An Even Worse Better Deal!

Woohoo, the bill passed!

Yesterday, I gave you two posts for the price of one, if you ignore the fact that posts don't have a well-defined price. Well, today I'm lowering the bar upping the ante: three posts for the price of two!

The U.S. and Canadian Election Debates
This post is really about the Canadian election, so it doesn't count as a U.S. election post, and I haven't broken my promise to only write about the U.S. election once, unlike our Prime Minister who broke his fixed election date promise (to reference Dr. Horrible, "[Stephen Harper] corporate tool.")

The first debate I watched was the Obama-McCain debate, which was pretty funny, but only because we had to take a sip of beer every time someone said something stupid, and I drank four beers over the course of the debate. The second debate I watched was Biden-Palin, which was interesting at first, but soured pretty quickly. The last debate, which I finished watching at 1:30 AM, was the Canadian English Language Debate. For those who are not Canadian, you may know that we have two official languages, and therefore two debates. We also run our elections in 6 weeks, unlike the two-year-long put-me-in-a-come-till-it's-over-I-can't-TAKE-IT-ANYMORE marathon of hot air, posturing, and electioneering that the U.S. has.

There is really a stark contrast between the U.S. debates and the Canadian ones. For one thing, you only have two parties, so it's more adversarial and rhetorical in nature. We have five parties, so although it's confrontational, the targets keep shifting, and policies play a larger role. Watching the ObCain debates, I was laughing at the ridiculous things each side was saying, with McCain saying most of them ("I'm a maverick! A maverick, y'hear! And don't forget it!"), but watching the BidPal debates left my pessimistic and jaded. Obama and McCain liked to throw out soundbites and attack each other, but they at least paid lip service to ides about competing policies, but Biden and Palin left policy at the door. They were both constantly posturing, pretending to respect their opponents while misrepresenting and attacking them, and it was sad to behold.

I'll admit that I'm a little biased in that I'm proud of our Canadian government when compared with the U.S. one. Compared to Bush, Harper looks like another Lincoln or FDR. But I honestly believe that democracy is considerably stronger in Canada than in the States. There was rhetoric and there were lies, but the focus was on policy and competence, not on photogenics. I was actually interested while watching it because I got to see each party present and defend their policy, and although a lot of it is campaign promises, the policies were generally good.

I'm going to discuss the policies that were mentioned, so if you're not interested in Canadian politics, you probably don't want to read further. (Which leaves me with Sherwood and Isabel, maybe.) I'm going to tackle the issues party by party, starting with the one I thought did the best and ending with my least favourite.

1st - The Green Party of Canada, led by Elizabeth May: obviously, they're Canada's environmentalist party, and although they argue that they're not on the left/right spectrum but are rather advocates for the environment, they're pretty solidly progressive. I agree wholeheartedly with a great many of their policies, but am rather put off by their economic policy. Although there's an environmental argument to focus on producing locally, they take things to far and seem to be advocating protectionism. Now, I'm not a zealous free-tradist, as I think protectionism in the developing world is often justified, especially in capital markets, but protectionism in the developed world for populist reasons is simply inexcusable. All in all, I don't think the Green's economic policies are all that great, but they're the most likely to confront global issues like poverty and the environment, so they'd get my vote in theory. It's not very likely, but I really hope the Greens win a seat and start to play a larger role in government.

2nd - The New Democratic Party, led by Jack Layton: he was pretty amusing in the debate, as he had the best jabs and argued more passionately than others. The NDP is Canada's leftist party, (although if you consider environmentalism leftist, then it's more complicated), and they're the party that brough nationalized healthcare to Canada, which we generally consider a Good Move. And indeed, their social and economic policies have the greatest appeal to me, although I don't universally approve of them. For one thing, although both the Liberals and Greens have a green tax-shifting policy, the NDP does not, and generally isn't as concerned about the environment as social problems. However, I quite like their social justice problems, and was impressed that Layton brought up the social problems of the Natives. It's a close call between the Greens and NDP, but I'm not voting for either so the call is pretty arbitrary (shock horror! Not voting for my favourite party? Don't worry, all will be explained below.)

3rd - The Liberal Party, led by Stephane Dion: If you'd asked me a few months ago what I thought of the Liberal party, I'd probably have ranked them barely above the Conservatives (spoiler: they're at the bottom by a lot), and yet they're pretty close to the Greens and NDP. The Liberals are Canada's left-of-centre party, so as a fairly progressive person, there's a lot about the Liberals that I find objectionable. I wasn't really paying attention at the time, but I found the Liberal government under Paul Martin pretty lacklustre and incompetent. Under the Conservative government, I was really frustrated by their willingness to tacitly cooperate with the Conservatives, as Stephane Dion instructed his MPs not to vote on key issues. So far as I was concerned, the sooner the Conservatives were brought down, the better. On the other hand, it's possible that if they pulled down the minority government, voters would have been angry and voted in a Conservative majority, in which case I'd probably move to the States (not really.)

My opinion of them started to change when I read a pamphlet about "The Green Shift." It's a pretty clever plan to reduce carbon emissions by taxing fossil fuels, especially diesel and coal but not gasoline, which is already taxed, while simultaneously cutting income and corporate taxes. I'd prefer if corporations weren't getting a tax cut, but the policy is supposed to benefit low and middle-income families and small businesses much more than the rich and corporations. A key part of the plan is that it will be completely revenue-neutral, which will be enforced by Canada's Auditor General, an independent position with oversight over government spending. Their other policies are generally good, but too centrist for my liking.

However, I will be voting for the Liberal candidate in my riding. Obviously, this isn't my ideal choice, but there are other considerations that change my vote. I have a fairly low opinion of the Liberal candidate, who sold out the environment when she was Ministry of [the Environment] (it's actually Land, Water, and Air or something) in B.C. to corporate interests. But Oliver!?[2] you're an environmentalist! How could you contemplate such a thing as voting for her? I'm not voting for her, I'm voting for the Liberal Party and against the Conservatives. Honestly, I'd be happier if the Conservative candidate were running for the Liberals, as she's a UBC professor of business, so probably pretty smart. I like the Green Shift plan, and voting for the Liberals is the only way to have it enacted, and I strongly dislike the Conservatives (I reserve my hate for certain Republicans), and I would despair if the Conservatives earned a majority. The riding I'm in is pretty contested (the Liberal candidate won it by 153 votes in the last election), so ultimately I've decided to vote against the Conservatives.

4th: the Bloc Quebecois, led by Gilles Duceppe: the Bloc Quebecois are a federalist party representing Quebec's interests in government, but their relevance in recent years has declined since the heyday of Quebecois separatism. Duceppe himself acknowledges he won't be Prime Minister, and he's only there to represent the Quebecois.

5th: the Conservatives: I'm getting really tired of writing by now. I generally dislike the Conservatives' social and economic policies, and I find they tend to have less scruples than other parties (ironic considering how much they emphasize 'values.'), but at least their policies have a principle behind them that I can sort of respect. I have no respect what-so-fucking-ever for their environmental or corporate policies, and I think they're fucking Canada over, so fuck 'em. Worst case scenario: Conservative government and another ~4 years of bullshit, inaction, and screwing over Nature.