Elizabeth Rhett Woods

I’m voting for Randall Garrison, the NDP candidate in Esquimalt Juan de Fuca, because I want him to be one of many NDP MPs—enough to form a government.

I’ve quaffed the heady brew of a favourable, surprising—and delightful—poll, and I’m putting my spirited hopes into effect by voting for an NDP MP, and urging everyone to do likewise.

The Harper Conservatives, in their disdain for democracy, are making the false claim that we vote for ‘a government’. We do not. We vote for 308 MPs who choose our government from amongst themselves. Traditionally, the party with the most seats gets the first crack at forming government, but the Harper Conservatives make the sleazy, fundamentally anti-democratic claim that only the party with the most votes has the right to test the House, and that a coalition government would be ‘illegitimate’. Nonsense. If 155 MPs agree to support each other; they will form government, and there will be nothing illegitimate about it.

If the Harper Conservatives don’t know this, they’re too stupid and ignorant to be trusted with government, major or minor; if they do know it (and I’m sure most of them do), they’re too cynical and manipulative to be trusted. And this is only one of the many examples of how willing the Harper Conservatives are to distort the truth—nay, to downright lie—whenever it suits them. The truth is, the Harper Conservatives don’t care what the truth is. Parliament to them is at best a tool be manipulated, and at worse an enemy to be thwarted, by any means available. Parliament to us is—or should be—the means by which we take care of each other and our society, an expression of our will, not that of the Harper Conservatives.

But enough of those shabby-minded, drably dangerous men. I’m voting for real change; I’m voting for Randall Garrison, the NDP candidate in Esquimalt Juan de Fuca. Of course, I’ve always voted NDP, regardless of the candidate’s chances of winning because I share most of their values and agree with most of their policies.

But for those who have always wanted to vote NDP, but didn’t think the Party had a chance of winning—now’s the time to vote as you really want to. For once you can vote for the NDP knowing that an increasing number of citizens feel the same way, and that if enough of you make that choice you will vote for the winning candidate; you will bring the country one step closer to real change.

Aside from anything else, wouldn’t it feel good to be part of a fundamental shift in who governs us, and how? Wouldn’t you enjoy, wouldn’t you love, broadening the political landscape, freeing yourself from the stale choice of either the power-greedy Harper Conservatives or the once-entitled Liberals, to choose the real alternative, the NDP? What a breath of fresh air that would be.

I’m serious—wouldn’t it be fun?—a glorious, heart- and soul-expanding joy to open the door to real change by voting the NDP into office? Of course, I’m biased, but the election is now far more exciting and promising than it was a week ago, before the NDP climbed up the polls into full view. Don’t let this opportunity slip away.

Vote for real change in Ottawa. In Esquimalt Juan de Fuca, I’m voting for Randal Garrison, the NDP candidate, to be our next MP.

for Allen Ginsberg

He eats cold curried chicken,
salad, whole wheat bread,
after a concert, hungry, eats it all,
and asks for seconds, his audience
imbibing beers around him, two
talking to him as he chews,
answers between mouthfuls,
emptying his plate, as they feed
on his attention, and drink
from his mind.

I call the Harper Conservatives the agents of death because of their unwavering opposition to Insite (the safe injection site in Vancouver) despite the scientific, peer-reviewed research that shows that Insite saves lives*.

The Harper Conservatives don’t care if Insite saves lives. Going by their actions, and their refusal to heed scientific evidence, the Harper Conservatives apparently think that if an addict dies from an overdose, it’s their own fault; they’ve committed the sin of being an addict, and the place for them is prison, not a safe injection site.

The Harper Conservatives think they have a God-given right to impose their narrow, vicious, ideology (one cannot call it morality, since it inflicts so much harm) on the country, and they will do so the first chance they get.

Abortion? Harper has tried to fool citizens and soothe away well-founded fears, by claiming that, even if the Harper Conservatives gain a majority, he has no intention of introducing an anti-abortion law. I believe him. He won’t introduce it; he’ll leave it to some equally despot-minded, ideologue of a Harper Conservative backbencher to introduce a private member’s bill, which, with the support of a Harper Conservative majority would do away with a woman’s right to choose.

Gay marriage? The same; it won’t be done away with by a government bill, but a private member’s bill will achieve the same end.

There’s no escaping the fact that, if the Harper Conservatives gain a majority, they will, one way or another, do away with any of our rights they disagree with, and do their utmost to kill Insite, letting the addicts die where they may, and a civil, caring society with them.

