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Wednesday, October 5, 2011

On Canadian Politics

I see some international readers here, so I'm going to try to explain some political terminology for you. Brits will not have a problem; the British and Canadian political systems are the same, with the exception of the labour-oriented party being called the rather more obvious Labour in the land of hope and glory, and the "New Democratic Party" here in the colonies.  You Yanks, however, probably didn't understand my last rant; maybe you understood it, but you didn't understand it (Stranger in a Strange Land fans will understand me when I say grok).  So, for all you mad Americans, here's the Complete Idiot's Guide to Canadian Politics.

In Canada and Britain, we don't directly elect what you call your President, and we call our Prime Minister.  Instead, the composition of our Parliament determines the All (Actually, Not-So) Powerful Head Honcho.  Actually, even though most of you Merkins don't know this, you use a similar system, but your guys (called Electors, obviously enough) aren't involved in the political process beyond... d'uhhhhhh... elections.  Our system is a bit more simple, and it runs kinda like this: you place your vote for the political candidate of your choice, who represents your area (riding) in the House of Commons.  You Yanks call it the House of Representatives.  In other words, our Presidential and House elections take place at the same time.  The leader of the party who wins the election becomes the Prime Minister.  

In Canada, there are three real political parties, just like in the greatest of Britains (yes, I do mean Great Britain, how could you tell?): the Liberals, the Conservatives, and the New Democrats, aka the N.D.P.  Our Liberals are even more liberal than your Democrats, our Conservatives are like your Republicans with the one exception that they are secular (I see a lot of religious rhetoric with your Republicans, so much so that I doubt there even is a separation of church and state), and the N.D.P. which is kind of like your Democrats, but they are pro-labour unions and such (basically about the closest you'll get to a Communist party).  Oh, yeah, and we're not afraid of the word agenda.  If a party doesn't have agenda (in other words, a list of things it wants to do), is it even a party?

Honestly, what's with that word being such a nasty word in America?!  To me, saying "we don't have an [sic] agenda" means saying "we don't have a list of things to do".  Are you saying you're going to make decisions off the cuff without planning them, or are you saying you're not going to make any decisions at all?  Wait, wait... you mean you don't have any hidden agenda... why didn't you say so?  Oh, yeah, and the word agenda is masculine plural, like fora or asyla, not feminine singular like alumna or amnesia.  Saying an agenda is like saying an buttons or an zippers.  Learn some Latin, guys.  Figure it out.  (Oh, by the way, masculine plurals take their singular with um, so agenda, agendum; fora, forum; and asyla, asylum.  Feminine singulars take their plurals with æ, so alumna, alumnæ; amnesia, amnesiæ.  If I don't correct you, you'll never learn; by the way, unless you mean a form of salt, there is no such thing as an alum.)

So, here are the agenda of each political party, stated as accurately as possible:

Conservatives:
  • historically supported marriage defined as between one (1) man, id est a male specimen of Homo sapiens, and one (1) woman, id est a female specimen of Homo sapiens;
  • historically (and occasionally presently) supported fœtal abortion when medically or socially necessary;
  • support the (futile) war on drugs, but not to the extent of the Republicans;
  • (federally) support national defence;
  • (federally) support the lowering and possible removal of the Goods and Services Tax (which was actually instituted by Conservative Prime Moron, Brian Mulroney);
  • (federally) support the highly sensible idea of two-tier health care;
  • when money is needed, the Conservatives prefer austerity over raising taxes
  • (in Ontario) support the removal of the Harmonised Sales Tax from certain items
  • (in Ontario) support the closure of fossil-fuel power plants
  • (in Ontario) support clean energy that is proven to be reliable (such as nucular, hydroelectric, natural gas).
  • (in Ontario) support the sensible plan to make prisoners actually work and not stay at Her Majesty's Pleasure Hotel with cable TV and weight-lifting facilities.
  • (in Ontario) support making so-called smart meters for electricity usage optional - a smart meter is a device that meters not only the amount of electric power used, but also the times of day electricity is used, giving discounts for off-peak usage, and marking up on-peak usage.
  • (in Ontario) support ankle bracelets for high-risk criminals, a public online registered sex offender database, and a public online database of homes used as clandestine locations for the production of cannabis and methamphetamine.
Further explanation is needed here.  The Conservatives support the war on drugs, but you can buy needles and syringes over the counter, and you can even get them for free in some places; head shops operate openly, and a bong is a bong, a pipe is a pipe; and there is a drug-use facility in downtown Vancouver that operates with impunity.  Two-tier health care means that the National Health Service, also known as Medicare, still operates, but if you want to "jump the line" at your doctor's office or especially at an M.R.I. or other specialist clinic, you can pay a modest fee (this is illegal at present).  In Ontario, smart meters are mandatory, which forces those less fortunate to (for instance) shower before seven in the morning or do laundry after midnight.  Meth. lab./grow op. registries are currently considered a municipal responsibility; therefore, the case is such that the federal capital city of Ottawa has such a registry, as well as the small town of Guelph, but the provincial capital city of "Tronnuh" (Toronto) does not.    In general, the Conservatives are best for what is called the middle class: those who engage in, and benefit from, organised labour.

