Thank you MPs May and Valeriote

Thank you Mr. Valeriote and Ms. May,

I’ll be the first person to admit that I have not voted Liberal, nor do I intend to in the near future, but I greatly appreciate the actions you are taking by supporting the actions being taken to block the budget implementation bill (bill C-38) in parliament. 

The Conservative Government attempt to put through one budget bill that re-write or eliminates 68 other bills is unethical and exemplifies a style of politics that turns people off of government. Opaquely trying to change the way we care for our seniors, protect our environment and take care of those among us who are unable to take care of themselves will not encourage more Canadians to help solve problems. Changing the will of a majority government is nearly impossible, but doing nothing show Canadians that politics doesn’t matter. 

I believe that politics does matter. I believe our politicians should act in a way that encourages reasonable debate before taking action. I believe that by supporting the hundreds of amendments that are being created for bill C-38, you are showing that you are willing to make politically risky decisions in order to do the right thing. 

Thank you. 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/opposition-aims-to-disrupt-passage-of-omnibus-tory-budget-bill/article2446013/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Politics&utm_content=2446013

Unethical, lying, cheating Conservative Party

I am for smart, conservative fiscal party. I am for having a government that stays out of my personal life. I am for a government that protects the oppressed and gives voice to the disenfranchised. I am for a government that is willing to make difficult or unpopular choices now that will benefit my family for generations.

It has become shockingly, egregiously clear that the Conservative Party of Canada is the antithesis of that.

Here are some quotes from the last month or so of news:

On changing the definition of EI:
"There is no bad job. The only bad job is not having a job." - Finance Minister Flaherty
Response: Why not create a system where skilled workers have easier access to skilled jobs, as opposed to pushing them into minimum wage, low-skill or poor work environments? Won't this create the next major brain drain?

On cutting the National Round Table of the Environment
 “It should agree with Canadians. It should agree with the government. No discussion of a carbon tax that would kill and hurt Canadian families.”" - Environment Minister Kent
Response: Government agencies should only create reports, research and knowledge that agree with the government and Canadians? I'm not 100% sure what this means, but it seems to be supporting a culture where we are looking for the easiest and expedient solution, not the best one.

On pushing through the 475 page budget implementation bill without amendments and minimal discussion
“We see the results of delay and inaction in Europe today so I encourage the opposition to be wary of counterproductive political theatre at this serious and fragile time.”  - Finance Minister Flaherty
Response: This bill rewrites 68 other pieces of legislation that have no linear connection to the budget. The Conservative Government limited debate to seven speaking days. If we want to change the way we discuss and protect the environment in this country (as is severely changed in this bill), why not allow some room for a national conversation between our elected leaders?

On breaking Election law in 2006
"Every single Conservative accused of wrongdoing has been cleared today," spokesperson Fred DeLorey
Response: The Conservative party made a plea bargain admitting their guilt in spending more money than was legally allowed in the election, how is anyone involved cleared of wrongdoing?

And More..
A computer in the Guelph Conservative 2011 campaign office has been identified as the computer that ordered the infamous Guelph robocalls disenfranchising voters.
Our International Development Minister, Bev Oda, upgraded to a very upscale hotel in London, England at unacceptable cost to taxpayers. 
Our Defence Minister has been caught lying to Parliement twice about the cost of both the F35's and the military's mission in Libya.

Action you should take:
If you share the values I expressed above, the next time we face an election: Look for the party that shares those values with you. It's become clear it isn't the Conservatives.

 

2 cents on GPO Strategy for Kitchener Waterloo by-election

There's lots of conversation about what the GPO should do with the upcoming by-election in KW. Here are some thoughts:

Assumptions
-No matter the results of this election, the balance of power in Queens Park will stay the same
-It's likely that the Liberal candidate will be the significant frontrunner, given polling data and the demographics of the riding
-Due to problems with financial filings from many years ago, the GPO has not been allowed to establish a CA in KW.
-The First Past the Post Voting system is a fundamental problem in our democracy, but is nearly impossible to make a campaign issue out of and can realistically only be addressed by a party in power.

Idea:

• Find a credible candidate in KW (maybe growing on the credible candidate tree?). This is likely to be challenging but not impossible.
• Raise a ton of money from around the province to get a 75K+ campaign pulled together
• Recruit volunteers from London, Hamilton and Guelph to knock doors
• Recruit volunteers from around the province to make calls
• #Bebold with the ideas we talk about. Unabashedly be ourselves in what we represent
• Regularly complete internal polling on progress in the election

Then...if we show growth up to 15ish percent of the both and begin to appear threatening to the Liberal candidate, negotiate that they table a bill BEFORE election day putting proportional representation forward, have it be something that the NDP would likely support. We then dial down our campaign and maybe even suggest our voters vote Liberal. 