[* “Reduction in overdose mortality after the opening of North America's first medically supervised safer injecting facility: a retrospective population-based study,” Brandon DL Marshall, M-J Milloy, Evan Wood, Julio SG Montaner, Thomas Kerr, published in The Lancet, April 18, 2011.]

For an illustrated exposure of Harper’s lies go to http://compellingcomics.justsomeguy.com/CanadaVotes2011/Canada.html

One reason I’m voting for Randall Garrison, the NDP candidate in Esquimalt Juan de Fuca, is because the NDP understands that the caring for, and educating of, children (and adults) benefit not only those receiving the care and the education, but are also primary sources of the well-being of society and the economy, as a whole.

Most of this blog is about education, which is a provincial responsibility. However, as a Canadian citizen I have an interest in seeing education properly funded wherever in the country I choose to live, which means there’s a role for the federal government to play, negotiated with the provinces, of course, as has been done many times in the past. Having said this, I shall not clutter up my thesis by trying to differentiate which level should play which role in the delivery of child care and education.

I’m a senior, and I’ve never raised a child, but I’m concerned for the welfare of those younger than myself out of enlightened self-interest. The better they are cared for and educated, the better I’m likely to be cared for, if and when I should come to need it. I’m likely to be better cared for, partly because the best education reinforces nurturing and empathetic instincts, and partly because the better educated our workforce is, the better the jobs they’re likely to have, and the more taxes they’re likely to be able and willing to spend/invest on providing for their elders as well as their children.

When I say, ‘better educated’ I include trades education. And in trades education I include English, second language(s), literature, art, the sciences, and history, as well as hands-on skills and the techniques and technologies that go with them. Just because someone works with their hands doesn’t mean they’re either socially or politically illiterate—that is, without an intelligent and large world view of their own.

The NDP, because of both its principles and its history, understands this, and because of its understanding, is willing to fund the resources necessary for the best education for everyone, including adults. The NDP also understands that those social and individual benefits in turn create economic activity of all kinds, so that investments in child care and education will pay dividends in productivity and profits.

Among the resources required are smaller schools (and smaller class sizes), and rural schools, which, wherever they were closed, and wherever possible, should be restored to their communities. The NDP understands that schools are more than buildings where children are taught; a school is the heart, brains, and muscles of many communities, both rural and urban. Schools are where meetings, theatre, markets, fairs, and many other activities important to the community take place.

The idea that saving some number of dollars by closing rural schools and busing children miles and miles to a large, centralised school should take precedence over both the well-being of the children subjected to this incessant travel, and the life and activities of the communities where the schools were located, has trickled down to us from those business people (not all business people, but many of the most powerful) for whom making money is the one and only justification for undertaking any activity, whatsoever, including the arts and sciences. [More about this in a future blog.]

Whatever dollar efficiencies may be realized by centralising the delivery of education, the effectiveness of such measures for the well-being of students and parents, pedagogical and communal, is much reduced. Effectiveness for those receiving the service should take precedence over cutting the amount invested in schools because in the long run both society and the economy will prosper from stronger small and rural communities, and government revenues will correspondingly expand. [This is the ‘trickle up’ or ‘rising tide’ theory of investment ]

To summarize, I’m concerned that children be well-cared-for and well-educated because it benefits society in general, and me in particular. My welfare and that of future generations are inextricably part of the same whole. The NDP understands this, and is willing to act upon that understanding.

That’s why I’m voting for Randall Garrison, the NDP candidate in Esquimalt Juan de Fuca.

During the English-language leaders’ debate, Michael Ignatieff listed some of the evidence demonstrating the Harper Conservatives’ contempt for Parliament, including prorogation to avoid a defeat in the House (and a coalition government); and more recently, the Harper Conservatives’ refusal to tell Canadians how many billions their prisons and jet planes will cost us.

Stephen Harper didn’t deny the truth of Ignatieff’s charges (really, how could he? they’re a matter of public record), he simply refused to accept the truth. This is the mind-set of a man who believes he can order reality any way he pleases, just by saying so. I’m reminded of the Watergate tapes which recorded Richard Nixon and his henchmen playing about with various ‘scenarios’ designed to hide the truth. They, too, believed that what they said would prevail over the truth, and they almost got away with it.

