Showing posts with label 2007 Ontario election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2007 Ontario election. Show all posts

2007-10-10

Be Sure To Vote Today

If you live in Ontario be sure to vote today. You can vote in the Ontario election if you are:

* 18 years of age or older,
* a Canadian citizen, and
* a resident of the electoral district in Ontario

If you are on the voters list you must provide proof of identity to vote.

If you are not on the voters list you can still vote by providing proof of identity and proof of residence.

For more details on these requirements and a list of acceptable identification documents see the Elections Ontario Website.

Be sure to vote in the referendum. It will be the most important vote you cast in this election.

2007-10-04

Perhaps the FPTP Supporters Have One Thing Right

One of the biggest arguments of First Past the Post is that it is more efficient than Mixed Member Proportional. Perhaps they are right. With one party able to gain control of the government, while receiving a minority of the seats, the Party Leader and Premier holds great power. By controlling Cabinet and committee appointments and other perks of government he can virtually run the government. With one man in control the government must be more efficient. After all, nobody ever criticized dictatorships for being inefficient, only for being undemocratic.

With Mixed Member Proportional the legislature will reflect the votes of the people. And since the people have varied positions and opinions on the issues and differing priorities one party is unlikely to win majority control of the legislature and one person is unlikely to have control of the government. The parties will have to work together, compromise and develop policies that reflect the will of those that elected them. Indeed with MMP, the legislature, rather than the executive, will govern the province.

The problem with the FPTP supporters position is that it does not go far enough. Why have a legislature at all. Why not just elect a dictator every four years, or for that matter why bother with inefficient elections.

The real problem with the FPTP approach is that it presumes the goal of electoral reform is a more efficient system, when the goal of electoral reform is a more democratic system, which of course, is what MMP provides.


No blog tomorrow as I am taking an extended long weekend.

2007-10-03

The Hypocritical Lies in Dalton McGuinty's Education Ads

Listen to the Liberal education ads (Number 7) and tell me if you did not hear Dalton McGuinty say that public schools are what makes Ontario Ontario because students of all religions learn together and that public funding of segregated religious schools would be bad for Ontario.

After hearing him speak you might even think that he would send his own children to public schools rather than segregated religious schools. You might even think that he believes that the public should not fund segregated religious schools. But you would be wrong.

These are the most hypocritical lies I have ever heard from a politician.

2007-10-01

Faith-Based About Face

Tory's Policy No Longer Tories Policy

John Tory raised this issue with a principled but wrong position. Now he is just wrong.

Meanwhile Dalton McGuinty continues to oppose public funding for (non-Catholic) faith based-schools and carries on about how he supports public education while pretending the the Catholic School system does not exist.

And Howard Hampton carries on about how schools need more money while pretending the faith-based issue does not exist.

Only the Greens can claim to have a principled position on public education.

2007-09-28

The Two Faces Of MMP

In our present FPTP system voters theoretically vote for local candidates. Indeed, that is one of the main arguments of the FPTP proponents.

However, we all know that is just theory and that most voters vote on the basis of party without regard for who the local candidates are. They vote for a party's candidate as an indirect way of voting for the party.

MMP will allow voters to vote for the party of their choice directly, rather than indirectly. At the same time it will allow voters to actually consider the local candidates, their background, qualifications and personal positions and vote for them directly without losing their ability to vote for the party of their choice.

This will lead to more interest in the local candidates, more interest in elections and greater voter turnout, and thus greater democracy.

It will also lead to getting more Independent and independent thinking candiates elected.

So why are some people afraid of it.

Vote for MMP

2007-09-25

The Big Lie About MMP

The Big lie about MMP is that candidates on "the list" are somehow selected differently, and less democratically, than local candidates.

Referendum Ontario, the agency responsible for the referendum states:

‘List Members’ are candidates from any registered political party. Before an election each political party prepares an ordered list of candidates they would like considered as ‘List Members’.

These lists, and the way they are created, would be made public well in advance of any election in a Mixed Member Proportional system.


Is this different than the way local candidates are chosen. In fact, according to the Ontario Election Act, local candidates are chosen by the political parties and "endorsed" by the party leaders.

The Ontario Elections Act states:

Ballots

Names of candidates

34. (2) The names of the candidates shall be shown on the ballot in accordance with the following rules:

5. The official name of the registered party that endorses the candidate shall be shown after his or her name if,

i. a statement of endorsement signed by the party leader is filed as described in section 28.1, and

Endorsement by Party Leader

Statement of endorsement

28.1 If a candidate is endorsed by a political party that is registered or has applied for registration with the Chief Electoral Officer under the Election Finances Act, a statement of endorsement signed by the party leader may be filed with the Chief Electoral Officer, on or before the close of nominations. 2007, c. 15, s. 17.


In fact, while most local candidates are selected through party nomination votes, the Party leaders can hand pick candidates, and have done so in the past.

The law (and proposed law) is in fact no different as far as the selection of local and list candidates. It is up to the parties to use democratic selection methods and up to the voters to judge them on the methods they use.

2007-09-18

Why I Am Not Voting NDP This Election

Since I started voting in 1968 there have only been two previous times I did not vote for the NDP. Once was as a protest vote after the Waffle was expelled from the NDP and I voted CPC-ML, and the other was a strategic vote for Marianne Wilkinson (who had left the Tories to join the Liberals because of Mike Harris's regressive policies) in an attempt to unseat the sitting Tory, Norm Sterling, and the Harris government.