Liberals:

  • support individual rights (regardless of morality) such as marriage defined as between two people and elective abortions;
  • support the generation of a budget surplus (by any means necessary);
  • support the environment at the expense of the individual;
  • support (sensibly, I might add!) the legalisation of marihuana;
  • historically have had some excellent leaders, but recently are a shell of their former selves; Chrétien, Martin, Dion, Ignatieff (the worst out of the bunch!), and now Rae!
  • support restoration of the long form of census, which, as I remember it, was one of the most tedious and useless pieces of paperwork I ever wiped my arse with;
  • support 
  • support taxation (introduced the damn Harmonised Sales Tax in five provinces... godawful thing for those of us that actually use services and not just buy goods)
This last issue is why I hate the God-accursed Liberals.  The federal Goods and Services Tax (this was introduced by a Conservative I hate just as badly as Iggie, and his name is Brian Mulroney) applied, as its name says, to goods (like coffee makers, sofas, computers, and telephones), as well as services (like haircuts, blow jobs, and carpet cleaning).  The Provincial Sales Tax applied only to goods.  Harmonising the sales taxes has done nothing but suck money out of people's wallets.  "Unless you are among the 15 per cent of families with an income under $10,000 a year, you’re paying more sales tax under the HST than you would under the PST/GST: On average about $350 per family." Thus concluded an independent report paid for by the government of British Columbia; and thus conclude your facts.

I don't deal in facts; I deal in accuracy.  Basically, this has been the song played by Dalton "Tax Man" McGuilty's government since it was elected: when campaigning, keep saying the words "no new taxes" till they believe you.  Then, the Tax Man spends taxpayer money on a thesaurus, looks up the word tax, and then calls whatever tax he's instituting by a synonym.  Right, if you don't call it a tax, it isn't a tax.  But the fucking HST takes the God damned cake for unfairness.  Let's not just create a new tax, let's bias it towards the people that actually do work!  Not even the rich, because making $25,000 a year isn't rich, it's barely surviving, but basically everyone except the homeless, those who make their money by criminal means, and the underclass, is taxed!  They should have called it the fucking Affirmative Action Tax.

And, now, the New Democratic Party.  They're as close to the Commies as there will be; in other words, tax everybody fairly, but give out money fairly too.  I like them; they're like the Liberals, but a damn sight more honest.  They used to have shit leaders, and the whole party was shit, but when our dear Jack Layton, God bless his soul, faced off against Iggie, he said those six magic words: together, we can make a change.  Together, we did make a change, and let's just say that when Jack came in second, every God damn M.P. in the NDP that got his seat shat his pants when he heard.  I wonder what the liquor bill came to at the Liberal party headquarters.

So, here's what I want.  I want Hudak (the head honcho of the Conservatives) to win.  But I want them to win less than half the seats (this is called a hung Parliament, for you Americans, because the so-called winners get to hang themselves from Parliament's joists, as they're outstripped by the other two parties, who are REALLY the winners), the rest to be made up of (what's that Polack's name... uhh, wait, that OTHER Polack... Horwath, that's it) NDP and (God help, but it's a necessary evil) Liberals.  That way, we get the benefits of both... we get the pro-unionist, pro-work, and pro-weed legislation put forward by the New Democrats, and we get the (fucking finally!) tax cuts and austerity measures from the Conservatives.  The Liberals get to breathe oxygen from the atmosphere and emit greenhouse gasses from their mouths and arseholes, and we get to finally ignore them.  Sounds like a nice deal to me!