Want to Vote by Mail in the New Brunswick Snap Election? Good Luck With That

I'm SO angry at Elections NB. Allegedly, if we don't want to endanger ourselves by voting in person, we can apply for a mail-in ballot. That's the theory. The reality is, good luck figuring out how to do that.

At least they have a "Vote by Mail" link right on the home page, not that it's as obvious as it should be. It's in the lower-right corner, under "Quick Links." Or at least, it was. Right now, it seems to have disappeared. I am serious. Fortunately, I've linked to it. So click here, and you get instructions that tell you that you can make that application "once the returning offices have opened."

Have the returning offices opened? Who the fuck knows? It would be helpful if you could click on that part of the instructions and be taken to a page that tells you all about the returning offices, but no. It looks like a link, but it's just underlined.

There is at least a link directly to the Application for a Special Ballot (yes, that's the same as a mail-in ballot, not that Elections NB can be bothered to make that clear). Clicking that link allows you to download the form. Despite the special circumstances (unnecessary election during a pandemic and all that), it's the same old form, featuring Section 7 in which you fill in your reason for wanting to vote by mail, either:

1. "my own illness or incapacity, or
2. responsibility to care for another person unable to go the polls."

Really, those are the only reasons? No "I don't want to catch COVID-19 and die"? One would hope the form would at least have something for immuno-compromised people, who are most at risk of severe illness and death. It doesn't.

Well, you can still fill it in, leave Section 7 blank, and hope for the best, right? Except that you then have to figure out where to send it. According to the instructions, you need to mail it to your returning office. You know, that thing that may or may not be open.

I did a search, and it turns out they are open, hallelujah. That's according to this News Release, which is very short, and concludes with, "The locations of each returning office and its hours of operation are posted on the Elections NB website." With a link. Wouldn't it be great if that link took you directly to the page about the returning offices? Ha ha, of course it doesn't. That would be too easy. It just takes you to the Elections NB landing page.

Fortunately, there is a link for that on the home page, although again, not as easy to find as it should be. It's in the upper-right corner, under "General." Or it was. Now it's not, because apparently they redid this page while I was working on this post, with the express purpose of making it worse. Again fortunately for you, I'm linking to it here: Returning Offices. And I literally had to look through my browser history to find it again. You're welcome. So now, all you have to do is click on that link, look up your riding in the list, and there's your returning office and its address. You're good to go.

Oh wait, you don't know what your riding is? Oh honey, you're fucked.

Just kidding, it's OK. All you have to do is go back to the home page, yet again, and click on Provincial Electoral Districts (Maps). Unless, of course, that link has also disappeared. Again, I am NOT EVEN JOKING about this. I wish I was. So for the third time, click here.

If you're lucky, you can maybe figure it out from the crappy, not-very-detailed map image on this page. Or you can check out the slightly-more-detailed-but-still-totally-unhelpful PDF. Or if you can guess which is your riding, you can click on that link and get a map of the riding and try to find your street on there. Or maybe you should just call the toll-free number: 1-888-858-8683. That's probably the best option. Let the lazy buggers do some work for a change.

New Brunswick has one of the lowest literacy rates in the country. How many people will have the ability to go through this process, never mind the patience or the research skills? How about people who live in rural areas and don't have good internet connections? How many people will just give up and go to the polling place in person, or just not vote at all? I expect this election to have very low turnout.

Now, if Chief Electoral Officer Kimberly Poffenroth and Assistant Chief Electoral Officer David Owens had had any real interest in keeping people safe, here's what the would have done.

1. They would have put a big Vote by Mail link, preferably with an image (like the one above that I stole from Elections Canada), right in the middle of the home page. Click on that, and you get taken to...
2. A form that you can mail in to ONE CENTRAL ADDRESS. Once the form arrived there, nice people would check your address and postal code, find your riding based on that, and forward it to the correct returning office.

Here's the crazy thing: they actually do have two big images in a slideshow, right in the middle of the page. But they're useless. One of them says, "VOTE NB 2020." The other says, "Covid-19 [sic] & Voting." Neither of them link to anything.

Anyway, all that is what they would have done, if they had any genuine interest ensuring that every single adult New Brunswicker is able to vote in safety. But they didn't, because they don't care.

