GBlog

Tonight I’m going to take a whirl at a bit of live-blogging.  Refresh this post for updates. I’ll post in reverse chronological order (newest at the top).

8:45pm – Closing statements.  Earle (NDP) notes that Harper fell because of Contempt of Parliament, a first, and a really, really bad thing.  (I wonder why the media isn’t covering this properly.  I had to do my own research to figure out what this Contempt stuff was.)  Wells (Liberal) also mentions the Contempt. MacLellan (Green) ignored that and talked positively about himself and the Greens.

I’m worried that these parties are going to split the vote again, though.  We need to get out the vote!  One of them has to beat the Conservatives!

8:34pm – Everybody here wants to up corporate taxes again, to use the money for public programs.  Supporters of tax cuts say the cuts create jobs, but that’s not how things go down.

8:26pm – Question about children, and effectively the future of the Canadian population.  Interesting and poignant discussion.

8:13pm – Liberals and Green also have plans to make government more accountable.

8:12pm – NDP has plans to put new restrictions on PM’s ability to get prorogation – they’d need government approval if they’re trying to do it to avoid a non-confidence vote.

8:10pm – Current question’s title: The Harper Government and its Abuse of Democracy.  Had a good summary of how messed up things are right now.

8:00pm – NDP, Lib, and Green all support helping make post-secondary education more affordable (though they have different plans to go about it), and they all support Canada Post staying public.

7:35pm – All three candidates here (NDP, Lib, Green), are all for keeping the Canada Pension system working, none of this privatization nonsense.  (As a book I’m reading right now – The Paradox of Choice – notes, having to figure out all the ins and outs between tons of Pension plans as an individual is yet another stressful choice that gets piled on to us in modern society.)

7:21pm – Keddy skipped a school debate earlier today, too.

7:15pm – Keddy got booed for not being here, due to ‘scheduling conflicts’.

7:07pm – They’re still setting up.  Apparently the incumbent Conservative isn’t here.  The heck?

In general, politics are becoming increasingly negative. “Your party sucks,” as opposed to “This is why my party is good.” We have more negative campaign ads than ever these days, and they were already starting up before the election. Ideally, we should be compromising on our differences, rather than endlessly arguing with closed minds and getting nowhere.

That said, after going over my results in Vote Compass there are two major reasons why I would never vote Conservative, despite having some areas of compromise with them in other questions.

1. Human Rights

As shown in the above image, the Conservatives are the only party that strongly believes that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. All the other parties either strongly disagree or somewhat disagree. To me, this is a simple, no-grey-area human rights issue. If we are to advance the idea that monogamy is a worthwhile practice, and that two people can unite in a lifelong bond, there is no logical reason to deny this to people who happen to have a different sexual preference from the majority. Heterosexuals “damage” the institution of marriage all the time as it is, there’s no reason to think homosexuals will do any more or less damage to it.

2. Political Party Financing

Now, you might ask – why are we giving political parties our money? The answer – to keep our system democratic and fair. If we don’t give the political parties money, and if we don’t put regulations on how much money they can raise and spend beyond that, it turns into a wealth contest. The wealthiest people and/or the people with the wealthiest supporters gain the campaign edge (and keep in mind the current wealth disparity – a small amount of rich people have far more money to work with than a large amount of middle-class/lower-class people).

Personally, I’m guessing we could be giving less than we are now, and we could be further regulating the amount of money they can spend. But, as you see above, the Conservatives strongly agree that political parties should not receive any government funding. That means it would all be coming from private sources, which means the Conservatives would have a gigantic edge in campaigning, as rich people often tend to skew Conservative. And, sadly, in this era campaigns involve a lot of media blitzing and soundbites, and the people with the most money get the most coverage and the most eyeballs – we don’t want to do anything to continue further down that road.

And those are two reasons why, as things stand, I would never vote Conservative.