P is for Populism

It has been several years since we have posted on our political blog but it seems appropriate to anticipate both the federal election and Alberta election gearing up for 2019. 

Since 2016 the rise of what is now being termed “populism” has rapidly increased to the point where it often falls into the more worrying term or xenophobia.  Donald Trump arriving on the political scene has catapulted populism to front and centre not only in the USA but here in Canada.  However he is not the only driving force of populism since it is growing steadily in Europe, and elsewhere in the world, at the same time and with even more speed.

Canadians should be very wary of this trend not only for its immediate effect on society but also the long term effects.  In the foreseeable future many societal advancements (if we use the “liberal” view) of such things as pro-choice, LGBTQ rights, multi-culturalism, acceptance of legal refugees and so forth may be overturned or compromised.  But longer term, if these things are indeed overturned or compromised we could slide onto a slippery slope that may lead us into something a great deal more sinister.  Taking away human rights can lead into a very narrow, regressive regime.

Populism also appeals to many people by using one issue topics to lure people into favoring a candidate or party.  For instance, many people simply abhor paying taxes of any kind so when a politician says he will cut, cut, cut taxes, do be aware that the only way to cut taxes is also to cut programs. Naturally the selfish non-tax payer will be okay with cutting programs that they don’t need because why should that non-taxpayer want to help his fellow citizen? Never mind if he happens to go to the same church as you, because why should he pay for his fellow citizen’s daughter to have an abortion?  And that citizen on the other side him, why should he want to pay for his old age security or his employment insurance?  It’s no skin off the non-taxpayer's nose if his neighbour loses his house or his dignity.  Why should a single mom get cheaper daycare when someone like Doug Ford says a program 4 months old is “not working” – like he would be telling the truth on that one?  Let’s make sure, this populist non-taxpayer kicks everyone who is down, as long as it is not him or his kids. 

Populism is a nasty, nasty movement . . . and we haven’t even touched on refugees in this article.

H is for Hope

One final off the cuff blog before the election tomorrow. And the word is about Hope for a different tomorrow. The hope is that all those who said they would go out to vote will or already have voted and if the polls are correct, or even close, we will have an amazing new vision of Canada. If as many people vote for Jack Layton and the NDP promises the politicians will know that Canadians are ready to embrace a more practical and down to earth type of government that cares about families and the day to day concerns of average Canadians.
Together we cannot be ignored.
There is hope for all Canadians tomorrow night.
Good luck Canada.

Publish Post

E is for Electronic Media

The polls are certainly exciting but as the old adage says “the proof is in the pudding”. Until the votes are cast and counted there is no certainty as to which party is the electorate’s favourite. It’s been many years since the NDP have enjoyed such a surge of popularity and perhaps we can credit some of this to the electronic age. The message of the “minor” parties is getting out at long last. The use of Twitter, Facebook and other electronic media appears to be as successful in this election as it was in the latest Calgary election where Major Nenshi rode the wave right into the major’s seat.

For far too many years the power to sway opinion has been in the hands of the powerful (and greedy) owners of the newspapers, radio and television. To date we have the good fortune to have relatively unmanipulated access to internet, blogs, websites and other electronic media that can be utilized at little or no expense. Thus the smaller parties have an equal chance in getting their messages out to the populace, or at least the electronically savvy populace. Young people are becoming more and more involved in politics as a result and their minds are not affected by the smear campaigns currently on television ads and mainstream editorials.

This is going to be one interesting election come May 2^nd.

Remember to vote as your vote counts and your opinion matters. Vote for yourself.

Z is for Zoomers

When Moses Znaimer took over CARP magazine he changed the name to Zoomer and coined or utilized the name as the senior Boomers. Seniors is an important part of our society and should be an important part of this election campaign. The NDP have made promises to double the pension for seniors.

As we have written before, seniors are our hidden poor. When we say hidden we mean that they are a self respecting and quiet group. Too much so perhaps, but that is the Canadian way. Canadians are not known for making waves. We are generally a placid population. But to overlook the senior votes is becoming more of a mistake with each passing year as the boomers move into their zoomer years. This is the group who regularly vote and this may be one of the reasons why the NDP are gaining on the other parties. Not only the youth are disenchanted with the records of the 2 prominent parties. The seniors are taking a hard look at what is to their best interest.

The NDP are gaining momentum in the polls to the point that the last few days both the Conservatives and the Liberals have begun attacks on Jack Layton. Voting for the NDP will not split the vote in a way that will be detrimental to the voters. It will be detrimental to the other parties but that can only be a good thing for the voters. Don’t be fooled. Don’t blink.

