electoral reform

I was on holiday for three weeks in February and March. At home I have a routine of watching, listening to and reading the news, but when I’m on holiday (especially out of the province and country) that obviously goes out the window. The only item of international news that really came to my attention during that trip was the despicable way in which the leader of a country at war (and who had been invaded by a hostile foreign force, to be clear on how the war started) was treated by the leader of a country that isn’t, but was supposed to be an ally against a common foe, America’s traditional enemy of Russia. Those countries are Ukraine and the United States respectively, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy and donald trump respectively. It blew my mind. Shortly afterwards I was sent the following — obviously (and sadly) — doctored video of the meeting.

I say “sadly” because the dickhead trump deserves someone standing up to him forcefully like that, but I appreciate the situation Zelenskyy is in. I don’t envy him.

But besides that one issue, I had a great, relaxing holiday, with family (including new family) and friends, apart from the eerie feeling that I was missing something.

And I’m back, which means I’m back to blogging, after taking a break for several weeks after returning — apart from the emergency post I had to do a few days ago about how democracy was cast aside in Canada by the Leaders’ Debates Commission. I have a backlog of things about which to pontificate, so here we go.

How should I vote in the Canadian election?

After swearing that he was the guy to take on the Conservatives and Pierre Poilievre in the next election, Justin Trudeau finally read the writing on the wall and quit as leader of the Liberal Party. Until then I had predicted that the Tories would wipe the floor with the Liberals and win a majority government. In fact, I also predicted that the Liberals would be reduced to rump-party status. That was as obvious as the nose on my face, as anyone who has watched Canadian federal elections would note, so I’m not suggesting that I’m particularly astute. Trudeau, with all of his learning at the knee of his father, was unbelievably short-sighted to have ignored said writing on the wall but, even more importantly, he was derelict in not seeing the writing on the southern wall, that being that donald trump would be (and then was in November 2024) elected president of the United States and that we’d be in a trade war on day one! I mean, yes, how could any reasonable person have predicted the extent of it — especially considering we were and currently are in a free-trade agreement with the United States! — but with such a controversial president on the doorstep of the White House, we all knew well in advance of 20 January 2025 that Canada needed a new government with a new prime minister to take on the incoming bellicose American government, and Trudeau let down the country by not stepping aside weeks or months earlier.

And thanks to the fact that the new Liberal Party leader is a serious person — the former head of the banks of Canada and England, as opposed to a former drama teacher who always seemed as if he was competing in a speech-giving contest — the fortunes of the Liberal Party have done a U-turn! If they hold out until the election at the end of this month, that will be good for Canada. I don’t know how anyone can take seriously a career politician who sounds like donald trump’s clone — and I’m not just taking that opinion from the Liberal Party election advertising, I’m taking it from how Poilievre has always been known as the Conservative Party’s “pit bull” in the House of Commons — or who won’t take questions from anybody but hand-picked journalists who are fed questions by his handlers. (Have you seen how Poilievre so rudely handles journalists that step out of line and out of his cage?!) Canada would be in a world of hurt if he becomes prime minister.

And about his “pen” of hand-picked journalists at his press conferences, announcements, rallies, etc. We’ve seen at least one try to push the boundaries of their limits, and he branded her a “protestor”! There was anther time when journalists tried to shout out follow-up questions, and they were drowned out by their handlers who erupted into applause specifically to drown them out! These are people employed by the media to elicit information from people who want our votes! So they are effectively telling Canadians, “We don’t want to hear any questions from you. It’s just your job to do what we, the Conservative government/party, tell you to do. Without any questions, follow-up or not.” Even if I supported any of Pierre Poilievre’s policies, that behaviour right there would make me withdraw my vote. It’s arrogance in the extreme.

But back to my heading: How should I vote? Back before I grew a brain, I voted Conservative in my first election in 1988, when Brian Mulroney continued as prime minister, and the election issue was Free Trade with the United States. But since that election my knowledge of and thinking about Canadian elections have changed significantly. Let me fast-forward to 2015, when Justin Trudeau promised that the 2015 election that he won would be the last Canadian federal election run using the first-past-the-post method; that’s the foremost issue on my mind when I vote now, in both Federal and Provincial elections. As such, I now vote for underdog parties, simply as a statement of my dissatisfaction with our current electoral system. That means that I vote for the Green Party or the NDP. I know that neither will win the election, so in the current election, we won’t have either Prime Minister Jagmeet Singh or Prime Minister Elizabeth May (or that other Green guy whose name I can’t remember). I have no idea how many people vote as I do, but pretty much every vote of mine since 1988 has been a protest vote that is slightly more acceptable than spoiling my ballot. Do I really want the NDP or the Greens to govern this country? No, probably not to be honest, but I would like to cast my vote for a winning party for a change.