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Update (Aug. 26): Great news! You can, in fact, vote by mail for any reason. If neither of the reasons in Section 7 of the form apply to you, just leave that part blank.

It took me two phone calls to discover this. First I called the toll-free number and left a message, but the person who called back several hours later had "no idea." I had to call the returning office for an answer to this question, she said. I asked her for the phone number for my returning office, and it took her quite some time to find it. First she gave me the wrong one. I asked her if she was looking up the information on the website. When she said no, I assumed she had some other computer system, perhaps a slow and glitchy one, until she added, "I have a pile of paper!"

That's the state-of-the-art system that Elections NB is equipping their employees with. You heard it here first.

Also, I just found out that Elections NB has a form that lets you find your electoral district by entering your address. Much better than trying to figure it out from the maps. Why they don't link to this from the home page, I can't imagine.

Shania Twain Had a Point, Or: The Only Way to Beat a Right-Wing Populist

When I heard that Shania Twain got in hot water for saying that she would have liked to vote for Donald Trump if she could, my knee-jerk reaction was to think she was silly and ignorant. But I had to stop and ask myself, what is Trump's appeal? He clearly has some, despite all the awful things he's said and done.

Twain said it herself: "He seemed honest."[1] He isn't of course, but he is a straight talker. Whatever comes into his head is quick to fly out his mouth. No number of handlers can keep him "on message" for long.

Contrast this to what we have come to expect from our politicians. Spin. Talking points. Questions going unanswered. Boring blather. Broken promises (Justin Trudeau being just the latest, most egregious example).

"If I were voting," said Twain, "I just don't want bullshit."[2] Bullshit is exactly what we get from our politicians. We've had decades upon decades of bullshit. Did they think nobody would get tired of it? Fact is, our politicians are the ones responsible for the upswing of right-wing populism around the globe. They built this edifice of Neo-Fascism, brick by bullshit-infused brick.

Twain should be neither vilified nor mocked. She should be lauded for her valuable insight. She told us exactly What Happened, probably better than Hillary Clinton's self-serving, blame-everybody-and-everything-but-Hillary-Clinton book ever can. Let's hail Twain as the prophet of the twenty-first century: voters don't want bullshit, and that's why Trump is the President of the United States.

In the long run, only one thing can beat a right-wing populist, and that's a left-wing populist. Bernie Sanders could have beaten Donald Trump; polls told us that well before the election.[3] Among other things, Clinton wasn't progressive enough to present voters with an exciting alternative to Trump. Sadly, while the Republican Party failed to prevent the nomination of their populist, the Democratic Party succeeded, and Americans are paying the price.

And as long as left-wing parties continue to block their most interesting, populist candidates, the rise of the right will continue. Perhaps that's what we're seeing in New Brunswick, with the NB Green Party's unprecedented ousting of Fredericton North candidate Chris Smissaert. No reason was given.[4]

So it seems our elites have not learned. They continue to want someone controllable, predictable, presentable and safe. Someone who will stay on message. Someone who will bore the living shit out of the voters. This fact puts us in continuing danger of being governed by somebody like Doug Ford.[5]

What can we ordinary people do? My best advice is, stop holding your nose and voting for the safe option. That's not a winning formula. Vote for the left-wing populist. If he gets blocked from running, vote for him when he runs as an independent. Yes, that may split the vote, but what difference does it make if the right-wing populist wins because of vote-splitting or because of the lack of an appealing candidate on the left? The result is the same, so we may as well bet on the only real chance we have.

Fear of vote-splitting is how our overlords keep us under control. It's the reason Justin Trudeau didn't implement Proportional Representation. He doesn't want you to vote for the left-wing populist, he wants you to vote for him, and he's perfectly happy to undermine democracy, trash the environment, and betray Indigenous people and everyone else in order to maximize his chances of winning an unjust majority.

If you rail against the "ignorance" of those who find Trump appealing, you're wasting your breath. Sure, in a perfect world, everyone eligible to vote would make an effort to research the candidates and their policies. Since this is the real world, that's never going to happen.

