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I’m not sure if this is a nation wide project, or even if its province wide, but the MP’s from Edmonton and the surrounding area have been periodically sending out mail to all of their constituents. This piece of mail consists of a single sheet of paper with some Conservative Party message on it as well as a piece you can rip off and mail back to the MP with your response to the aforementioned message. I despise them.
I am actually in favor of governments letting the people know what its doing and why, but this is not what we’re talking about here. These “political messages” are merely propaganda tools. Further (and I find this insulting) they aren’t very good ones. The message I get from the Conservatives is “We don’t have to try that hard to brainwash such a simple minded public, this should suffice.”
Attacks on other parties either focus on especially weak straw men versions of the target party’s policy or they resort to slander and ad hominem attacks, which never present a political reason why they might be a poor choice for voters. Most of these messages could be replaced by the words “People who are not us are bad,” without losing an ounce of actual content.
The letters used to promote themselves are no better. Most are void of any actual policy and only vaguely refer to some ideal that Conservatives like to attach their policies to. No understanding of Conservative policy would be lost if, instead, they just sent out letters that said, “We are good, believe it!” repeatedly.
These propaganda leaflets have bothered me for some time (especially the “free” return postage, as if it is to be paid out of Conservative pockets instead of by our tax dollars, yeah right) but something odd happened that finally convinced me to write on one of these letters. I received one that actually had a piece of specific information regarding the Conservative plan for Canada: they want to repeal the faint hope clause so those who have received a life sentence will not be eligible for parole for at least 25 years. This, they say, will make Canada safer.
The last major flu epidemic killed 20 -40 million people. It was the so called Spanish Flu Epidemic. It spread rapidly throughout the population, we really did not know what hit us.
The Swine Flu has given us a many warning signs and clues to how it is going to run its course through our populations.
Children will be effected as well as adults. As always children are a particularly good transmitting and amplifying a virus as their general standards of hygiene are lower. Children are also packed together in schools and day-care facilities aiding in ease of transmission.
We have to start the planning now, as many governments have done including the Canadian government. Unfortunately this planning has revealed how critically understaffed and underfunded our system healthcare system is. The logistical requirements of merely giving a flu shot to millions of people will seriously tax our system’s resources. It must be done though as caring for all the cases of influenza will be worse if we do not vaccinate.
The CBC has an updated story on progress of the swine flu, find it here.
I’m with Mr.Broadbent on this one. Forget about changing the name. Spend the time and the effort to reach more Canadians with the NDP’s message. Let us focus on getting Harper out of power and a NDP/Liberal coalition in. The conservatives actively destroy Canada’s social programs, while the Liberals tend to do it piecemeal and quietly. We need to reestablish the idea that the government works for the People of Canada as a opposed to the just the corporate elite of Canada.
Surprisingly I found this on the global website. The full article is behind the link.
Ed Broadbent fires up NDP convention
Richard Foot, Canwest News Service: Friday, August 14, 2009
Former NDP Leader Ed Broadbent in a file picture.
Photo Credit: Brent Foster, Windsor Star
HALIFAX — Twenty years after he left the helm of the federal NDP, a greyer, more stooped, but no less feisty Ed Broadbent was back in front of his party on Friday, unleashing an angry attack on the Liberals and Conservatives and blaming them squarely for the current recession.
In an opening speech at the NDP’s national convention in Halifax, Broadbent said “the disastrous consequences” of two decades of budget cutting, tax cutting and of slashing social programs in Ottawa — accompanied by similar policies in other western countries — led directly to “last fall’s economic crisis.”
He also said Canadians should not delude themselves in perceiving a difference between the economic stewardship of recent Liberal or Conservative governments.
Hurrah! for Rocky Mountain House: (snipped from the edmonton journal)
Rocky Mountain House mayor not surprised by plebiscite’s results
Residents of Rocky Mountain House voted over whelmingly against reversing a 12-year ban on video lottery terminals on Monday.
Town citizens voted to remove VLTs from local bars and lounges in 1997. Monday’s plebiscite was held to determine if town council should ask the province to return the lottery machines to the community, located about 80 kilometres west of Red Deer.
Rocky Mountain House Mayor Jim Bague said 874 people voted against bringing VLTs to the town, while 274 voted in favour of the move.
The outcome of the plebiscite didn’t surprise him, he said.
“It’s the same people talking now as in 1997,” Bague said. “I think it’s important for the public to speak. It’s been 12 years and we’ve now let the public speak again.”
The town’s decision to uphold the ban on VLTs will continue to hurt bars in the community, because customers are going to the next town to play VLTs, said Duffers Pub manager Jim Pogson
“I’m very disappointed … We may have to lay off some girls and cut back shifts. With other businesses, it could be the end of them,” Pogson said.
The controversial plebiscite has largely seen local drinking establishments pitted against churches.
“They definitely have opinions, those in favour or opposed. They’re both figuring that it’s an important issue,” Bague said.
Six bar owners forced the plebiscite by collecting enough names — 10 per cent of the town’s 7,100 residents — on a petition. The bar owners say they are losing money to customers who go to the next town to play VLTs.
In 2009-10, the Alberta Lottery Fund expects to collect $1.5 billion in gaming revenues, including $616 million from VLTs.
The fund supports thousands of charitable, not-for-profit, public and community-based initiatives each year.
Bars reap 15-per-cent commissions from VLTs’ gross profits.
The province caps the number of machines at 6,000 and all of them are in use.
VLT’s or Video Lottery Terminals are a government cash cow to the tune of about $828.2 million a year. We as province really dig our gambling. VLT’s are addictive unecessary additions to pubs and bars accross the province. Rocky Mountain House just held a plebicite reaffirming the populations wishes to remain a VLT free community, much to the chargin of local business. This example needs to be replicated across our province as VLT’s do much to aggravate the social ill of gambling.
The CBC article sounds innocuous enough; full marks for making the pillaging of public good sound palatable.
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Privatization, as always, is still on the move in Alberta. As usual, it will be a wild success, for the private investors at the cost of the public good.
This is being marketed as a way to increase capital so Epcor can continue to expand its operations across North America. In reality though this is just another move toward privatizing a public good for the benefit of the business class.
I always find it fascinating witnessing the demarkation between acceptable and unacceptable socialism. When we talk of saving an industry or encouraging business, the media quite happily falls in line and endorses said solution. When it comes to social programs – healthcare, social services – the public sector so to speak, only then does the questioning and dissent really begin.
Recently Alberta pork producers have been hit hard by a culmination of various market factors and global concerns. The Pork industry in Alberta has shrunk dramatically and the remaining producers are requesting help from the provincial government. The government of Alberta is in the process (over 6 years) of putting some 2.5 billion dollars into the pork industry. But hard times call for more public money; to save the industry so to speak.
Contrast this with the history of severe cut backs and chronic underfunding of Alberta’s Social Services system. The demands just to alleviate the crisis in social services is 240 million dollars as of May 2008. Have the needs of the poeple been addressed in our supposedly rich province? Of course not. Public spending is rarely on the agenda here in Alberta, calls for increased social support are dismissed as frivolous and gratuitous extra spending. When it comes to oil or pork though…watch out… that is,unsurprisingly, where the priorities lay.
I think I am going to get this book. This review makes me think this work is along the same lines as much of Noam Chomsky’s work.
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bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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