What if they Called an Election and Nobody Came?
The talk on the streets leading up to the latest federal election circus seems to be more about who people don’t want to vote for rather than who they like. Not surprising after 17 months of exposure to political corruption, wife swapping (read Belinda Stronach), broken promises, smear campaigns, inaction and infighting.
Current polls put Liberal support at around 35% followed by the Conservatives at 30% and the NDP at about 15%. In essence the results show that the past year and a half was much like the season from Dallas when Bobby Ewing died. It was all a dream. Nothing has changed in all this time other than the public getting even more fed up with the whole situation.
The right, or as some would say, the privilege to vote in a democracy is something that should be a major event in one’s life. It is intended to mark our ability to select the leaders of our own choice. To select leaders who will represent our views on major issues such as the law, morality and justice. To select leaders who represent our communities on matters of development, financing and growth. Good luck with that.
Instead we are faced with one party that is morally bankrupt, another one boasting members so ultra-conservative as to make a southern tele-evangelist shake in his hush puppies, a third that will jump into bed with anyone or anything that has a few dollars to leave on the nightstand and another that is a one province anti-federal federal party. What a choice.
As a result of this grab bag of choices the average voter seems to be looking at which is the lesser of the available evils rather than who they would like to see in office. I recently heard one gentleman comment, “You have a white cat and a black cat. Why would a mouse vote for a cat?”
Simple words but maybe he was on to something. Maybe what needs to happen is for the 60% of the population who actually still vote these days to join the other 40% of the population and simply not vote for anyone. If one person does it it’s a wasted vote, If a million people do it it’s considered apathy by the voting population, but if everyone does it I’m sure Ottawa will get the message. There may be nobody there to do anything about it when it happens, but they’ll get the message.
I used to think that low voter turnout was a symptom of a public that took its freedom and rights for granted. Now I’m not so sure that the non-voting segment of the population isn’t on to something.
It may sound crazy, but in reality it isn’t. In fact it may be the only sane option we have at this point. As Canadian humorist Rick Mercer recently put it, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, now that’s the definition of insanity.”
11 comments:
Imagine folks, 7 empty seats from Newfoundland and Labrador would really send a message.
I know, you might say we never really have any representation there anyway so why would this be different.
You are right, we don't have any real representation so why not use that to our advantage by getting one helluva message across that if Ottawa won't get behind us, we won't get behind Ottawa.
Sort of a moral separatist movement if you will. Take a trip and never leave the farm.
It sure would send a clear message and come the next election afterward, when they are possibly staring down another minority, they'd be falling all over each other trying to get those 7 seats.
How about intentionally spoiling your ballad. Separate Apathy from Protest.
You and I both know it will never happen there are to many self serving people out there who couldn't care less for the province or country as a whole.
They can only see as far as the carrot in front of their nose. I guess you really can't blame them when they are trying to survive off the few remaining dollars left after we are taxed on taxes and when we die we are taxed again.
What you will need to make something like this happen is an issue that none of the parties will carrot.
Some of the ones I can think of are
Real Political reform
MP wage cut backs
Government cut backs
Now you don't need a party to publisize this but rather a movement of every man woman and child.
So do you think the Lieberals will be campaigning on their fiscal, economy, and low unemployment record in NL?
A Modest proposal to consider for the upcoming Canadian elections.
Rather than sitting out the election, one must be cognizant of current events which have a significant impact on Newfoundland and Labrador and which if left unaddressed may well result in the Labrador area especially being difficult to sustain a presence.
Over the last couple of days, media reports of slowing of the gulf stream have begun to attract attention. While several of these reports have dealt with the potential for significant changes in Europe’s climate, few if any have addressed the ramifications for the North American continent. From a cursory review, it quickly becomes apparent that if the test results from recent studies are correct, the speed and affects of the slowing of the gulf stream while not as rapid as in the move “The Day After Tomorrow” are clearly more rapid than most experienced climatologists expected. The result of this will be the likelihood of a seeming paradox, where global warming in effect starts at the very least a new Little Ice Age through Europe and large swaths of the North American continent.
Obviously something needs to be done and done quickly. It will no longer be possible to either ignore or study the phenomena as a mere scientific curiosity, but will require quick decisive action on the part of all countries who could potentially be affected.
After an exhaustive review of potential known solutions this author is sorry to report that he can find none which can avoid the circumstance since the speed of the change outways any measured response.