Another thing that's never going to happen is whipping all left-wing voters into voting for the safe, dull candidate the king-makers (or the queen-makers) have chosen. The Americans have that whipping and bullying routine down to a science. Third parties were scarcely a factor in their last election, and the results were as we have seen. In Canada, the situation is different. This hasn't been a two-party system in a long time, and it will never be again.

We need to thwart the king-makers, and choose the left-wing populist. Business as usual can only doom us.

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1. "Shania Twain Apologizes After Saying She Would've Voted for Trump", CBC News. http://people.com/country/shania-twain-voted-donald-trump-the-guardian-interview/. Back

2. Ibid. Back

3. "Bernie Sanders says he consistently beats Donald Trump by bigger margins than Hillary Clinton does", Politifact. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/08/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-says-he-consistently-beats-donald-t/. Back

4. "N.B Green Party bans candidate from running in provincial election", KHJ Radio. http://www.iheartradio.ca/khj/khj-news/n-b-green-party-bans-candidate-from-running-in-provincial-election-1.3751232. Back

5. "With nine weeks to go, the Ontario election is Doug Ford's to lose", CBC News. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-ontario-poll-tracker-1.4603291. Back

Open Letter to Justin Trudeau - Breaking the Electoral Reform Promise is Unacceptable

I wish to make it clear how unacceptable it is to me that the electoral reform promise is being abandoned.

We came out of 4 years of the high-handed demagoguery of the Harper government only to watch the United States enter 4 years of the even higher-handed demagoguery of the Trump government. Both were elected by a minority of the population. Your election was sandwiched between two of the most compelling arguments for Proportional Representation that history could ever concoct. If this doesn't convince you of the urgent need to pass Proportional Representation, nothing ever could, so clearly your reluctance has nothing to do with what's best for the country.

Nor does it have anything to do with the supposed "lack of engagement" of the Canadian people. Nobody's going to buy that one after well-attended town hall meetings and hearings across Canada at which the overwhelming majority of speakers expressed their support for Proportional Representation.

Why not tell us the real reason? We can't address your fears if we don't know what they are. Some say you don't want to pass Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) because of the larger ridings and large number of list seats. Then pass something else, such as Single Transferable Vote (STV) or Rural-Urban Proportional (RU-PR) or Mixed Multi-Member Proportional (M3P). There are no shortage of options to choose from.

If you still refuse to pass PR, know this: not only will I not vote Liberal in the next election, but I will do everything in my power to prevent the Liberals from winning another majority. And I will not be alone.

Have you already forgotten that you entered power thanks to a nationally co-ordinated strategic-voting campaign? Can you be so arrogant as to imagine that we'll do it again, after this betrayal?

Not a chance. If you force us to strategise again, the next strategy will be a Conservative minority government under Michael Chong with as many Green and NDP seats as possible.

I urge you to reconsider.

Sincerely,
Vivian Unger

Proportional Representation: Myths and Misconceptions

The following is an expanded version of a speech I gave before the New Brunswick Commission on Electoral Reform, on Jan. 20, 2017.

We often hear that there are two types of electoral systems: Majoritarian and Proportional, and that our current system, First Past the Post, is a Majoritarian system.

In fact, there are three types of electoral systems: Plurality, Majoritarian and Proportional. In a plurality system, the candidate need only win more votes than every other candidate. If more than two candidates are running, that percentage will be well less than 50%. For example, if four candidates are running, a candidate could win with a little over 20% of the vote.

In a Majoritarian system, a candidate must win at least 50% of the votes in order to win the election. This is accomplished either with a second, run-off election, as in France, or with a ranked ballot, as in Alternative Vote. More on that later. Majoritarian systems work best in elections that only one person can win, such as presidential elections, or mayoral elections. When used to elect many candidates in many ridings, such as it is in Australia, the results can be even more distorted than they are under First Past the Post, and smaller parties suffer as a consequence.

In a Proportional system, votes are counted in such a way as to reward seats to candidates in proportion to the percentage of votes that they won. This is usually done according to party membership, although one fascinating system, Single Transferable Vote, accomplishes it without considering parties at all. Theoretically, a whole nation of independents could run in an election using this system, and the results would be fair and proportional, although it might be hard to know that.[1]

As you may have realized by now, vote counting is considerably more complex under a proportional system than it is under a Plurality system. We proponents of Proportional Representation think the results are worth it.

