Canadian Election

[pritchke]

This year my wife and I celebrate our first anniversary on the same day as the Canadian Election. Joy, Who to vote for? I can't vote for the liberals based on principals due to the scandals. I can't vote PC has they still seem to have certain policies that still seem a bit extreme although I prefer there daycare program since families who wish to have a stay at home parent for kids under 6 get something out of it. Funny thing is this exact program existed before and it was called the family allowance which the conservatives under Mulronoy scraped. I am not big in sending toddlers to day care and letting someone else raise there kids like the NDP and liberals seem to be promoting, which is probably half that is wrong with the world today. I guess that leaves the NDP or the Green, both of whom seem to have good ideas but I am worried I could be taxed to death, worse than I am already. Not that they would actually form a governing party which means that if I place my vote here I would not need to feel responsible for the next governing parties mistakes. In an ideal world I could just take the bits a pieces of each parties platform that I like to have a super platform. Ah yes, if life were like that.

I watched the debates and nothing new in them kind of like watching paint dry.

I think the conservatives might form a government this time.

[ 01-11-2006, 02:13 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

[Iron Greasel]

Form your own party.

[Azred]

Congratulations on the anniversary. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

Don't worry about a political party having some scandals; they all will have scandals from time to time. Rather, examine the platforms of the parties and decide which party is pursuing goals of which you approve. Then, vote for that party...or candidates from that party, whichever.

Political debate are usually just like watching paint dry. Except with paint, you have a clean-looking room once its done. With debates, you have only a nasty aftertaste in your mouth. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

[Sir Degrader]

Yes, but most scandals tend not to raise issues of possible seperatism. Anywho, can't vote yet, but Harper has my pseudo vote.

[Luvian]

I'm not voting on this one. None of the parties convinced me they should be elected, I really don't care which one win.

[Sir Goulum]

I'd probably vote for Liberals if I were 18. Conservatives are still too... well... conservative, and the NDP are just bleh. Aside from the sponsorship scandal, they've done good.

[Aerich]

I'm voting entirely for a candidate in this election. I've met the guy and he impressed me as somebody with his feet on the ground that actually thinks about the issues - although I disagree with him on certain issues. Otherwise, I'd probably be voting Green as a protest, because I have a significant dislike for certain things in each of the major parties' platforms and I am not impressed by any of the leaders (Martin has a slight lead). I'm fed up with the election rhetoric. Any political leader who is willing to engage in a meaningful discussion of the issues at election time will earn my vote in perpetuity - I haven't seen one yet.

Harper and the neo Conservatives will never get my vote while they insist on pushing a "social morality" agenda. We don't need Republican-lite in this country. I hate how the media insists on calling them "Tories"; very little of the Tory tradition remains in that party.

Come January 23, I will have voted in four federal elections, and voted for a different party each time.

Congrats on the anniversary, pritchke. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[Sir Goulum]

I guess the government wants to know how teenagers feel, so we got to 'vote'. I must say, the Marxist-Leninists were attractive, and the Progressive Canadian party was interesting(although I've never heard of them. [img]tongue.gif[/img] ), I finally placed my vote with the Liberals.

[Morgeruat]

social morality? please explain.

[Aerich]

Sorry for the late response Morgeruat, I didn't see your post until just now.

As I understand it, the leadership and many members of the current Canadian Conservative party wish to have more government control over social issues. Many in the party follow a philosophy of government that goes beyond serving its people to trying to tell them how their lives should be lived. This is at least partly the agenda of a longstanding Christian Right movement in Alberta. The current Conservative Party is a union of two former right-wing parties: the centre-right Progressive Conservatives, who focused on right-wing economic policy, and the Reform Party, which was dominated by Albertans and was significantly farther to the right on social issues - kind of an equivalent to a Deep South wing of the US Republican Party.

The most obvious expression of this philosophy is in the Conservative agenda to reopen the law permitting civil marriages for gays and lesbians. In 2004, the federal government referred a question to Canada's highest court, asking if the proposed law permitting such marriages was consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, part of the Canadian Constitution somewhat analogous to the US Bill of Rights. The answer was yes. If anyone is interested, the full text of the Same Sex Marriage Reference is found here. People might also be interested in a Supreme Court of Canada decision of 1998, which chastised the Alberta legislature for instituting a provincial equality statute that conspicuously did not include a guarantee against discrimination based on sexual orientation. See Vriend v. Alberta, where the plaintiff was a gay man who was fired from his job as a college instructor when his orientation became known by the administration, and had no recourse under the Alberta Individual's Rights Protection Act.

The Conservative Party indicated immediately that it did not agree with the Same Sex Marriage Reference (the unanimous legal opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada, mind you!), and intended to remove that law if it gained power. They have since backtracked a little, but that goal is not in doubt.

To me, the opposition to this law is largely characterized by hidden homophobia and is socially reactionary. I do understand that some people oppose it primarily because it is called "marriage", not "civil union", but I personally don't see the difference. They are married by the state, and no religious group is forced to perform the ceremony. Therefore, the only real effects are to make gay couples equal under the laws of the land (e.g. regarding spousal benefits) and to allow them to make a formal and state-recognized commitment to each other. It poses no harm and no threat to heterosexuals or religious groups, other than offending their prurient sensibilities. I also understand the Biblically-based criticisms of the law, but I believe in a wide separation of Church and State, and I don't think religious objections based upon 2000-year-old source texts should have any influence on current government policy.

While I am in no way affected by the law and never will be, it is a symbol to me of some of the best that Canada offers: tolerance for diversity and commitment to real social equality under the law. I have a few openly gay friends and colleagues, and I see no reason why their sexual orientation should prevent them from entering into a formal partnership with all the legal rights it entails. Our Charter was set up in part to prevent state interference with citizens and in part to foster equality of treatment by the state. I view this law as an expression of that commitment, and I dislike that the proposed repeal of it has become an election issue, with all the shadowy aspects of the political right wing on full display.

I have no problem with fiscal conservatism and I support some of the Conservative platform planks such as greater anti-corruption measures in government and increased funding for our military. However, those issues have been pushed into the background by the social morality issue, by the party as much as by the media. In short, I don't feel the Conservative Party will refrain from seeking to impose its own morality through the law, at the expense of many of the progressive steps the law has taken toward social equality.

[ 01-20-2006, 02:34 AM: Message edited by: Aerich ]