Potential Results:

-A significant issue moves forward, fundamentally changing democracy in Ontario

-We identify thousands of supporters in KW that we can hopefully eventually engage (incrementally)

-Backlash from media/voters over not just straightforwardly running to win

-Develop a reputation for putting solving problems ahead of winning

Walman Dr. Street Party: A VERY good day!

The Walman Dr. Street Party happened yesterday, and by any measure it was a success:

-The new Deputy Police Chief came and played about an hour and a half of road hockey

-Neighbours who came to complain about the street being closed or about students ended up staying for a hamburger and to chat

-Around 25 students came out

-Many families came, with about 20 kids

-Students from the University ran a few great activities for kids 

-Students from Katimavik helped with a craft reminding people about Earth Hour

-The Guelph Environmental League had their Earth Hour runner came through to promote Earth Hour

-Mostly: A lot of people who would not otherwise have met came out, grabbed a bite to eat, play a game or two and got to know eachother a little bit.

For anyone that asks me how to grow their volunteer organization, or how to make a small difference in the world, I can't recommend one of these enough. The total cost was less than $500 and it probably took around 20 hours of planning (mostly canvassing the neighbourhood to get support for closing the road).

The difference between Voter Suppression and other Robo Calls

There appears to be a lack of clarity about what defines an act that violates our basic right to participate in an election under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and what is a dirty political trick. This is a VERY important distinction, as the latter is a type of politics that people should be ashamed of (as practiced by the last campaign for Frank Valeriotte) and the former is illegal.

The Mercury does a good job of explaining something MP Valeriotte's campaign did that was legal but something I would say is wrong in our system in this article. Essentially, his campaign sent out a voice message to thousands of people in Guelph informing them that Marty Burke (the Conservative candidate) opposed abortions. Nowhere in this message did his campaign choose to identify that the message was coming from the Liberal candidate. This type of negative attack designed to prey on emotions of voters with personal statements turns many people off of politics and acts as a barrier to participation from community members who would make strong community leaders, but is only a minor violation of the Elections Act (the Elections Act requires all campaign advertisements to have a statement saying who paid for it).

I can't find an article from the local paper outlining the severity of what the Conservative Party (allegedly) has done, so I'll refer back to previous blog posts: The voice messages (robocalls) sent out to thousands of people on election day sending them to the wrong polling station, purporting to be from Elections Canada, were a blatant attempt to keep people from voting. This is one of the few things in life we can count on as being blatantly illegal.

Elections Canada is investigating, aided by the RCMP. The Government of Canada needs to be urged to set up their own independent investigative body, much like the Gomery commission. This should not be done because it is easy, but because it is right.

Full disclosure: As the manager for the Green Party campaign for John Lawson in this election, we used a telecommunications company for polling, a telephone townhall and robocalls. Our robocalls were used to invite people to events, remind them to vote and then one was sent in response to the suppression call to let our supporters know that the voting locations had not changed. The company we used was Solusone, I believe they are based out of Vaughan, Ontario.

Conservative MP gives key Robo Call information away

http://www.hilltimes.com/news/politics/2012/03/06/voter-identification-massive-job-central-conservative-campaign-gives-voter/29964

For those who don't know the ins and outs of national campaigns in Canada: There is a nationally coordinated campaign run by the 'central' party, this is supplemented with local campaigns. Big expenses, such as: advertising, leaders tours, etc. tend to be paid for by the central campaign as they have a much larger budget and spending allowance. In the case of at least the NDP and the Green Party, all supporter identification is handled locally and is one of the goals of all the phone calls and door knocking that occurs during an election.

In this article, MP Velacott is stating that the Conservative Party centrally coordinates and pays for all of the supporter identification done over the phone, to the point where local campaigns are not given the phone lists of their ridings (made available by Elections Canada to each Party and campaign).

If what he says is accurate, then any phone calls made to Guelph (and any other riding) were coordinated by the Central campaign and not a 23 year old recent University Graduate who is so far the only person to have any kind of accountability for the voter suppression that took place.

We need Elections Canada, our elected representatives and our friends in the media to get to the bottom of who organized and paid for these calls. Attempting to suppress fundamental Canadian rights needs to result in consequences that will deter any politician from taking these actions again.

Thank you Guelph Mercury!

I think the title of this Guelph Mercury editorial misses the mark, but otherwise am appreciative that they posted! Encouraging people to write letters to media and providing a template for those who are not confident or for those who want to have a starting position doesn't strike me as inherently evil and I'm proud to be a member of a group encouraging our community to take action! Our email list also differs from a robocall in that anybody can opt out of it at any time.