The habit, so common to journalists, politicians and other people who should know better, of incorrectly referring to First Past the Post as a Majoritarian system, probably contributes to the common misconception that a candidate must win most of the votes in a riding to win the seat. In fact, the candidate need only win a larger portion than all other candidates—a plurality. His portion of the vote may be well short of 50%. This makes First Past The Post not a Majoritarian system but a Plurality system.

The Majoritarian system Alternative Vote is often called ranked voting or preferential voting. This is the system that the New Brunswick Commission on Electoral Reform chose for some reason to recommend in its paper: Strengthening New Brunswick's Democracy. As the Commission's own report points out, it can produce results that are even more disproportional than First Past The Post[2]. It doesn't tend to improve voter turnout, and won't increase diversity in the legislature.

I want to point out here that Alternative Vote is not the only system that uses a ranked ballot. Single Transferable Vote is a system of proportional representation that also uses a ranked ballot. So if the New Brunswick government really wants to introduce a ranked ballot, I would suggest implementing Single Transferable Vote.

Myth number two: the false majorities caused by First Past The Post are desirable because they lead to strong leadership. What they really lead to is a phenomenon called "policy lurch." This is when one party with a majority rams through a lot of unpopular legislation until an election comes along. The new party in power sets about undoing everything the previous government put in place. At the next election, the whole process can begin again. This is a massive waste of time and energy and it is the reason why our governments are less effective than proportional governments and take so much longer to progress.[3]

We've seen this most dramatically at the federal level since the Harper government, but here in New Brunswick, we teeter-totter between the Liberal and Conservative parties in a similarly unproductive way.

Myth number three states that governments elected via proportional representation are unstable. Studies show no correlation between stability and electoral systems. One of the most stable governments in the world, the Swiss government, is elected by List Proportional Representation. One of the most unstable governments in the world, the Italian government, is also elected by List Proportional Representation. Government stability is determined by factors other than electoral system. [4]

In any case, if we value stability above all else, we should throw out elections and switch to an oligarchy. In this system, citizens have to wait for the people on top to die before they can have a new government. Barring assassination, it's the most stable system in the world.

Myth number four: "Simple is better." A whole web site has been set up to promote this rather insulting notion: keepvotingsimple.ca. I think the perfect rejoinder comes from David M. Farrell, the author of Electoral Systems: A Comparative Introduction. He writes that the ballot we're accustomed to, on which one makes a single 'x' next to one preferred candidate, is, "of obvious advantage in highly illiterate societies."[5]

I know that New Brunswick's literacy rates are not what might be desired, but I don't think we qualify as so "highly illiterate" that we can only manage an 'x.' In that case, it would be necessary for each candidate to have an icon printed next to their names. I haven't seen that on a Canadian ballot yet.

Myth number five is one that particularly concerns me. I fear it is preventing Proportional Representation from being accepted at both the provincial and federal levels. It is the idea that First Past The Post is advantageous for the party in power. Stephen Harper endorsed this idea when he told Elizabeth May, "No group of elected representatives is likely to fundamentally change the system by which they were elected".[6]

This notion needs a rethink. The current system is not advantageous to the party in power. It was advantageous to that party—in the last election. How a party did in a past election tells us nothing about how it will do in a future election. If we look at past New Brunswick elections, the government has switched between Liberal and PC majorities since 1999.[7] So if you're really in a gambling mood, bet on the Conservatives winning the next election under our current system. If the current Liberal government is interested in protecting their seats, their best bet is to bring in Proportional Representation. Of course, they won't win back all their current seats under Proportional Representation. But chances are, they won't anyway.

If you want to think of elections as a game, then the best move is Proportional Representation. Ideally though, we would like our representatives to remember that this is not a game. It's our province and our lives they're playing with. We'd like their priority to be what is best for the province. From that point of view, the best choice is still Proportional Representation.

