VOTE!

Make it count for the long run, invest in your future, and the future of the world! Have some fun, smile more often, and VOTE!

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Birth Certificate

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I Have Faith In My Fellow Albertans

My dad was quite capable of the odd Yogi Berra type quote and his greatest all timer was during the 1995 Quebec referendum when this Irish guy who knew all of 9 or 10 words en Francais declared, “I have faith in my fellow Frenchmen!”
I feel the same way about Canadians of all languages and cultures going in to this election. There is a political crisis in Canada with Harper and his gang of lying, cheating, incompetent Americanized bumblers threatening to destroy all the institutions that Canadians have come to take for granted, to destroy the spirit of this awesome country of strong, peaceful, tolerant people. They want to change who we are, and I don’t think we are going to give them a chance to do that. And so this hard core Montrealer. who would have a hard time living anywhere permanently that did not have the French language as a soundtrack, is going to carry on the tradition of my dad and declare, “I have faith in my fellow Albertans!”
I also have a lot of faith in my fellow Manitobans, New Brunswickers, and, Lord love em, my fellow Newfies! It really is an awesome country and I am proud to be a Canadian and intend to keep it that way. In this last week of the election reach out to someone in another province and tell them that you care, that you consider them an important part of that unique and wonderful thing the world knows simply as Canada. You don’t need words and labels to do it either, it’s a feeling, and it’s always been a good one.
On May 2 Let’s take Canada back!

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Harper Casualties

Some pretty good people have been forced to step down because they were in the way of The Harper Agenda – It’s frightening to think what this list could look like after he would have 4-5 years to rule with absolute power.

Pat Stogran – Veteran’s Ombudsman – sacked for his criticism of poor treatment for veterans.

Chief Marty Cheliak – Director General of the Canada Firearms Program – sacked after defending the gun registry.

Munir Sheikh – head of Stats Can – resigned after the feds ignored his battle to keep the long-form census (my personal favorite and someone who should have received the Order of Canada).

Steve Sullivan – Ombudsman for Victims of Crime – tenure not renewed by government in 2010.

Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax offices of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (which together receive 70% of all signed complaints) closed.

Peter Tinsley – chair of Military Police Complaints Commission – had his tenure ended over Afghan detainee controversy.

Paul Kennedy – Chair of RCMP Public Complaints Commission – contract not renewed because of his defense of independent oversight of government and its agencies.

Robert Marleau – Information Commissioner – eventually resigned because of government blockage of relevant documents regarding the public interest.

Luc Pomerleau – public employee and whistleblower – fired for leaking a government memo showing threat to Food Inspection Agency.

Dr. Arthur Carty – Canada’s National Science Adviser to the PM – dismissed after advocating for evidentiary science policy.

Adrian Measner – President of the Canadian Wheat Board – fired because he stood in the way of the Conservative corporate-friendly agriculture agenda.

Justice Dennis O’Connor – had his report on Mahar Arar largely censored to avoid public scrutiny.

Alan Leadbeater – Second in Command at the Canadian Information Commissioner’s Office – dismissed after he criticized Harper government for reneging on promises to strengthen Access to Information laws.

Jean-Pieree Kingsely – head of Elections Canada – resigns after his charge that Harper government likely broke the law with its handling of donations to its 2005 national convention is stonewalled by the feds.

Linda Keen – President of Nuclear Safety Commission – fired after her agency orders the shutdown of the Chalk River reactor over public safety concerns.

See whole post on Liberal Glen Pearson’s page.

And thanks to the folks at Anything but Conservatives / N’importe quoi d’autre que Conservateur on Facebook for bringing this list to my attention.

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Shit Harper Did

After months of running attack ads in preparation for an election he claims the opposition wanted, Stephen Harper now has to face the court of public opinion on social media. The truth is very simple folks – an overwhelming majority of Canadians do not support Stephen Harper and his lyin denyin gang of cheating bumblers. This sight has had 2 million hits in less than 48 hours and it’s popularity is probably a much better gauge of where Canadians are at that any of the so regular pools can ever hope to reveal. Social media kept the world in touch with Egypt even when the internet got shut down in that country and now the whole world is watching this Harper smackdown coming at ya on May 2!

Check out the site Shit Harper Did
Like their Facebook Page

We are in grave danger of becoming the most boring western nation on the planet under Harper and these guys have brought back some sexiness into this election, brought some humour along with the facts. Elections should be about having fun and these people make me proud to be a Canadian in a way that Stephen Harper and his sad, stupid party, could never understand!

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Harper Will Destroy Canada

Indifference and apathy are playing a major role in this election as voters across the country are having a difficult time finding a leader that they can put their hopes on. You can’t blame people for wanting a “Messiah” type to come along and save us all from the big bad world, but the truth remains that none of us are perfect and neither are any of the leaders of our political parties. Perhaps we need to go back to the understanding that none of them would or could solve everything overnight, and while we ponder which one is the lesser of all evils, we may want to consider where the real danger lies.
Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party will destroy so much of Canada that even their supporters will regret having helped them get a majority. Do we want to even go there?
Harper is not an original, his whole political approach is directly patterned after the Republican Party in the United States. Following the American lead he wants to spend billions on new prisons as the Canadian crime rate continues to drop. While good for the construction industry (in Quebec we simply know that means at least 30% of rising costs will be overcharged/payola dollars coming out of taxpayers pockets) these new prisons will do nothing to make Canada a better place, nor will they have any affect on the crime rate whatsoever – it’s already going down. They want to keep prisoners in longer, a system that greatly hurts the probability of rehabilitation and redemption, while jamming the courts and parole boards with unnecessary hearings. These new prisons will bring huge new costs that will be paid for by the public. Sound good? And remember, under Harper, the wealthy and the corporations, just like in the US, will not be paying for any of these new services.
Harper and Co. are the only political party in the history of the country to have been found in contempt of Parliament. Quite simply, that should be enough for us all to be singing the “Hey hey, bye bye” song. But somehow we are moving towards being a country where the bad guys win, a country where you can lie, cheat, and as arrogantly as you can muster, deny doing anything wrong, and get rewarded. Rewarded for showing contempt for Parliament and the Canadian people! How the hell did we manage to get to that?
Harper has been running attack ads for months while claiming he did not want an election and brought it to a new low by questioning the life of an opposition leader’s father. I would love to see Michael Ignatieff in a one on one debate with Harper ask, “What made it okay to go after my family?” Again, this hate inducing marketing is all American stuff with a play from the Nazi propaganda machine – tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth. Canadians have fought and died to prevent such things from ever becoming possible in Canada, their graves are scattered across the world.
No opposition leader in the history of this country has been more in favour of coalitions being able to defeat the government than Stephen Harper. He believed for years that it was the only way to defeat the Liberals. But now that the tables have turned, he talks like a coalition would be terrible. Given how Canadians are feeling these days a coalition government might be the most accurately democratic result we could see for this election.
Harper is useless for the protection of our environment. There will be no sustainable plans coming from them, just more favours provided for oil companies, mining companies, etc, and they will change laws to make it easier for them to rape our resources while bringing nothing of benefit to the average Canadian.
Stephen Harper is probably telling a lie as I type this. He is obsessed with absolute power and is ready to destroy Canada in order to achieve his goals.
Make sure you are registered to vote, and vote for someone else.

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