crazed monkey

I was just flipping through the channels on TV and caught the tail-end of Brian Mulroney reminiscing Ronald Reagan on Larry King Live. When Mulroney was done, Larry King signed him off as “the former Prime Minister of Great Britain.” Ouch.

Update: CNN keeps transcripts of all Larry King Live shows and, thankfully, they do not revise them to correct errors. The transcript for the show aired yesterday contains the above error:

MULRONEY: Good to see you, Larry. Thank you for having me and delighted to be with you.

KING: My pleasure. Good guy. Brian Mulroney, the former prime minister of Great Britain (sic).

Posted on June 6th, 2004 in canada, politics - No Comments »

From The Globe And Mail:

Mr. Arron said he tried to get Mr. Harper to give a clear answer [on whether he would use the notwithstanding clause to take away the Charter rights of gay and lesbian Canadians] at a rally in Guelph, which he was attending with volunteer Bob Smyth.

Mr. Arron was shouted down by cries of “shut up, shut up.”

Tory supporters then hit Mr. Smyth with signs and an elderly man punched him in the face before police intervened.

This is the level to which social activism in Canada has been reduced: heckles from the left and punches from the right. Those who scream the loudest and shrillest will win. Animals, all of you!

Posted on June 3rd, 2004 in canada, politics - No Comments »

If the Toronto election was so exciting, why did less than 40% of eligible voters show up at the polls? Andrew Spicer cites lousy voting hours and poor distribution of voting cards. I tend to agree on Andrew’s latter point, but I’d have to disagree with the former. The hours for voting in this year’s municipal election were largely the same as those for the provincial election.

Poor voter turnout in municipal elections can be largely attributed to voter perception, or rather misperception, of their importance. Ask most people to order the three levels of government in order of importance from highest to lowest and most will probably cite the federal level as the most important, followed by provincial and finally municipal. The perception is that municipal politics is boring, doesn’t matter and that the larger issues are at the provincial and federal levels. That could not be more wrong.

Our municipal government is the level of government which affects us the most. If the federal government were somehow wiped out tomorrow, how long would its absence go unnoticed? Those receiving EI payments would notice within two weeks, but most of us probably wouldn’t miss the federal level of government for months. The same goes for provincial. The absence of a municipal government, however, would be noted almost immediately: there would be no garbage collection, no building permits, or no parking permits, among other things.

Because of the low level of interest in local politics, municipal government lends itself more easily to corruption. It is much easier to broker shady deals when nobody is looking. (No doubt the lack of a scrutinising opposition party also increases the likelihood of corruption.) We need voters to pay more attention to local politics so that corruption may be avoided. However, people often cite government corruption as a cause of voter apathy.

It’s a catch-22. How do we get people interested in local politics so that corruption is avoided, when the corruption is what repels them? I don’t have the answers, but I hope that it starts with an election like the one we saw in Toronto earlier this week. David Miller’s promise to clean up City Hall seemed to attract a lot of attention. If he is successful, it could rekindle interest in participation at the local level and, hopefully, increase voter turnout to non-abysmal levels.

Posted on November 13th, 2003 in canada, politics - No Comments »

After almost a year, the Toronto election is finally over. And what an election it was! We were blessed with five leading candidates who had it all: experience, notoriety, charisma, strong (and oftentimes differing) political platforms, intelligence, and a passion for the city. Hell, if we could have somehow fused the best parts of each candidate together, the resulting entity would have been an unstoppable über-mayor. Instead, we chose David Miller which, some might say, is the next best thing.

Not only were the candidates the best Toronto has seen for many a year, but we couldn’t have asked for a more exciting run-up to the mayoral vote: Tom Jakobek deciding to run in the wake of the MFP leasing inquiry, allegations that Barbara Hall started raising funds before announcing her candidacy, John Nunziata’s bribe claims, the issue of the airport expansion, John Tory attacking David Miller on highway tolls, not to mention the dozens of debates!

I’d like to take a few minutes to congratulate a few people for helping to make this election a great and interesting one. Congratulations go out to:

• David Miller, of course, for running a strong and winning campaign.
• The top five mayoral candidates for giving Torontonians the most exciting election in decades.
• The remaining 40-odd mayoral candidates for taking the incentive to run for public office.
• The following people for running informative and interesting weblogs either focusing on the Toronto election or containing numerous insightful posts about election issues:
  • Andrew Spicer both for his poignant weblog and for assisting the winning Miller team.
  • Rick McGinnis for his last chance city which featured a special series on fringe candidates.
  • James Bow.
  • David Janes.

I also want to thank everyone who tuned into my weblog during the election. Thanks to you, my web statistics have grown tremendously, peaking on Monday to levels not seen since the days of Operation Iraqi Freedom. October was a banner month, bringing in 50% more visitors than the previous record, and November looks to follow suit. I only hope that I can maintain interest without an election to feed off of.

Posted on November 13th, 2003 in ontario, politics - No Comments »

I was lamenting to a co-worker today that Canadians, by and large, do not reflect much on the significance of Remembrance Day. For most, it causes no interruption. Should you happen to be on the subway which stops for the two minutes of silence, certainly. Otherwise, you might go through the day unawares. James Bow wonders whether more should be done:

As for the people going to work, the act of stopping work (and stopping all transit vehicles to work — any chance of doing that for all cars?) is a significant gesture that one is less likely to do at home.

The aforementioned co-worker told me that everything stops in Israel during the two minutes of Remembrance Day silence. Sirens wail about the towns and all traffic halts until the silence is over — a slight inconvenience compared to the lives and youth lost by those who went to war for our freedom.

I am of two minds in this matter. On the one side, everyone should remember. It is all too easy these days to run through the day without stopping for a few minutes of contemplation. Stopping all activity would only remind people to take a moment and remember the sacrifice of those who served during war. Two minutes is not much to ask. However, those who are inclined to take the time to remember will take the time no matter what, even if it isn’t at the eleventh hour. Those who would never take a minute or two to stop and reflect would only view an imposed silence as an annoyance or an inconvenience. They wouldn’t take the time even if they were given time.

Posted on November 12th, 2003 in politics, world - No Comments »