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1. For a good summary of the main types of electoral systems, see The Government of Canada's Electoral Systems Factsheet. Back

2. Select Committee on Electoral Reform, Strengthening New Brunswick's Democracy (Fredericton: Government of New Brunswick, 2016), 17. Back

3. Salomon Orellana, Electoral Systems and Governance: How Diversity Can Improve Policy-Making (London: Routledge, 2014), 71. Accessed Jan. 12, 2017 on books.google.ca. He writes, "...over the roughly 25-year period considered here, tolerance of homosexuality increased by 0.41 points in proportional multiparty systems and 0.20 points in SMD/two-party systems. Another way to think about this outcome is that if support for homosexuality were to start at zero in a country, it would take approximately 30 years for a majority of the population in a fully proportional/multiparty system to show support for that issue, while it would take over 70 years to reach a majority in an SMD/two-party system.” Back

4. Farrell, p. 195, table 9.1. Back

5. Farrell, p. 64. Back

6. Elizabeth May, Losing Confidence: Politics and the Crisis in Canadian Democracy (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2009), 204. Accessed Jan. 12, 2017 on books.google.ca. Back

7. http://www.electionsnb.ca/content/enb/en/resources/publications/election-results.html. Accessed Jan. 12, 2017. Back

The Economy Should NOT Be Our Number 1 Priority

An election looms on Monday, following one of the longest election periods in Canadian history[1]. Not entirely coincidentally, the four-year term drawing to a close feels like one of the longest in Canadian history. During this period, our environmental laws have been gutted like our fish[2]. Our libraries have been trashed, years of irreplaceable data discarded like empty Tim Horton's cups[3]. We have acquired mandatory minimum sentences[4] and a habit of using solitary confinement as an oubliette[5]. Veterans—you know, those people who risked life and limb for us—have been stripped of their pensions[6]. Largely due to the tar sands, our pollution levels are increasing[7] and Alberta's caribou are disappearing[8].

Yet the Progressive[9] Conservatives are at 30% in the polls. The Oct. 5 issue of Macleans displays a picture of a Conservative candidate and her supporters holding signs that read, "Economy #1 Priority" and "Protect the Economy"[10].

The focus of many a political debate suggests that this premise is widely accepted. To hell with justice, human rights, air, water—it's all about money! This is what we get if we allow Stephen Harper and his spin doctors to control our conversations. Which is what we have done, so far. Let's stop it, shall we? Should the economy be our number one priority? Of course not. No sane and civilized society would think so.

This government has created a tremendous amount of human suffering. That should trump any discussion of the economy. Why aren't we talking about that? Why aren't candidates and party leaders bringing it up in debates? The assumption is that we Canadians are all selfish and care about nothing that doesn't affect us directly. If we as a country want to embrace that, then we need to stop pretending we're "nice." The out-of-date perception of Canadians as nice people persists for now, but it won't forever if we continue down this road, and we shouldn't expect it to. Nice people care not only about their immediate interests but about what's happening next door. Such people would have a problem with a government that refuses to do anything about sky-high rates of murder of Aboriginal women. They certainly wouldn't plan to vote for said government at a rate of 30%. (Yes, it's a minority but it's far too large a minority.) This is shameful and a disgrace.

Of secondary importance is the fact that making the economy our number 1 priority will not keep us safe and secure. Anyone who prioritizes the economy for this reason has not thought things through, and there are a lot of people who have not thought things through. Apparently it's a popular idea that as long as we have a strong economy, we don't have to worry if we're not growing enough food to feed ourselves; we can simply buy food from abroad. Pierre DeRochet says as much in the Oct. 5 edition of CBC's The 180[11].

Sure, that'll work—until we do something our food supplier doesn't like, and they decide to withhold food from us until we change what we're doing. What might the reason be? Well, maybe we have good relations with another country that our food-supplying country is at odds with, and they want to change that. Maybe they don't like our laws. Maybe they don't like our immigration policies. It could be anything, really. But as food diminishes on our grocery store shelves, we will do whatever they say. Once our entire food supply is in the hands of someone else, we will have zero autonomy.

Perhaps you think they won't do that because they want the money that we pay them for our food. That might work in our favour for a while, until something comes up that they hold more important than money. After all, just because we're stupid enough to value money more than anything else doesn't mean everybody else is that stupid. They can manage with less money for a while. They have food, and without the cramp of hunger in their bellies, they can hold out until they get what they want.