But Canada is in a trade war with the United States now. Thankfully it’s not — yet! — a military war of force, aggression, destruction, violence and death, but frankly I’m not convinced it won’t turn into one, given trump’s ridiculous rhetoric about making us the 51st state, and his generals’ apparent willingness to fall into line and follow “dear leader’s” orders. I have no desire to be dominated by the USA politically or militarily any more than we already are culturally, so I want to vote for the best candidate for the job of keeping us from becoming that way, whom I consider to be Carney. It’s certainly not Poilievre and, as I said, there is no way that Singh or May are going to become prime minister, so what do I do? There’s the old adage that one should vote for the best candidate in their riding — not the prime minister, for whom we don’t get to vote directly — but I’ve always had an issue with that suggestion because it’s ignoring the bigger picture — that will have a greater effect on our lives — for local issues; an MP or MLA is not a “governor” in any way. That’s why I won’t vote Conservative, because a local MP’s job will just be to provide excuses when I write to him or her with complaints about their government’s policies I won’t like.

So it means that I will likely vote Liberal for the first time in my life. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back to my protest votes in future elections, until someone with a pair of balls — male or female! — changes the federal electoral system to some form of proportional representation. But for now, we’re at war, and I believe we need to vote for a wartime government.

Who’s right? Right? Left? trump? The world?

In the last year or so, I have been in debate with an Irish school friend of mine, and a Canadian MAGA supporter friend of mine who lives in the States. My old Irish school friend seemed to be a level-headed person; I should have seen the writing on the wall, though, as he’s a gay guy who, if half of his fellow travellers had their way, would have him strung up! How a gay guy like him can be so far right I don’t know. But, you know, there’s more to him than his sexual orientation, so I figured it would be good to compare notes on issues as and when they came up.

Sadly, the guy can’t get past the platitudes and catchy sayings of the right. He doesn’t present any thoughtful defences of his political opinions.

The last straw came for me shortly after the American election in 2024. I wrote something brief about my unhappiness with the results, and that it blew me away that North Americans (including Canadians!) consistently vote against female leaders — as opposed to places like the UK, India, Israel, etc. — who have (among others) had female heads of state, and that we (in Canada) would have to live next door to “this piece of shit for another four years.” He wrote a short reply — it is SMS (short message service) after all — that included the observation, “And a cute VP as well!” I then sent him a lengthy six messages in reply that (I felt) focused on issues, except that I ended with, “And finally, it’s sad that your biggest positive statement about trump’s win is that you have a hard-on for the VP. FFS. I can guarantee it’s not mutual!” He replied with, “Not my biggest positive statement, just a bonus 😋”.

And that has been it! I can’t debate based on that crap.

I will probably look him up next time I am in Ireland and we’ll go for a pint, but I have to say that my opinion of him has dropped significantly after that exchange, sadly. 🙁

Similarly, with my MAGA friend. This is a person who, before she left Canada, went on about how the Liberal Party, the New Democrat Party (the NDP), the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party with their combined majority in Parliament used their power — as is defined and allowed by the Westminster System of government — to threaten to vote non-confidence in the minority Conservatives to topple the government. She described this as a “coup”, despite the fact that it was anything but considering the government was a minority government voted into power by a minority of voters! And this despite the fact that she was apparently a political science major in university! This “coup” bullshit was typical (at the time) of the crisis, peddled by both the Conservative Party and Stephen Harper (who would immediately lose power if the majority of parliament voted non-confidence in them), and the far-right minority fringe! I never called her out on this bullshit, because our friendship was worth more.

So recently I couldn’t avoid poking the sleeping bear; I had to ask her about this “51st state” crap, and about trump’s tariffs on Canada that go against the spirit, if not the letter of the free-trade agreement between Canada and the US.

This is what I asked:

I have a question for you. It’s a serious question; I’m not baiting you or anything else negative.

What do you — as a Canadian, an immigrant in the US, and someone who has made a conscious decision not to become an American — think of trump’s attacks on Canada and his wanting to make us the 51st state?!

This was her reply:

Uggg. So many ask me this. I absolutely HATE 51st State like ALL Canadians do. However, it is a fact Canada charges US exorbitant tariffs for dairy et al… See photo below. I don’t believe he wants to annex Canada, but the tariffs have to be equalized. No one publishes what Canada charges. You know I don’t want to become American. Never will. Trump has a point about Canada not paying ita [sic] fair share to Nato and the fact US defends Canada by location proxy.. [sic] I honestly don’t believe he wants to take over Canada like Hitler. I think he wants a FAIR partnership and right now it’s not fair. Love me or hate me.

So she’s against the 51st state crap; I completely disagree that he doesn’t “want to take over Canada like Hitler” (she brought up a Nazi, not me) but I know I can’t prove that. (Just before he invaded Ukraine, putin and his foreign minister went to great lengths to claim that Western conjecture that Russia was building up troops on Ukraine’s border was just that, provocative conjecture. And then he invaded.) After that she just copied and pasted a screenshot of some text message with a list of Canada’s existing tariffs on American goods and services, the first third of which are, admittedly, high because (as is not noted in the misinformation) they’re subject to supply management! As I noted in my reply, it’s no secret that trump doesn’t like supply management, but it in itself is not the issue, trump’s tariffs are the issue! So the screenshot relies on the fact that the first third of the list — five of fifteen products and services — look bad, despite the fact that their levels are due to an unrelated issue.

