DISCLAIMER, THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT. NO MONIES OR PARTY SUPPORT IS COMING FOR THIS ARTICLE OR THE ONES TO COME. THEY ARE SIMPLY A CONCERNED CITIZEN ACCESSING THEIR CHARTER RIGHTS OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper took a short walk this morning to the Governor Generals home and dropped the writ for the federal election (August 2, 2015). Considering election day is October 19 this will be the longest election in the past one-hundred years. By all reports the most costly in our history with a huge hit to the tax payer. Prime Minister Harper makes no excuses over the additional costs and his party makes no bones over having the largest financial base. I am left with the feeling that we are really gearing up for a stockholders meeting to elect a new board, not a government. When did we start buying elections in Canada?
The financial perspective is an important one as it reflects the disdain this PM appears to demonstrate whenever democratic process is required. If Harper didn’t create it then it doesn’t seem to count. His financial interests are noteworthy based on the PM’s latest tactic to “starve the Senate” out of existence (a move that has many doubting the Constitutionality of his move). How convenient would it be for the smaller budget parties to run out of election spending funds before the actual election? This is like starving any opposition out of existence which leaves me questioning any commitment to our actual democracy.
In the PM’s press announcement this morning he stressed the needs for Canadians to “hold true” to the current direction his government is taking us. He tells us we cannot allow others to “take us back” to where they may take us however he offers no insight in what “take us back to” means. If “taking us back” means having the word Canadian in front of Government rather than the Harper then I’m all for it. We live in Canada, not Harperland!
Personally I was pretty content with the level of open democracy Canadians have enjoyed for the past sixty or so years. My father fought in World War 2 to make sure his kids would have the freedom a true democracy supplies us. A whole generation of fathers including many of my uncles (some never coming back) made their sacrifices to insure our future from the fascism that was sweeping over Europe at the time never took root in Canada. Now I watch with horror (and a growing fear) as this government slowly erodes the very democratic process our parents fought for. That has not gone unnoticed by many of our allies. Australia has noted how ideology is replacing the good governance that use to benefit ALL Canadians.
Living in a wheelchair doesn’t allow me the luxury of abandoning my chair. One of the first things on my list of things to watch for in the upcoming election is: Will we have a Prime Minister and government that will represent ALL Canadians at important world events? My decision will be based on who best can reform our political system in a non-ideological way in order to maintain the highest level of democracy.
For the duration of this election I will be using social media as my vehicle to speak up in the defence of democracy. This is not a political statement, it is simply a concerned Canadian (born and bred but the ancestor of immigrants) who values freedoms and democracy. I will be using my own critical thinking skills in presenting one man’s opinion on misunderstood, misused or misleading information.
Each article will focus on the details of one issue at a time while trying to wade through the spin being scripted in the PMO’s Communication shop. Sorry but watching the video does not exactly convince me that this was an unplanned election call. After all who do you think paid for all of those video since they were done before the writ dropped and the real election spending rules kicked in.
#Socialmedia is changing the face of the electoral process so lets use it to create a more open and transparent democracy. These were all promises made in the 2006 election by this Prime Minister however almost ten years later we have the most secretive and controlling government I have ever had to deal with. So Day 1 of the election campaign is on and so am I. Please feel free to follow my tirades (they will be well researched from a humble mind) and none of it will be redacted. I am not here to tell you who to vote for, I am here to plead with everyone to “VOTE”!
By all means if you wish to participate feel free to leave a comment or drop me a note with your own blurb. I can always present a guest blog of the day (under 800 words but over 300 with no inflated information unless backed up by links to source). Let’s use social media to bring “true” democracy back to the halls of Parliament!
Just one man’s opinion
A Poster Child's Perspective 