Y is for Youth

Franklin Roosevelt said “Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves-and the only way they could do this is by not voting.” The same can be said for any nation’s people. We note that the percentage of youth going out to vote seems be on the increase. In 2004 37% of youth (18-24) went out to vote, in 2006 it increased to 44%. Currently there is a push by “vote mobs” to get university students out to vote and with the power of Twitter and Facebook there appears to be some success in getting youth engaged in politics.

In the past we have seen youth become engaged when there has been a charismatic leader or when social issues were at the forefront of a campaign. In the USA youth were involved in the Sixties with issues such as the Vietnam War, Civil Rights and Women’s Rights. Recently we saw Barack Obama bring out the youth vote during the 2008 presidential campaign.

This election is focusing a lot on health care and a possible coalition government, topics of little interest to most youth. It will be interesting to see if anything in the next few days can turn the election around and arose the interest of our youth to get out there and exercise their right to vote. The bottom line, voting can turn tides, your votes do count particularly when one looks at the “popular vote”.

Get involved, be informed, exercise the vote your forefathers and foremothers fought so hard to get.

X is for Xenophobia

Xenophobia is a fear of foreigners. We will segue to immigration on this concern.

What are the parties’ stance on immigration? None of the party platforms has one specifically on Immigration at least not easily identified on their platform site. But a recent questionnaire found all 5 parties (including the Green) answered the question “How many more immigrants should Canada admit?”

NDP, Green and Liberals – Somewhat more

Conservatives and Bloc – About the same.

Each had a somewhat different reason for wanting immigration to continue. The Liberals said:

With declining domestic birth rates and an aging population, Canada is already facing critical skills shortages that will reach alarming levels unless we find a sustainable solution.

If we are to attract much-needed skilled labour and professionals from around the world, we must: invest in our immigration system to ensure it can deal with increasing demand; encourage skilled immigrants to make Canada their home and realize that welcoming their immediate families is a vital part of making Canada an attractive and viable destination. [p. 3]Source: Alan Tonks Report (Summer 2008)The editors question the purpose of immigration to acquire “skilled labour” but rather to acquire “cheap labour”. What we see is that most of our industries have now been shipped to other countries where labour is cheaper. For example, even our technical labour such as engineering and design work is being sent to Korean and Thailand and our call centres are now in India. Canadians at home are not skilled enough to answer telephone queries? We have almost no (grand scale) manufacturing left in Canada and even are auto industry has been disseminated.

The true fact is that while immigrants may have skills from their country when they come to Canada they are essentially “cheap labour” and are working for minimum wage in restaurants, shops, taxi cabs and so forth. Let’s not kid ourselves, we all see it. There are qualified engineers, doctors, nurses and other professionals from around the world who are working as janitors in Canada. Bringing cheap labour to Canada benefits no one but the businesses hiring the cheap labour. It is essential an exploitation of individuals desperate for a better life being lured to Canada under false pretences. At the same time it keeps the minimum wage down which impacts the rest of Canadians.

Canada’s top 5 exports (in 2010) were:

#1 Petroleum products 64 billion $
#2 Passenger vehicles (cars & Vans) 37 billion $
#3 Car parts & accessories 16 Billion $
#4 Aluminum products 8 billion $
#5 Lumber 7 billion $
Fastest growing exports
#1 Sugar 43 million; #2 Zinc 1.4 billion; #3 Precious Metals 700 million; #4 Oil drilling equipment 1 billion; #5 Copper 2 billion

W is for Welfare

Welfare is a sensitive topic both for the people who are on “welfare” or social assistance, and for the people who feel they are paying for it. What we find interesting is that while the media and others sling around words like “abusing the system” we have never discovered a statistic that actually puts a figure to the number of individuals who may be abusing the system. We find this particularly interesting when we are inundated with all kinds of statistics, from polls taken for who will vote what to how many people will die of cancer in a single minute. And yet for something which seems to be so much on every one’s mind there is not a single statistic mentioned about how many people are abusing the system. Could it be because if we knew there were 12,000 people out of 36 million plus people we would realize that in proportion there are relatively few actually misusing the welfare system?

You see our point.

Welfare, or social assistance, was implemented to help people in need. The latest complete information is this: In 2005 there was a total of 1,679,800 on social assistance of which 500,000 were children. Therefore taking 1.1 million people out of a population of 32,359,000 is about 2.9% of the population that were getting assistance (excluding the children, for this purpose). Out of that 2.9% of the population what percent would be abusing the system? Even if we said it was 50% (which is extremely high and very unlikely) we would be looking at 1.4% of the population. Is that anything to get distraught about when good is being accomplished? Families are being cared for to some extent.

If we embraced the Scandinavian model we could eliminate poverty in this country in less than 20 years. We encourage readers to view the link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_welfare_model