What is required is an unmeasured disaster avoidance triage where the fewest people are impacted with the least amount of overall economic and personal tragedy. To date none have been proposed. The Kyota accord while slowing the impact of new global warming actions does not contain active provisions if we as a species and ecosystem have already passed the “tipping point” towards a naturally unreversable stopping of the gulf stream. No natural solution will prevail it seems.
However, from that same review of the literature available, there does appear to be a simple method by which the large bulk of European and North American culture, population, and economics can be salvaged with minimal impact. In order to avoid the worst repercussions of this potential calamity, some method of reducing the introduction of fresh water into the North Atlantic must be found quickly.
Fresh water emerges into the North Atlantic at the present time from the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, and the various rivers from Europe and North America. Except for the Greenland ice sheet, by far the largest contributor is the Saint Lawrence seaway where between the outflow by the Straits of Belle Isle, and the edge of the Gaspe Peninsula, tremendous amounts of fresh water outflow from the North American continent.
What is interesting is that near Chicago, the Chicago river has been linked by the canal with the Mississippi river.
The proposal in its simplest form is to damn up the external tie to the Atlantic Ocean from the Saint Lawrence seaway by coffer damming at the Straits of Belle Isle. This blockage would initially divert all of the outflow from the Saint Lawrence towards Prince Edward Islance. This would assist in buying some time to address the larger disaster mitigation effort, but would also allow Newfoundland, Labrador and Quebec to be landlinked providing large benefits to the people of these regions. This land tie will be necessary for the second steps in the disaster mitigation plan
Concurrent with this coffer damming would be the rapid widening of the Chicago river to approximately 35 miles in width. While this would have a significant detrimental impact to the city of Chicago initially the outflow of support from all the people of Western Europe and Asia along with the establishment of a new port facility for Missisppi river traffic would more than offset the commercial and practical objections. This widened canal would then be available to reroute the frigid cold water flow of the Saint Lawrence seayway through the Mississippi river directly to the gulf of Mexico, by the establishment of a second dam somewhat immediately northeast of the Saguenay river.
One of the unfortunate short term consequences of this action would be the likely over flow of a few major cities including Ottowa, Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Buffalo New York, Cleveland Detroit, Toledo and perhaps a few others. In order to minimize this impact, the citizens of these areas could be relocated into unaffected areas, such as the outports of Newfoundland, and the Appalachian areas of the United States. By providing a direct routing of cold fresh water to the Gulf of Mexico, some of the direct impacts of global warming would be minimized and would likely cause a recovery of the gulf stream within a few decades at most.
What this would do for the United States is uncertain, but it is likely to be somewhat of an economic boon while at the same time becoming a political nightmare. Since only the largest of the industrial conglomerates would be able to bid on the project, the most likely contract winner for the canal and damming operations would be Haliburton, and since the most likely areas of population movement would be from Chicago and Illinois, one might expect some marginal protestations from the Democratic delegation from these and a few other states. The solution could be made palatable through a variety of means, including if needed, the creation of new states and additional senators as some states now find tranvel across the 25 mile average wide canal more difficult. This approach is now an option due to recent US Supreme Court rulings on eminent domain
What this would do for Canada would be somewhat a mixture of good news and bad news. From a Canadian point of view, warm water port access would become practical, although the shifts in population from Quebec and Ontario to Newfoundland, and the prairie provinces may cause political waves. However, it must be remembered that this if for the good of all. Additionally, the damming of the Saint Lawrence seaway would result in the entirety of the island of Newfoundland to be more of a peninsula with a more significant land mass as most of the drainage out of the Northumberland and Gulf of Saint Lawrence resulted in more territory. The remaining portions of the province of Quebec on the southern part of the seaway would in all likelihood be completely isolated from the Northern remnants and may well need to consider combining their parliamentary blocs into a single unified whole by merger with the province of New Brunswick. The northern portion would of course be most likely merged with Labrador and Newfoundland which because of these changes may well see a warmer drier climate. As for the remnants of the province of Ontario, since so much of this is at a relatively low sea level, it might be best if those issues were addressed with the survivors. The resulting shifts in population for Canada would appear to leave Manitoba, British Columbia, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with roughly equivalent population bases.
As a result, participation in the upcoming elections is critical. Otherwise, the only people able to represent Newfoundland and Labrador which will be sitting under 125' of ice will be the MP's vacationing in Florida.