When Stephen Harper says, “I don’t accept the truth,” he means, “I don’t care what the truth is.” All he cares about is repeating his lies often and insistently enough to fool enough people into voting for the Harper Conservatives to give them a majority. At which point we can kiss accountability and good government good-bye.

To the Harper Conservatives, Parliament is merely an impediment to the agenda of reducing the federal government to little more than police, prisons, the promotion of crime by expanding the ‘war on drugs’, military posturing with expensive jets, and free trade agreements of questionable benefit to Canadians.

If the Harper Conservatives get a majority, Parliament will be brought under the heel of the Prime Minister’s Office, so that it can the more conveniently be ignored. Parliament will become as dysfunctional as the Harper Conservatives can manage to make it, in their eyes existing primarily (or only), to rubber-stamp whatever oppressive legislation the Harper Conservatives see fit to impose on us.

And of course, with a majority, the Harper Conservatives will abolish public support for political parties, because the Harper Conservative know that their wealthy backers can afford to donate up to the limit for themselves and their family members, whereas the supporters of other parties do not have the financial resources to donate nearly as much (although the Liberals, as former darlings of the business classes, may eventually win back financing from that source).

Along with their many other lies, the Harper Conservatives claim that public financing forces Canadians to support political parties other than the one of their choice. However, since each party’s payment is in accordance with the votes they receive, we each direct where our tax dollars go by the party we vote for, and therefore, no one is forced to support any other party.

But the Harper Conservatives’ will continue to refuse to accept the truth in order to consolidate their grip on power, throttling democracy in the process.

This diagram belongs with the preceeding blog, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to combine it with the text, so I’ve posted it separately. It’s a bit crude, but I hope it illustrates the idea that government spending is an integral part of business activity, and vice versa. The small Body Politic between the two larger circles of government and busines is not intended to be symbolic, but is the result of trying to fit everything onto an 8 1/2 by 11 page.

Business commentators often claim that government spending removes money from the economy. The growing population of seniors and our (I’m 71) increasing health care costs are a favourite example. The Globe & Mail, in their April 9th editorial, “The six per cent coalition”, pontificated with regards to spending on health care that, “Without pressure for efficiency, the system will drag down government, and personal, budgets,”

This opinion was based on a study by David Dodge, former head of the Bank of Canada, which, apparently, showed that “health services, public and private, could eat up nearly 20 per cent of gross domestic product by 2031, up from roughly 12 per cent today.”

What does Mr. Dodge mean by ‘eat up’? Where does he think the money goes? The implication is that the billions spent on health care somehow vanish into thin air. Which is nonsense.

Government spending on health care goes, of course, into the wages and salaries of many different kinds of health care workers, into hospitals and clinics, into equipment and supplies, medicines and therapies. These are all economic activities from which hundreds of thousands of people across Canada make their living.

Does David Dodge think they’d be better employed—doing what? Where would the economy make up for the loss of even the present 12% of GDP, let alone 20%, if we suddenly became so healthy we no longer needed medical care and the workers who provide that care? What other sectors of the economy should or could absorb those no-longer employed health care workers?

Instead of ‘eating up’ GDP, spending on health care contributes to GDP.

The trouble is, too many business-minded people insist on looking on government spending only as ‘costs’, never acknowledging the benefits to themselves, and continue to regard taxes as nothing but a burden to be reduced as far and as fast as possible—for business.

Government is an essential player in the complex interweaving of the human, financial, physical, and political elements which result in the kind of economy and society we choose to live in. Tax dollars spent on medical care, education, the arts, scientific research, transportation, small-scale farming, restorative justice, and well-being (the preventive aspect of a health) bring inestimable benefits in their own right, while at the same time, underpinning almost all other economic activity, especially the most useful kinds.

Governments also provide the legislation and its enforcement which enables most business to be conducted in a peaceful, orderly, and honest fashion, most of the time. Too many business-minded people seem oblivious to this all of the time.

To be useful, money must be pooled, through taxes or savings, in sufficient quantities to invest, when it flows out into one or more other pools. Taxes are the way we citizens pool our money to provide ourselves with goods and services that many of us would find difficult to procure for ourselves and our families alone. The economy doesn’t care where the money comes from—public or private sources are all one to it.

What matters is that the money keeps moving—pooling together and flowing out, pooling together and flowing out, and that it is spent on, and invested in, by governments and business alike, on the goods and services citizens need and want, while no longer degrading the environment in the process.

Whispering truth to power? Or a misplaced goose? Any other suggestions for a title?