So let's not lose focus: the Conservative Party has been caught suppressing the vote and violating our rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Let's encourage Elections Canada to quickly get to the bottom of this and help our media ensure that the process is fair, equitable, and doesn't let the Conservative Party spin machine turn this into a story about dirty tricks. If you feel strongly about this, I continue to urge you to write to the media outlets or elected officials listed in my previous post (using the template provided or not).

Update: It's worth noting that they attribute the letter to the Green Party of Canada, while in fact it was from the local Guelph Green Association.

#Robocalls: Take action

It's become increasingly clear that actions were taken to suppress the votes of Canadians, in Guelph and allegedly in other ridings in the 2011 Federal Election. Don't let some media outlets spin this as a story about "crank calls" or "bad politics". This was an illegal act that violated our charter rights. The Guelph Green Party has just distributed an email to it's supporters urging them to contact your local media and elected officials to demand that the incident be treated with the severity it deserves. The person/people/organization responsible for attempting to mislead Guelph voters must be found and held accountable.

Write a letter or email to the following media outlets:

The Guelph Mercury: editor@guelphmercury.com.
Toronto Star: lettertoed@thestar.ca
CBC (editorial): yournews@cbc.ca
Toronto Sun: http://www.torontosun.com/letter-to-editor
National Post: http://www.nationalpost.com/contact/letters/index.html?name=Letters&subject=Letter+to+the+editor
Globe and Mail:  letters@globeandmail.ca

Update:  If you'd like to tell the Guelph MP Frank Valeriote what you think, contact him at: Frank.valeriote@parl.gc.ca

For a template letter/email to the editor, you can use this if you would like.

Another impact of the robo calls

We're at the point where it's been proven that the Conservative campaign for Marty Burke knowingly worked to suppress voter turnout (see: bit.ly/wvr5kb for the latest).

So here was a question I was discussing over the weekend: Is it possible that these calls may have prevented the Green campaign for John Lawson from getting 10% of the vote? This is a significant number, as the Lawson campaign would receive a rebate of around $27,000. Any amount less than 10% of the vote and the campaign does not receive that rebate.

As this investigation continues, it will be interesting to learn who the Burke campaign was targeting. If these calls went to people that the Conservative campaign identified as Liberal and Green supporters, then I wonder if it is possible to prove that the Green's would have earned their campaign rebate?

For a look at the numbers, visit Election Canada here: http://elections.ca/scripts/ovr2011/default.html. Essentially, the Green campaign would have needed 2,191 more votes to reach 10% of the total turnout in the May 2011 election.

CTV reporting on the robocalls

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120223/robocalls-tories-politics-elections-120223/

There's a comprehensive series of stories covering the Conservative robo-call voter suppression into 18 ridings in Canada. PM Harper states that there may have been "rogue" elements of his party that organized this act of disenfranchising Canadian voters.  From this list of names attached to the company that made the phone calls, here are potentially some campaigns that contain those "rogue" elements (names listed from invoices to Rack9, available on my previous blog post):

Campaign to elect Stephen Harper - Calgary Southwest 

Campaign to elect Rona Ambrose - Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women
Campaign to elect Jason Kenney - Calgary Southeast - Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism
Campaign to elect Ryan Hastman - Edmonton Strathcona
Campaign to elect Leon Benoit - Vegreville—Wainwright
Campaign to elect Laurie Hawn - Edmonton Centre
Campaign to elect Lee Richardson -  North Battleford
Campaign to elect Devinder Shory - Calgary Northeast

Uh Oh: Proof that the Conservatives organized robo-calls on election day in "swing ridings"

For the full read of the gory details: http://www.scribd.com/sfharris/d/82589631-Payments-to-RackNine-from-local-Conservative-Campaigns

But it boils down to: Steven Harper's campaign, the campaign of many cabinet ministers and other Conservatives paying the company Racknine for GOTV calls on Election day to "Swing" ridings. This is not very many steps away tying the Prime Minister Office and central Conservative campaign directly to voter suppression.There is one email in particular about halfway down about some confusion about payment for robo-calls into swing ridings, notable because a) The voter suppression calls were made in to swing ridings and b) the email is from STEPHEN HARPER'S CAMPAIGN MANAGER IN CALGARY.

So, what happens if we find out that leaders in the Conservative party actively suppressed the vote of Canadians?

Guelph 2011 Federal Election Robo-Call fraud

On election day way back in May of 2011, robo-calls were placed to an an unknown number of voters in Guelph, informing them that their voting location had changed.

That sentence may seem innocent, but it isn't by any measure.

First things first: A robo-call is an automatically recorded voice message that is sent to your phone. If you pick up, it gives the message directly to you. If your answering machine picks up, it leaves a message. Odds are you have received one at some point.