Another scenario is that the food-supplying country has seen a huge drop in their yields, due to unfavorable weather, and no longer has any surplus. They cease to export food, because they need it all to feed their own populace. In this scenario, there are no demands we can give into in order to feed ourselves, no terrible trade-off to make. We simply starve. This scenario becomes more likely as progressive global warming leads to more extreme weather conditions, droughts and floods[12].

When that happens, those who prioritized the economy can eat their money. Too bad it's now made out of plastic. The paper money we used to make would have been a little more digestible.

Canada, it's time to grow up. Start prioritizing the things that really matter: people, animals, lakes, rivers, beauty, compassion, love. Vote for these things on October 19. Stop prioritizing that crackly stuff in your wallet. Your infatuation with it degrades you now, and it will surely let you down in the end.

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1. The longest election period in Canadian history was in 1872. See The Ottawa Citizen, Aug. 3, 2015. http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/two-down-76-to-go-the-longest-election-campaign-since-we-first-re-elected-john-a

2. Linnitt, Carol. "New Report Shows 'Systematic Dismantling' of Canada’s Environmental Laws Under Conservative Government." DeSmog.ca, Oct. 14, 2015. http://www.desmog.ca/2015/10/14/new-report-shows-systematic-dismantling-canada-s-environmental-laws-under-conservative-government

3. Kingston, Anne. "Vanishing Canada: Why we're all losers in Ottawa's war on data." Maclean's, Sept. 18, 2015. http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/vanishing-canada-why-were-all-losers-in-ottawas-war-on-data/

4. Department of Justice, Government of Canada. http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/ccs-ajc/rr05_10/p2.html

5. White, Patrick. "Confined: the death of Eddie Showshoe." The Globe and Mail, Dec. 4, 2014. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/confined-the-death-of-eddie-snowshoe/article21815548/

6. See http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/benefits-for-wounded-canadian-veterans-do-not-stack-up/article23381161/ and https://www.change.org/p/government-of-canada-our-wounded-veterans-deserve-life-long-support?recruiter=14631496

7. See http://environmentaldefence.ca/blog/latest-data-shows-canada%E2%80%99s-carbon-pollution-still-rise

8. See http://albertawilderness.ca/issues/wildlife/caribou

9. I believe that these days, the word "progressive" in the party name is short for "progressively worse."

10. See http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/is-it-time-to-take-party-names-off-the-ballot/

11. The 180. "Food Security: Is it better to 'eat local' or global?" Oct. 11, 2015. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/the180/burka-avenger-and-the-niqab-decriminalizing-polygamy-and-legalizing-apologies-1.3261221/food-security-is-it-better-to-eat-local-or-global-1.3264960

12. See http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/2324.html

The Prorogued Blog

I think I have probably followed the pattern of many a new blogger. When I started out, I tried to put up something new at least a couple of times a week, mostly because the author of Blogging for Dummies said I should. That didn't last long, especially when the posts began to get longer. Multiple postings per week may work well for short posts, but not so much when each post is at least 2,000 words long and takes several hours to research and write.

But I did maintain a steady if plodding pace for a while. However, life has a way of intruding sometimes. In my case, I went into therapy and recovered memories of being molested by my grandfather. That kind of thing can throw you into a tailspin. It's nice to know, finally, why you're plagued with chronic pain and other problems of mysterious origin, but the revelation is a distracting one, to say the least. At times like this, investing a lot of time in a blog that makes you zero money falls to the bottom of your priority list.

Still, even with a good excuse, it was disconcerting to realize I'd let more than a month go by without updating my blog. This happens to many a well-intentioned beginning blogger, and the proof can be found in the apology-ridden blog posts that abound all over the Internet. Apologizing and explaining is an option, but not the most dignified one. Have we done so badly, after all? At least we haven't abandoned our blogs. Abandoned blogs are another thing you can find all over the Internet.

What to do, then? Simply slap up a new post, make no remark about the large gap, and proceed as if nothing happened? That was an option. But then I realized that I could take inspiration from an unexpected source.

Nobody knows the value of not apologizing like Stephen Harper. A demagogue can't apologize--it would be tantamount to admitting imperfection. You can't have that. Such an admission would hamper his ability to bully his lackeys. So when such a demagogue faced with a pesky opposition that won't stop going on about the multiple memos he ignored concerning the torture of Afghan detainees, what does he do? Especially when the knee-jerk counter-attacks are starting to sound tired and contrived?