This will be the third time, and it is essentially over one issue. I do not usually believe in voting based on one issue but in this case I have an opportunity to vote for a party not afraid to raise the issue of one public education system for the province. It should be the NDP, but it is not. On this issue I even find myself agreeing with John Tory, rather than Howard Hampton, on the fact that the existing funding of Catholic religious schools only is discriminatory. Of course I disagree with John Tory's solution, which would only make things worse.

In the entire history of the province only the Green Party has had the political will to stand up for equality and public education in Ontario, and for that they will be rewarded with my vote.

2007-09-07

Should Taxation Fund Religious Schools in Ontario

Ontario has two publicly funded school systems, one secular and one Catholic. According to the 2001 Census there are 3,935,745 people that identify themselves as “Protestant” and 3,911,760 people that identify themselves as “Catholic”. Does it not seem strange that the one religious group that gets public funding for its schools is not the group with the largest number of followers.

Of course it all goes back to history. At the time of confederation Ontario and Quebec had Protestant and Catholic school systems. “Protection of the Separate School system was a major issue of contention in the negotiations that led to Canadian confederation, due in large part to racial and religious tension between the (largely Francophone) Roman Catholic population in Canada and the Protestant majority. The issue was a subject of debate at the 1864 Quebec Conference and was finally resolved at the London Conference of 1866 with a guarantee to protect the separate school system in Quebec and Ontario.” ((Wikipedia). This was guaranteed in Section 93 of the British North America Act, now the Constitution Act. In Ontario the Protestant system evolved into the secular school system and now there is only one Protestant school board in Ontario with one school, the Penetanguishene Protestant Separate School Board.

So we now have a secular publicly funded school system and a publicly funded Catholic school system but no public funding for the small religious groups or even the larger Protestant religious group. Does this not seem at odds with the equality provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Charter states:

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

However the Charter also states:

29. Nothing in this Charter abrogates or derogates from any rights or privileges guaranteed by or under the Constitution of Canada in respect of denominational, separate or dissentient schools.


In 1996, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that this was not a violation of the Charter primarily due to the provisions of section 93 and 29 of the Constitution.

So we have what appears to be a case of constitutionally entrenched violation of the Charter.

The United Nations human rights committee says Ontario's policy of fully funding Roman Catholic schools, while denying full funding to other religious schools, is discriminatory.

The status quo is a violation of the spirit, if not the letter of the Charter, and cannot be justified by any logical argument. The only argument presented for it seems to be that “has always been that way” and to try and change it would be politically difficult.

However, such constitutional provisions can be changed and have been changed, even in the Roman Catholic dominated province of Quebec which eliminated funding for Protestant and Roman Catholic schools systems and established language based school systems instead. Public funding of religious based schools in Newfoundland has also been eliminated.

So what we essentially have is not a constitutional issue but an issue of public policy. We can continue the discriminatory status quo or we can either extend public funding to all religious schools or provide it to none. There is no other justifiable or logical alternative.

The current policy of funding Roman Catholic schools has not been without concerns, including the teaching of evolution in science classes and creationism in religion class; the teaching of Catholic sex education and the church’s attitude to birth control; as well as the churches attitude towards gays and lesbians and it’s statement that they are sinners for simply being who they are.

Extending public funding to every religious group will not only see public funding of extremist groups within the mainstream religions, such as fundamentalist Christians and Muslims but potentially funding of groups such as Witches and Satanists. Lest I be cited for fear mongering, let me say it is not the labels we need to worry about. I am more worried about the extremists within the Christian churches than I am about the Wiccans. I have heard the bigotry, whether based on race or sexual orientation spouted by some so called Christian churches and I do not want taxpayers funding such propaganda. I am not as familiar with the extremists in other religions but I have no doubt that there are extremist Jewish, Islamic and other groups whose teachings most Canadians would not be comfortable with.

How would this be done. Who would decide what was a legitimate religious school worthy of funding. Who would police the thousands of individual independent schools to ensure they were following the provincial curriculum and were not teaching bigotry or hatred. It would simply be unworkable.

I am one of the biggest promoters of multiculturalism and religious pluralism is part of that. Canadian multiculturalism is a wonderful thing. It allows immigrants to become part of Canada without having to deny or abandon where they came from. It allows them to bring their cultures into the Canadian mosaic. It is important that they keep their cultural institutions. But the school system should be an institution that brings us all together, a place where we can learn about each other, share our cultures together as Canadians, and learn Canadian values.

It is time for a single publicly funded secular school system in Ontario. It is almost enough to make one vote Green

2007-09-05

Much Ado About U of Nothing

Well this election campaign sure is taking the high road and tackling the big issues.

I was somewhat perplexed by Mister Tory's latest remarks. Having lived in Ottawa for thirty years I have never heard that expression in reference to the University of Ottawa, nor for that matter had I heard it during the four years I was involved in student politics and journalism at Laurentian University before moving to Ottawa. So, as I was wondering just who the "we" was that Mister Tory was referring to, I decided to search the net for the infamous phrase and other than news articles on Mister Tory's remarks all that Google and Alta Vista found was the same single reference on a listserv in 1992, referring to Carleton University students using the phrase.

So I guess Mister Tory can take heart in the fact the be belongs to a select group.

2007-09-04

Does Your Family Need A Day in February

There is a long time between New Years and Easter, most of it cold, without a holiday break. It has been the subject of debate and proposals for years.

At both the federal and provincial level there have been numerous proposals and Private Members Bills to create a new February holiday from Heritage Day to Flag Day to Prime Ministers Day and even Family Day. Indeed a recent poll by SES Research that found that 70% of Ontarians support a new holiday in February.

It is probably a good idea. It is the sort of thing that calls out for an all party agreement, not the sort of thing that should be used to buy votes in a provincial election.