Secondly: Voting locations had not changed. These calls created mass confusion for all campaigns. Anecdotally this particularly affected the Green campaign for John Lawson (disclosure: I was the manager) and the Frank Valeriotte Liberal campaign. Voters were showing up to locations that were not voting stations and then not having the time or patience to go to the correct location to vote.

Finally: An investigation has now linked the calls to a company that primarily contracts out work to the Conservative Party of Canada:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/22/racknine-inc-fraudulent-election-calls-traced/
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Elections+Canada+investigating+robocalls+that+misled+voters/6194146/story.html
If this turns out that there is one or two independent malicious/evil individuals who were doing there best to prevent Canadians from completing their civic rights then the odds are there will be significant consequences to those individuals and the story will die.

However...this could become the story of Conservatives bringing the ugliest possible side of American-style attack politics to Canada. This could turn into the story where the conservative party is connected to these calls in some way. The Conservative Party of Canada denies involvement: https://twitter.com/#!/davidakin/status/172525793229012992

Let's hope that our governing party and Prime Minister are not connected to actions that most Canadians will find reprehensible. I believe that all of us would agree that elections (and governance) should be about engaging as many Canadians as we possibly can in a discussion about what is best for us. Not lying and manipulating people out of the process.

Students: This isn't helping

Walman Drive: 8:20am Friday February 3rd

If you are a University of Guelph student, you probably didn't do this. You probably have never been out with anyone or a group that has done anything like this. But: Guess what? You just got blamed. The owner of this car is likely to come out of their house, see their vehicle and immediately feel a moment of anger about students living in their neighbourhood. It might not even have been a student, but there's a pretty good chance that this happened between midnight and 8 this morning and most non-students are asleep in that time frame. The people that live on this street year round probably don't like the idea of having to walk through garbage to go to work and have a very easy time making the assumption that someone would have to feel like they don't live their to do something like this.

If you're out with someone doing something this stupid: Maybe ask them to stop? If you see a mess like this, maybe proactively get out there and help clean up? Leave a note on this house saying how frustrating it is that actions like this make it difficult for students and permanent residents to form a sense of community. 

I'm confident that we can do better than this. If you're looking for a way to positively contribute to your community, why not check out Winterfest this weekend? You can sign up to help through Reg on the university website, or you can just check out the city's information page and just show up. Choose to be a great neighbour, we can make this a better community.

City Getting it Wrong?

In today's Mercury, Scott Tracey reports on Guelph's city council deciding to change course on their approach to the "rental housing challenge." The article describes how we are going from a by-law that wasn't working, restricting the number of lodging houses and accessory apartments (places where students usually live in high numbers) and moving towards a system where these types of residences will be licensed.

I'm not convinced that either of these approaches deal with the issues in our neighbourhoods. We have the opportunity, as a community, to help a generation learn how to be good neighbours, good community members and engaged adults. I would love to hear about how individual councilors are working towards fostering relationships between students and permanent residents, perhaps even creating a culture where students want to stay in Guelph post-graduation and create jobs/industries that will last through the 21st century.

Assuming that Mr. Tracey's article accurately reflects the meeting that occured, it is unfortunate that councillors (particularly in Ward 5 and 6) aren't talking about the actions they are taking with their friends, neighbourhood groups and constituents to pro-actively frame "rental housing challenges" as an opportunity to make Guelph a better place to live. Continuing to focus on how we can better regulate our landlords and police our student community members does not seem like a sustainable, long-term solution.

Block Party!

It's been a while since my last post, so I thought I'd write a quick update on my latest project: Organizing a block party with the Hanlon Creek Neighbourhood Group (HCNG).

I'm a big fan of leaders identifying problems and working with a group of people to fix them. We have a problem in many South-Guelph neighbourhoods of some students not acting like good neighbours. These students create a terrible reputation for students in general, as demonstrated by the media's framing of many stories this year (see some of my previous blog posts).

In an effort to help students build relationships with their neighbours, I asked the board of the HCNG if we could plan a street party that would help bring them together with activities for families during the day and get-to-know you stuff at night. The board enthusiastically supported the idea and we've been moving forward for about a month.

Unfortunately, we have discovered that things are a little bit worse than we thought. The first street that we canvassed to gauge interest gave us a resounding "NO WAY." They assertively expressed that they had no interest in getting to know the students who had been making their lives difficult.

We're working to see if there are other streets in our neighbourhood that are interested, but it's too bad that things in this part of the city have gotten this bad. I hope we find a location for the event, that a handful of people come and that we start building a culture of pro-actively building relationships with students to help them learn how to be good neighbours.