted before the vote, to add to the number they have elected the old way until the party's total number of seats is in line with its popular vote.  Sometimes a party will have maxed out its number of seats with constituency members, and sometimes a party will have only list members.

The upshot should be fewer majority governments, and more Greens.

And I'll probably vote for it.  I'm trying not to be one of those people who's against everything.  I voted for Meech.

I can think of a couple of problems.  One is that under this plan the legislature would increase by 22 seats, reversing the Harris government's reduction, that one downsizing everyone could agree on.  So, 22 new salaries, offices and pensions.

Candidates would be allowed to stand both in local elections and on the party list.  Which means there will be cases of persons ascending to the legislature fresh from defeat in local elections.  Imagine working to unseat an unpopular incumbent, and succeeding, only to have the guy enter the legislature through the back door of the party list.  People will view it as a failure of democracy.  Elections in Canada are as much about firing as hiring. 

Suppose the unpopular incumbent comes in third behind the winner and an independent candidate who came second.  The party list is by nature closed to independents, so that free-thinking individual would be SOL.  We need more independents in the legislature, not fewer, but MMP puts an exclusive premium on party membership.

What if a person high up on a party's list gets into a fight with his party executive during the election?  (For the sake of argument we'll call him Buzz.)  Suppose they try to knock him off or down the list, and he takes them to court?  Will a judge have the final say on the order of the party list, and consequently on who sits in the legislature?  The voters themselves have no say on that.  The party list is closed, not open, meaning the voters can't choose the order of the names.

Each party will be left to decide how to draw up its own list.  So I'd expect to see everything from lottery winners to retired senators.  Hm, that could be interesting.

Douglas

Saw Dust Explosion!

The following story appeared in the Ottawa Evening Journal, Monday, February 11, 1889, in the midst of what was then known as The Saw Dust Question.  Lumber mills had been operating for decades around the Chaudiere Falls near Parliament Hill, cutting up the forests of the Ottawa watershed and dumping huge quantities of sawdust into the river, to the point where by 1889 the sawdust had begun to shoal and present a navigational hazard, and to decompose, causing the river to bubble with combustible methane gas. The government and lumbering interests were faced off in court over who had the responsibility for cleaning up the sawdust, or indeed whether (as business wondered) it was a problem at all.  It's a snowshoeing story too.

SAW DUST EXPLOSION

The Senate Sergeant at Arms Blown Up on the River Ice
Thrilling Midnight Experience of a Party of Snowshoers on a Return Tramp Across the Ottawa from Gatineau Point -- Mr Lemoine Hurled Into the Air

    Mr. J. de St.Denis Lemoine, Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, was blown up in a saw dust explosion on the Ottawa river Saturday midnight.  He escaped with a wetting, and will not snowshoe to Gatineau Point again.  It was a jolly party of gentlemen who left the city Saturday evening for a tramp on the ice-bound Ottawa.  It included Messrs. Riddington, Lemoine, R. Fleming, J. Travers Lewis, J.W. Pugsley, Chas. Elliott, Laurence Taylor, W. Middleton, Bogert, G.A. Henderson and some others.
    The snowshoers headed direct to Gatineau Point where an enjoyable time was spent.  They started for home shortly before midnight.  Mr. Riddington led the way, the snowshoers following in Indian file at a distance of about ten feet apart.  The leader cautiously picked his way because an ominous crackle here and there gave warning of proximity to cold water running a few inches beneath.

A TERRIFIC EXPLOSION

    Matters went well for a time until some little distance below the Rideau Falls suddenly the snowshoers were startled by a terrific explosion.  An instant later they saw Mr. Lemoine hurled in the air and as suddenly fall back into a mass of broken ice.  It was only the work of a moment to grasp the sash of Mr Lemoine and haul him on to the firm ice, not much the worse for his partial wetting.  There would have been a funeral had the sergeant at arms been in the middle of the explosion.
    Mr. J. Travers Lewis had a narrow escape.  Fortunately he stopped for a moment to fix his snowshoe strings and had he continued in the foot steps of Mr. Lemoine, would also have experienced a sad fate.
    The snowshoers say that in their opinion the saw dust question has been solved.