Canada Votes 2011: The Year Of The Incumbent

If the world were indeed collapsing around us as the Occupy Canada protesters believe, you'd think that this year would present a difficulty for all incumbents seeking re-election. That has not been the case (federal Liberals and Bloc Quebecois notwithstanding), and it started with Stephen Harper getting a majority mandate in the spring. Dalton McGuinty was re-elected, Brad Wall cruised to a giant majority, Selinger won in Manitoba, Ghiz swept PEI, and Saturday greater Vancouver voted strongly incumbent in municipal elections despite the unpopular gas tax. This has been a good a year for incumbents, even those with popularity problems. Canadian voters have not been voting for change, which you'd expect if things really needed to be changed.

Perhaps the strong performance of incumbents this year is a sign that things aren't all that bad in Canada? Yes the United States and Europe have their problems which will likely hurt us, but Canada is not heading to ruin because Canada is broken. We'll feel the pain when our allies run into trouble, however global financial markets are not falling based on news coming out of Canada. There's a reason incumbents are being re-elected.

BC Votes: Remember The Gas Tax

On Saturday the voters of British Columbia will be voting in municipal elections, and everyone should get out and vote. If you live in Vancouver, you need to vote against Gregor Robertson. He's a blowhard idealist who promised to solve all the world's problems when he was first elected. Here we are a few years later, and there are far more failures than successes. For those who aren't voting in Vancouver proper but rather a greater Vancouver municipality; I'm encouraging everyone to vote against any incumbent mayor who voted to jack up the gas tax when we already have a carbon tax. Vote the bums out of office!

The mayors primarily responsible for the gas tax are:

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts
Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore
Langley Mayor Peter Fassbender
Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart
District of North Vancouver Mayor Richard Walton
West Vancouver Mayor Pam Goldsmith-Jones (not running)

Do not vote for any of these people who might be running for re-election. Richmond mayor Malcolm Brodie voted against the gas tax along with the Mayors of Burnaby and Delta, so keep that in mind if you are voting there.

As for city council, I don't have much of an opinion. If you happen to live in West Vancouver, do not vote for Bill Soprovich. Two years ago I attended a city council meeting regarding the Olympics, and one of the notes I wrote in my notepad was "do not vote for Bill Soprovich". I didn't elaborate and don't even remember why I wrote it, but I'm sure I had a good reason...

Liberals To Hold American Style Primary To Select Leader?

The Liberals are considering an American style primary process to select their next leader, where they would hold individual votes in a number of different cities to see who comes out on top. Today's poll question; is this a good idea? The alternative is a flawed convention process that last produced the futile and inept Stephane Dion to run for Prime Minister. Perhaps the results of the last Liberal leadership convention justifies the impetus to alter the selection process. The big question will be whether or not you'll have to be a paid card carrying Liberal to vote. In many American primaries, declared Democrats can vote for Republicans and visa versa.

Would I show up to vote for the next Liberal leader if they held an open primary in Vancouver? Probably, but I'd much rather vote in the NDP leadership race. Thus far the NDP race has a greater number of candidates who have a 0% chance of being elected Prime Minister in the next election. Having survived Bob Rae's Ontario, I could never mark his name on a ballot, even if I expected him to lose.

Corporation, Unions, And Political Contributions

Today's poll question; should corporations and unions be allowed to make political donations and run advertising during election campaigns? You may have noticed in recent years that many major unions in Canada have been spending a lot of money on advertisements espousing NDP and other left wing positions. This allows the Dippers to flood the airwaves with friendly words promoting their policies and attacking the government without counting towards legal spending limits. In Ontario the "working families coalition" (aka CUPE) put more money and effort into re-electing Dalton McGuinty than Dalton did! They wanted to keep the gravy train rolling, and it was worth their while to spend  millions of dollars making it happen.

Unions are becoming very politically active, or perhaps they've always been and I'm just noticing it more as I grow older. Peggy Nash is the biggest union cheerleader in the NDP leadership race, and she was on TV yesterday saying that if you are not in a union, you're probably struggling to get by financially. I'm not sure that we need more electoral law when we already have several laws that are outdated and should be scrapped. They were discussing this "political contribution" issue on the radio yesterday as I was driving to work, so I figured it was at least worth a poll question. Corporations were included in the poll question because reasonably, you can't deny one and permit the other. It is all or none.

Does Parliament Need 30 New Seats?

Today's poll question; should 30 new seats be added to Canadian Parliament? In an attempt to fix some inequities in the current regional distribution of Parliament the government has passed legislation to add 30 new seats spread across Ontario, BC, Alberta, and 3 to Quebec. While I agree that provincial distributions should be tied to population, I do not support adding 30 new politicians to Parliament. Unfortunately you can't redistribute seat counts without adding new ones, so that's how we've arrived where we are.

The last thing this country needs is more politicians, but the Tories are committed to repairing the inequity as much as possible. It is a noble cause, even if adding seats is less desirable than shuffling the existing seats. I'd prefer they take seats away from Atlantic Canada, but I suppose we'd need to update our constitution, and that's rarely fun. I support what the government is doing, just not how they are doing it; and yet their method is the only plausible option. I'm torn on this one.