Why, he prorogues Parliament. He got away with it before, why not a second time? So what if 36 bills, representing incalculable hours of work and therefore tax dollars, get flushed down the toilet? He places much more value than that on his own hothouse-flower ego.

After I got back from the protest rally, I realized this could work for me too. I don't want to apologize either. I don't happen to have a perfectly pliant and obedient governor general to sign all my forms without question, but that's OK because this blog is entirely under my control. I have absolute power over my own blog. I already have the autocracy Harper would like and is working towards.

I therefore announce that I am retroactively proroguing my blog, from the date of my last post (Remembrance Day) to the present. That's right, I even went back in time to prorogue! Eat your heart out, Harper. (Or did you already? Maybe that's where it went.)

There are differences, of course. One might argue that the need to apologize for not updating one's blog is negligible to nonexistent, given that it's not a true responsibility but just for fun, and one's failure to do it hurts nobody. The same cannot be said for letting people get tortured. For that matter, a prorogued blog doesn't have the national impact and expense of a prorogued Parliament. It doesn't cost millions of dollars and waste everyone's time. It's not a show of disrespect towards an entire nation.

I'm glad I don't have that level of responsibility. That would be burdensome indeed. But then, someone who runs for Prime Minister has some idea of what he's getting into. If he should find he doesn't want to do the job he's being paid a great deal to do, he should step down, forthwith, and let someone else, someone more willing and able, take over.

Scoop! The True Nature of Fredericton Bus Station's "Shuttle Service"

As this is not a news blog and I am not a reporter, I never expected that I'd ever be able to scoop the local papers. But the improbable has happened, and quite by accident. All I did was make a phone call. Amazingly, I've even scooped Charles LeBlanc.

It's big news in Fredericton that the bus terminal has been forced to move from its handy downtown location to some awkward spot in an industrial park. Indeed, there has been widespread anger and protesting. It's no secret that this has happened because Irving owns the land that the bus terminal was on, just as Irving owns a frightening percentage of New Brunswick soil, and they booted Acadian Bus off the spot so that they can build a parking garage. But this post is not about the ugliness of replacing a bus station with a parking garage at a time when everyone is supposed to be so keenly aware of the need to slow climate change. It's not about the weakness of every level of government in this province and how they let the Irvings do whatever they want and never lift a finger to stop them. Believe me, I could do a long and heated rant about that if I wanted to. But that's not what this post is about.

It's about the alleged shuttle service. Both the CBC and The Daily Gleaner reported that for the first two weeks of the move, there would be a shuttle service to take passengers to the new location. Sounds good, but nobody reporting the story gave any details about this shuttle service and when it would run.

So I phoned the bus terminal and asked, "When does the shuttle bus run?"

There was silence. I elaborated on the fact that there was supposed to be (as I'd understood it) a shuttle bus to take people from the old location to the new.

"There's no shuttle bus," said the man on the phone.

"Oh, because they said on the news that there was--"

"What there is," he explained, "is two guys with a van, and they're there for people who show up downtown and didn't know we'd moved."

In other words, there isn't a shuttle service. If you're aware that the station moved--which you will be if you heard about the "shuttle service" in the first place--that van's not for you. Oh, maybe they'll be nice and give you a ride anyway. After all, New Brunswickers are nice people, and besides, it's got to be boring sitting there in a van all day. They'll want something to do. But it's not for you. No, it's for the probably-nonexistent person who lives under a rock and never gets news or talks to anybody and consequently heard nothing about the move.

You heard it here first. Great reportage, CBC and Gleaner!

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If you enjoyed this bit of mockery aimed at our fine institutions of journalism, you may also appreciate my short post on a CBC host's musical difficulties.

The New Brunswick Government's Plan to Provide More Jobs for People in Other Countries

A couple of days ago, I was asked to do a survey over the phone on what I thought of the New Brunswick's government's new budget. At the time, I didn't know anything about the new budget, but I did the survey anyway, answering in the negative to almost all of the questions, because that's how much confidence I have in this government. By adjusting taxes so that the poor and middle class pay more and the rich less, Shawn Graham has demonstrated that he is in the pocket of big business (which in New Brunswick is usually spelled I‑R‑V‑I‑N‑G).