So vote for a greater, larger and warmer Newfoundland and Labrador..
Oh,,,, and just in case.. buy stock in Haliburton if you have any money to do it with
OMG man!
I've recently been wondering what the effect of a fixed link causeway across the Strait Jacket of Belle Isle would be in terms of climate change, after reading the NL fixed link study.
http://www.gov.nf.ca/publicat/fixedlink/
But I never imagined anything like what you have outlined here.
Read my Kyoto Hamster outsidethebox blog you might find it interesting seeing as your comment here is so outside the box even by my standards, but interesting none the less.
http://nl-outsidethebox.blogspot.com/2005/10/kyotos-hamster-outside-planet.html
Jonathon Swift - Great Parody of the original "Modest Proposal". I'm not sure how much of that is parody and how much makes just a little bit of sense. Good knock-off!
Great job! I like it.
Right now it appears that the Liberals might sweep the province, but hold on, maybe the PC's might take their two St. John's seats after all. Either way, we're a pretty docile bunch, aren't we?
I think it comes from looking at the big picture.
We need to keep it simple and just address our issues and not the whole of the country, baby steps.
Myles has proposed a list of seven issues that most affect NL. He has even made it into a printable form, so you can get your candidates sign of on them.
This is a great way to make your candidates be accountable for NL issues in the big pond (Federal Politics) which we find ourselves swimming (Drowning)in.
you live off of the financial teat of western canada for decades, i.e. the west knows how to print money and give it to their brothers and you still elect centralist corrupt liberals and call western politicians a bunch of religious zealots with no proof of there being any differentiation whatsoever re relegious candidate representation between the parties ... i.e. the Libs are full of christians too ...if christians make you so afraid...wtf are you on? it's not about religion out west where reform was born - it's about making the economy work! grow up and stop your childish whining and looking for every cheap pitiful excuse under the sun to not get out of bed and vote for integrity and accountability - end of story. support yourself and if you don't want to do that at least support parties from regions that are supporting you financially! it sure as f*** aint the tax and rape until your dead to buyoff votes in the whiniest regions of canada liberal mafia!
I guess with Fabian Manning throwing his hat into the ring it might make a real horse race out of the election in Avalon. I expect that riding, a liberal stronghold, to slip over to the Conservative camp this time around. I also predict that Hearn and Doyle will retain their seats.
If my math is right that means 3 Conservative and 4 Liberal in the province. Hardly a red sweep.
Personally I think they are all alike when you get right down to it, most politicians are simply self serving puppets. Regardless, I don't see any one party sweeping NL as the polls currently suggest.
The real problem is Ontario with it having 100+ seats. No party in its right mind would alienate these rich capitalists and expect to win. Win they might by pandering to Ontario but lose the Country in the long run they will. It is this centralist political system which we have no choice to work in that makes Canada a two tier country the rich in Ontario and the poor and impoverished in the rest of Canada all because of our political system.
Just look at the Auto sectors recent announcement of closures. The words weren't out of their mouths and the poll iticians were promising money.
Mean while the Cod on the east coast are about to be listed on the endangered species list and not a peep?
There are 8 million seals (^ million Harp and 2 million Hood)of the coast of Labrador and Northern NFLD and Quebecs lower north shore creating a gross IMBALANCE in nature. The same area where the Cod are about to be listed on the endangered species list and again the Federeal Poll iticians run and hide because they are afraid of the ARA's and don't want to further upset the Ontario votes by removing the Foreigners from our continental shelf this breaking MOU's with reference to the industry in Ontario.
I'm really starting to understand Quebecs seperatist sentiment with reference to our federation and more so Ontario than their distinct society issue.
From my point of view this is the last chance for Canada and Confederation. If this election doesn't address specific NL issues and our federeation as a whole it will be my last election where by I consider Canada an option!
Canada is headed towards defeat as a country with it's centralist agenda. Until it becomes more of a decentralized thinking government which will never happen with our present system because it is inherent in the system that Poll iticians will always pander and sway to the will and wishes of Ontario due to the allocation of seats and political appointments including the Senate and the Supreme court.
Custodial Management
Seal population imbalance in nature
Non-renewable resource revenue claw backs against Equalization
Toll Canada Highway Marine Atlantic 0.50$ per kilometer.
Our returning serving military members can't claim the Toll Canada higway Marine Atlantic on their Leave travel Allowance once a year to return home.
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