What followed were more copied and pasted trump talking points — most of them lies, or based on lies or his complete lack of understanding of history and economics — and links to Fox News. There wasn’t a single point made by her that actually argued a point in favour of trump’s actions that I could address. And if I did, she’d just send another trump talking point or a link to Fox News! It’s maddening, but this is the modus operandi of the right. They think it’s all “common sense”, and if you disagree you’re either a communist or you don’t have any of their vaunted “common sense”.

So, no joy there either. I’m starting to think that the people I know on the right are incapable of debate. I’ve certainly struck out on these two far-right friends. But here’s part of my point: I don’t know where, on the political spectrum, most of my friends lie, and I get along just fine with them without knowing! I believe that I can get along with anyone no matter where they are on the political spectrum, but if you want to talk politics you have to have a brain and be able to discuss the details of policies, not just repeat slogans and tell me you have a thing for one leader or another. And I don’t care if you’re left or right, but if you support a moron like trump who is single-handedly turning the world upside-down with no plan presented for his endgame — other than, laughably, to “Make America Great Again” — how can you seriously support his policies?! If you know his plan and you believe it can have whatever results he says they will achieve, then great! But please share that information with the rest of us, just not in the same manner as his blonde bimbo press secretary Karoline Leavitt who, like Sean Spicer, thinks that every question is hostile, and has to be answered as if she’s conducting an assault on enemy territory.

When I finally recognised that our “debate” — which clearly wasn’t a debate at all — was going nowhere, I suggested we end it:

I don’t see this discussion between us being resolved to the satisfaction of either of us, so I think it’s probably best we end it. As I said before, it’s not likely we’ll know the real outcome before 15 or 20 years from now.

(I had suggested earlier that it would take three or four presidential terms before we’d see whether or not trump’s actions were correct … which, I suppose, are only twelve to sixteen years, not fifteen to twenty.)

The last word from this friend, after I made numerous points and questioned the validity of trump’s actions based on his egregious lies and ignorance which she countered with trump sloganeering and links to Fox News, was, “We can agree to disagree.” Normally I would support that conclusion, but in order to “agree to disagree” both sides have to present reasoned arguments, not political slogans, lies, misinformation and disinformation. That really pissed me off, so much so that I just did not reply. If I do, the friendship will very quickly be over.

Last point on this MAGA friend: Apparently, because of her support for trump, she claims to have lost a number of friends. I don’t know if it’s two or two hundred, but the number does seem to be significant, at least in terms of percentage. One is significant in my mind, and I say that as someone who has lost a few friends and family members over the years, because of their stupidity. (And I say that based on neutral, third-party opinion, including the opinion of the court.) But if we’re both still alive in fifteen or twenty years, we’ll see who was right in 2025. The dickhead trump certainly won’t be alive in fifteen or twenty years, and hopefully the rest of the Republican Party will have grown balls by that time and come to their senses.

Travel to the United States

The last time I crossed the American border — which is only a few kilometres south of me — was on 19 January 2025, the day before trump was inaugurated for the second time. I and hundreds of thousands of Canadians won’t cross the border again until 20 January 2029 … assuming trump doesn’t break more laws and more parts of the US Constitution to give himself an unconstitutional third term. (Or does the same putin/medvedev switcheroo that they did.) I do this despite the fact that California Governor Gavin Newsom and Palm Springs Mayor Ron deHarte have begged and pleaded for Canadians to return. I can’t speak for other Canadians, but I am not forgoing travel to the United States because I am “punishing” America for trump’s tariffs, but because, as a foreigner in their country, I won’t feel safe! Even if I just cross the border for twenty minutes to top up my gas tank! I love travelling all over the world, and I’ve been to countries where I wasn’t sure I was welcome, but I’m not taking that chance in America right now. America and trump are even musing about deporting American citizens to foreign jails! If they are willing to deport citizens, why in god’s name would I take the chance of being a foreigner in their country?!

Well, I won’t. The States have already jailed an innocent Canadian while she was at a border crossing dealing with her existing work visa, so that’s all of the examples I need right there. I told my MAGA friend above when I went to visit her and her American husband over the 2024/2025 New Year, that I would not cross the border again until trump was gone. I have some business accounts down there, but I will, in due course, close them from Canada. There just isn’t a hope in hell I’ll cross that border again until Americans and their alleged commitment to democracy have secured their country from dictatorship. I also make this statement based on the number of foreigners who have tried to enter the country legally and have been barred because they expressed opinions contrary to trump, which I have done numerous times in the past on this very blog and will no doubt do numerous times in the future!

I’m sure I’m on a list somewhere; I just don’t also want to be on the six o’ clock news.

That’s enough for now. I need to post this before the election on Monday and I will need to cover my other points some other time.