Today I decided I should become a little more informed on the subject, so I went to the government web page. I found a hefty document that I am not going to read, ever, because life is too short. However, its title, The Plan for Lower Taxes in New Brunswick 2009-2012, makes the budget's main point clear. Somehow, lower taxes will boost the flagging economy and create jobs. Conservatives have a remarkable faith in the magical power of lowering taxes. The funny thing is, this government is Liberal. At least in name.

Luckily for me, Charles LeBlanc has his own shorter and more readable summary of the budget. According to him, 700 civil service jobs are being cut. It is curious that the government plans to create jobs by cutting jobs, but I'm sure Shawn Graham can explain it, or at least whitter on in a confusing manner until everyone has forgotten the original question.

But here, for me, is the kicker. That telephone call I got, about the survey? The heavily accented voice at the other end made it clear that the call centre was located in India.

There are no shortage of call centres in New Brunswick. In fact, in the 1990's the provincial government of the time put a lot of effort into attracting call centres to New Brunswick. They wanted to make New Brunswick the call centre capital of the world. That didn't work out, yet New Brunswick still has a lot of call centres.

But when the New Brunswick government wants to survey its own people about its budget, where does it turn to find a call centre? India.

I think that says everything we need to know about how sincere Shawn Graham and his government aren't about creating jobs in New Brunswick.

Faces of the Powerful

Note: This strikes me as a piece that cries out for illustrations. However, I don't want to either violate anyone's copyright or pay Reuters for pictures. So instead of inserting pictures, I'm inserting links to articles that have pictures. The articles have nothing to do with this entry; in fact, most of them are quite old. The point is the pictures. So to see pictures of what I'm talking about, click on the links. Thanks for understanding.

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As you are no doubt aware, Barack Obama became President of the United States yesterday. He made a beautiful, moving speech about responsibility and sacrifice. That, of course, does not prove anything. Many people can make wonderful speeches and promise all sorts of things without following through. Many people have. But I feel sure that Obama is a man of integrity who will spend his time in office doing the right thing to the best of his ability, rather than covering his butt and sucking up to corporations and the wealthy in order to secure a second term.

How do I know this? Because Obama has something to back up his pretty words. He has his face. I saw a wonderful photo of him on the cover of a magazine, last week's Newsweek I think. He was smiling and looking relaxed and confident. His face is open. He is a man with nothing to hide.

By stark and terrible contrast, here in Canada we have Stephen Harper. Here we have a man whose conception of governance is to alternate attacks against every perceived threat to himself with long vacations and interruptions to Parliment. He has, since taking office, done much that is destructive and almost nothing that is useful and constructive. He is secretive to a degree that is sometimes pathological. He is probably paranoid, which is why he is secretive. And none of this comes as a surprise to me, nor should it to anyone, as it was all plain to read in his face, his distressingly masklike, expressionless face that looks like a Botox treatment gone too far.

We have a new leader of the opposition party. The old leader, Stephane Dion, was not a man of extremes, neither great like Obama nor terrible like Harper, as could be read in his average-looking face, but a good man. Strangely, that wasn't what Canadians wanted, and Dion had to go. His replacement, currently temporary and possibly to become permanent in May (though I hope not) is Michael Ignatieff. Here too, there is something disturbing to be read in the face. It doesn't reach the soulless extremes of the Harper rubber-face, yet all is not well. There is a hardness and an odd squinching up around the eyes, as if either to hold something in or keep something out. His eyes remind me of Karla Homolka's. I don't mean to imply that Ignatieff is like Homolka. I am fairly certain he will neither serve as an accomplice to murder nor mail his underwear to prisoners. Still, this narrowing of the eyes must mean something. I don't know what, but I know it isn't good. I do not have high hopes for Ignatieff.

The mouth can lie, the face does not. If you really want to know your leaders, hit the mute button when their faces appear on your television. If everybody did that before every election, we could probably save ourselves a lot of pain.

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Further Reading: "The President's Speech" describes an incident in which brain-damaged people laughed at a televised speech by Ronald Regan, while people with normal brain functioning were taken in. This fascinating essay can be found, along with several other fascinating essays, in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks.