Hey, B.C.DUers! Have you decided on which voting system

[Spazito]

to support in the upcoming vote? Seeing as the election is coming up awfully fast I hope everyone has studied the choices! I have decided to support the 'single transferable vote' as it reduces the power of the parties and allows a fairer chance for independents. It also makes my vote count more, imo.

Here is a link to the Citizen's Assembly on Voter Reform site for those interested:

http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public

[applegrove]

1. Anything that helps neocons get into power is bad. Long Live the

Liberals!!

[yvr girl]

2. Ah, the Liberals in BC are the conservatives

[V. Kid]

3. Okay.....

The voting system isn't what would help more of them get into power. Supposing the polls are to be believed a combined NDP and Green vote, with a PR system, would be plus 50%. Thus the Campbell Liberals (a coalition of right-wing forces) wouldn't gain re-election, then again I'm not convinced the Greens are very progressive anyways. They are on enviromental issues but what about everything else -- consider this -- their federal leader is a former Tory!!! :wtf:

[applegrove]

4. What happened to the conservative party in BC and how can we make

that happen again?

[V. Kid]

5. While it's complicated

Here's a good link describing BC's political history:

http://www.thetyee.ca/Views/2005/04/15/FeelingPolarized/print.html

Basically what happened was that the Liberal and Conservative Parties of BC allied in the 1940's to keep the CCF (the predecessors of the NDP) out of power. In a contemporary sense this means that "value voter issues" like abortion, same-sex marriage and making sure our leaders *at least pretend too* go too church aren't issues in BC. Because if they where, and these social conservatives where allowed to run amock in the BC Liberal Party (a continuation of the earlier anti-NDP coalition), the BC right would fracture and allow the NDP to govern. And since they can't allow that fracture, because it would mean an NDP victory, they run a pretty socially libertarian ship.

While one can accuse the BC Liberal Party of neo-conservative economics, one can't accuse them of being socially conservative -- even though they do have a lot of social conservatives in their midsts. So basically that's why BC doesn't have a "Conservative" party.

[applegrove]

6. Too bad we have them nationally. We must work hard to get the

message out that the new conservatives are neocons. I read an article today that said something like: "conservatives are long past being a neocon party - they are solidly progressive". And the date of this conversion? Montreal about 3 week ago.

:puke:

[iverglas]

7. greens and tories

Unfortunately, the only on-line source I can find about this is John Turmel. Yaaargh. Nonetheless, I vouch for the accuracy of his facts.

The NDP candidate in Ottawa Centre in 1984 was criticized for not going along with the demands by the Liberal and Conservative candidates that "fringe" candidates be included in debates in the local media. The only two "fringe" candidates of note were Greg Vézina for the Green Party and John Turmel for his obnoxious, loony self. Ottawa Centre is known for tight (or at least potentially tight) three-way races in recent decades.

http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel/prspol84.htm

Globe & Mail, Evelyn Gigantes letter

Orland French overlooked a few facts in his column. The Green candidate in Ottawa Centre was a delegate to the Conservative leadership convention in 1983. He supported Peter Pocklington. He's a Conservative in Green clothing.

(Anybody remember Peter Pocklington? Hockey owner billionaire of some sort, wasn't he? Went down to Brian Mulroney, I guess.)

http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel/prspol87.htm

Ottawa Citizen, Brad Evenson

The ghosts of the past came back to haunt Evelyn Gigantes at Thursday's candidates' meeting for Ottawa Centre. As in the 1985 campaign, Independent John Turmel and Greg Vezina, former Green party candidate, reincarnated in Tory blue, hammered away at environmental issues ... .

In that instance, it seemed like a pure, Macchiavellian manoeuvre by the Tories to steal NDP votes: the Greens themselves were virtually non-existent, so send in a stealth candidate to get their nomination and get him all the publicity possible -- preferably at the expense of the NDP.

(We did the same sort of thing back around 1970 on campus; there was no "Young Liberal" club, so we organized one, to get a budget from the right-wing student council so we'd have some money for the strike we were organizing against the administration for firing a professor ... a rather capital-L Liberal, as it happened ...)

But it's a long and strange relationship between Greens and Conservatives, nonetheless.


Oh look ... there's Greg Vézina again, in the 1990 Ontario election:

http://www.explore-government.com/government/O/Ontario_general_election,_1990.html

Scarborough—Ellesmere:

David Warner (NDP) 14036
(x)Frank Faubert (L) 9417
Greg Vezina (PC) 4855
Kelvin Smith (Lbt) 811

And now he's an "author, writer and political activist":
http://www.freedomparty.on.ca/freedomflyer/ff33_05.htm
and a "democracy activist".
http://www.efc.ca/pages/media/convergence.26may97.html
Snork.

The irony is strong here:

http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel/tordoll2.htm

The {Green Party} executive refused to endorse those nominations {in the 1983 provincial election in Ottawa area ridings} and Sunday night's meeting was called to resolve the issue. Vezina said the executive was opposed to what it saw as Turmel's attempt to take over the party and use it to promote his economic theories. "If someone tried to take over any party, it would try to expel him. I think people are intelligent enough to realize that. We named a candidate in the first place to try to avoid this."

(Edited; got my prov/fed elections muddled)

On the question of the Green's effect in tight elections:

http://www.newsworld.cbc.ca/election97/ridings/157.html

OTTAWA CENTRE STATISTICS

1988 General Election
Mac Harb LIB 18,096 36.46 % Mrg: 1.54 %

Mike Cassidy NDP 17,334 34.92 %

Robert Plamondon PC 13,142 26.48 %
John Dodson GRN 300 .60 %

Those Green votes themselves wouldn't quite have defeated the disgusting piece of shit Liberal candidate, but who knows what the absence of the Green altogether might have done?

And on that "what are they" question:

http://www.greenparty.on.ca/agm/agm2001/re-electfrankdejong/columns.html

Perhaps we should be green liberals. We should avoid the anarchist/smash-the-state left as well as the big union/tax-the-rich left. And we should avoid the neo-con/ social-darwinist /everyone-for-themselves right. Rather, we should be green throughout but in the flexible, supply-side /demand-side /steady-hand-on-the-tiller liberal tradition. Green economics -- with its eco-taxes and full-cost accounting -- could be called a green-liberal approach.

Yeah. Or it could just be called the same old same old. And just another attempt to steal progressive votes and manipulate people into voting against their own interests and the interests of other people who are even less well served by that old "flexible, supply-side /demand-side /steady-hand-on-the-tiller liberal tradition". Blech.

[V. Kid]

8. Here's a link:

http://www.mapleleafweb.com/election/bio/harris.html

quote:

Jim Harris was elected leader of the Green Party of Canada with an overwhelming victory in 2003. He is formerly a member of the Progressive Conservative Party. He calls himself a “green conservative” or an “eco-capitalist,” and wants to move his party away from protest and towards green politics and green economics.