Sunny out...the future not so much!

Its been a while since I wrote anything on this my personal blog having been busy assembling a series of articles detailing the demise of our democracy under the Harper Regime for my Democracy Under Fire blog. Needless to say this is a very depressing undertaking and the almost unrelenting snow and lack of sunlight in recent weeks has not helped so its a real lift to have several bright sunny days this week to brighten my mood.


Following Canadian politics is in itself a depressing undertaking and I very much understand why so many folks are turned off by it and are not up on what our 'leaders' (and I use that term very loosely) are up to, other that the few snippets we see on the nightly news. Having been writing about our democracy deficit for more than 5 years now I can only say that if you care about Canada then you had best start taking notice over the next few months, for the rhetoric emerging from most of the political parties is going to get hard to ignore. That much of it will be total BS and just be a vehicle to try and 'buy' you votes should be a given, not the least of which is the latest assertion by the Cons that there will be a budget surplus at election time.


Regular readers will know that I am a Green supporter, mostly for my admiration of Ms May's ongoing efforts to protect and enhance our parliamentary democracy, but also in that I can find little in their published Vision that I can find serious disagreement with. Unfortunately the best that can be expected for the Greens is a few more seats in the HoC with perhaps the balance of power in a minority government, both of which outcomes would be a good thing IMHO. Locally there is little chance that they will have any meaningful impact other than possibly splitting the vote, this outcome is further supported by the announcement of the resignation of the local EDA president. According to the election results both federal and provincial Green support in Grey Bruce has been steadily declining since the high achieved in the 2008 federal election where they received some 13,000 votes and came in a strong 2^nd. In the last federal election some 5000 folks voted Green here but getting any of them to actually directly support the local EDA, stand for office, become or seek a candidate, or otherwise become directly involved is like trying to get blood from a stone.


Whilst it may not be popular amongst my fellow Greens and given that the Cons have such a strangle hold on this riding I am going to advocate for not running a Green candidate here in the Oct election but encourage citizens to vote for the candidate most likely to defeat the Conservative candidate. Local Greens should be encouraged to support the national campaign and those green candidates in other ridings where getting elected is a real possibility. (I note here that we are supposed to assess for the candidate on his individual strengths or weaknesses however such things have become meaningless under the top down governance and strict adherence to party lines required by the current regime.) This is the strategy advocated by Lead Now who are compiling a list of those riding where such strategic voting may have an impact. I doubt whether GBOS will be on that list given that in the last federal election the Conservatives in this area received more votes than all other partys combined, mind you with 27,000 not bothering to vote anything is possible if folks take a greater interest in our future.


When I started writing this I was trying to be positive and find some optimism, guess that didn’t work, now I’m depressed again ..... time to go out and let that sunlight do its work despite the cold!