#elxn41

Cambridge Green party candidate Michele Braniff writes:

I want to share why I have been voting Green all these years; why I joined the Green Party and why I am proud to be running as a Green Party candidate. The Green Party offers a practical and hopeful vision for Canada and it begins with the Green Party vision on social policy and open government. I believe it is insulting to hear voters addressed as taxpayers. It is time for political discourse to speak to voters as citizens. The Green Party does! I believe that it is insulting to hear about a haphazard collection of small tax concessions and rebates and about regional investment in conservative ridings. It is time for a bold and inviting vision for Canada as a nation based on Canadian values. The Green Party offers that kind of vision. I find it extremely patronizing and condescending to hear political messages that are full of rhetoric, without logic or science and that incite fear. It is time for policies and laws that are based on evidence, science, and the expertise of those who have lived experience, track records in the field at the front-lines, acknowledged experts, scientists and Canadians who know exactly what needs to be done and how to do that. The Green Party has an evidence-based practical plan. Vision Green is bold and is based on listening to and speaking on behalf of Canadian communities at the grass root level. This is a party which has a practical plan for a sustainable economy, opportunities for green energy and respect for small business. Remember that small business has always been the driver of the Canadian economy, especially in tough economic times when the “too big to fail” businesses were seeking government assistance. The Green Party has a plan for fair taxes and a balanced budget based on true-cost accounting. The Green Party is ready to repair, rebuild, restore and improve Canadian infrastructure. The Green Party has the courage, knowledge, collaborative skills and commitment to work across all levels of government and with business and ordinary people. The challenges facing our nation are complex. Petty attack ads, sound-bites and fear-mongering will not give us the depth nor the trust-filled sharing we need to work together for a shared future full of hope. I traveled across the country at Easter time by VIA. My plan was to travel from Brantford to Toronto and to Vancouver by rail; however, a freight train derailment in northern Ontario closed the railway and so I flew to Winnipeg. There were many delays. VIA does not have its own track. The railway is the very first shared vision and infrastructure project of Confederation and is an important metaphor of Canadian history and Canadian unity. The Green Party supports a rebuilding of the railway and the development of a national transportation strategy. My train trip in the spring let me see the greening of the nation as I traveled west from cold and ice towards the cherry blossoms in Vancouver. This election promises a Greening of the nation as the Green Party captures the hope and imagination of the nation from Vancouver Island east, north, and west.

Stumbled across this post by @saskboy expressing his displeasure with the speed at which the robocalls investigation is playing out. From the post [emphasis his]:

A report to Parliament a full two years after a serious crime that calls the legitimacy of our government into question? What priority is higher than determining our lawmakers are legitimately elected?

In some ways, I wish us Guelphicans weren't ground zero so Elections Canada could "investigate" a riding where the Liberals aren't as safe as a Kennedy in Massachusetts, but that might be too close to actually solving a problem.

I think it's time to say that these projects are not politically sophisticated enough to get their calls correct, and while they get a lot of people engaged in our democracy, which I can't ever be opposed to, they do so under false pretenses: namely that you can know the outcome in a riding ahead of time, and game the system to your own ends...

Your vote is your opportunity to express your point of view. Don't let others try and divert it for their purposes, and don't believe strategic voting snake oil salesmen and soothsayers. They actually have no idea which way a riding is going to go, nor what is the best way to vote to stop that.

Depending on how one looks at the outcome of the vote, either everything changed on May 2 or almost nothing at all. There is now a Conservative majority, the NDP are the official opposition, the Liberals have fewer seats than the NDP had in the last parliament, and the Bloc has been reduced to near-irrelevance. Oh, and there’s Elizabeth May. From the perspective of practical consequences in the House of Commons, then, this has been a momentous election.