Ontario municipal elections

In keeping with the spirit of apparently turning Canadian political stereotypes on their heads, Toronto elected the white conservative dude to City Hall today, by a rather large margin too.

It was rather anticlimactic, given the media hype about it being a close race. The thing was not even close to close...unless 12% majorities are now considered close. I wouldn't be surprised, given Calgary also just elected a Muslim mayor. It's also currently snowing in Hell, and the Leafs will win the Stanley Cup this year. Right.

Also, whoever thought of Scantron voting...good work on the efficiency, but it robs election night of the suspense and thrill of watching votes come in. Seriously, the mayoral election was over pretty much 10 minutes into counting. So much for an interesting night.

I am, however, glad to report that one Canadian city has finally caught up, technologically, to the 20th century. This is regardless of the fact that we currently live in the 21st century.

And now, to a much more interesting race: Mississauga. Incumbent mayor Hazel McCallion has been elected to her 12th consecutive term as mayor, with a 68% majority. Polls closed at 8 PM eastern; everybody knew the result at 8 AM eastern, when polls opened. If all goes well with Hazel in her final term, she will be 93 when she finally retires, having served since 1978. As a reference, Mississauga became a city in 1974.

As with typical municipal elections, voter turnout was well below 50%. Glad to know democracy is alive and well in Canada.

A proud part of our political heritage

I was bored enough today to tune to CPAC on TV and watch, of all things, the Canadian House of Commons. Immediately I noticed several things.

There is no end to the partisan politics. If you're wondering why Parliament doesn't work, just watch the House of Commons. They're so busy attacking each other they have no time for offering up constructive ideas for new legislation. A Conservative member rose to speak for about 15 minutes, and I counted about 20 slurs on the NDP and another 10 on the Liberals. [Insert party here] is in a fantasy world; [insert party here] just doesn't get it; [insert party here] is totally ignorant of the facts, etc. etc. This is why substantial legislation (with the exception of confidence and budgetary matters) hardly ever gets passed!

Also, trivial Private Members Bills clog up the system a lot. On the order of business today was Bill C-544, An Act to amend the Health of Animals Act and the Meat Inspection Act (slaughter of horses for human consumption), "to prohibit the importation or exportation (a) of horses for slaughter for human consumption; and (b) of horse-meat products for human consumption." And I kid you not, every time an NDP member rose to speak, he or she produced a petition of a couple hundred signatures from some remote part of Canada supporting the bill, and every time, they had to read out the exact wording of the summary of the act after referencing the bill. Talk about literally beating a dead horse! Seriously, if it's unethical and unsafe to eat parts of horses, then pass the damn bill and move on!

Third, and probably most striking, was the empty chairs. I for one did not know that Canadians elected ghosts in 220 ridings. Where are all the MPs?! We elected you to work for us, so show up to work! We certainly didn't elect MPs to let them collect a 6-figure salary for showing up to work 5 days a month. Seriously, if they're going to behave like schoolchildren, then we should treat them like schoolchildren. Hell, take attendance if it's necessary to keep them in the House of Commons. And while we're at it, make these records public so everyone can see how hard their MP works. That way, if they're just there on a publicly subsidized ego trip for 4 years, at least we'll know to boot them out sooner rather than later.

Last election, 59% of us voted. Politicians keep talking about how this is a crisis and how they need to engage us better so we'll start voting again. A good place to start is working at an efficiency greater than 59%, and showing up more than 59% of the time.

Canadian history

Most historians will divide up Canadian history into little sections called eras or periods, corresponding to a major event. Nobody has really attempted to divide Canada's history into eras corresponding to their respective dominant political figure (usually a Prime Minister). That is my undertaking tonight.

Canada, fortuitiously, seems to have very defined difference between different Prime Ministerial eras. This is how, preliminarily, I have decided to re-organize Canadian history:

Sir John A. MacDonald - The birth of a nation
Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A nation defined
Sir Robert Borden - Sovereignty earned
William L. M. King - Conflict at home and abroad
Louis St. Laurent - A world leader
Lester B. Pearson - The welfare state
Pierre E. Trudeau - A redefining moment
Brian Mulroney - The rise of modern politics
Jean Chretien - A nation at odds
Stephen Harper - A house divided

Contributions with ideas would be appreciated.