First, my disclaimer: I’m a member of the social democratic New Democratic Party of Canada, and am thus partisan on all the issues I’m going to talk about. I’ll try to stay neutral, but I make no promises. If you’ve followed me on Facebook at all, my rants and arguments have been littering everywhere for about five days now.

So now some background:

Canada is a technically a constitutional monarchy, which means our head of state is the Queen of England, and her representative the Governor General. The monarchy has little to no influence over this country, but the Governor General does need to be consulted for certain events. Our current Governor General is Michaelle Jean. Typically her role is ceremonial, but in certain instances she can use her discretion to look out for Canada.

Canada has five main political parties, and four with seats in our parliament. They are (from oldest to newest); the Liberal Party (centrist policies), the New Democratic Party (or NDP, social democrats), the Bloc Quebecois (website in French; a party for the “protection of Quebec’s interests on a federal level as well as the promotion of its sovereignty” [Wikipedia]), the Green Party (environmentalist party with centre-right economic policies, they have no seats presently), and the Conservative Party (right wing). In comparison to American politics, the Liberals follow the general policies of the Democrats (with a less charismatic leader) and the Conservatives are similar to the Republicans (and even share an evangelical support base – but the Canadian wing is less overt about it).

Finally to introduce the topic, Canada operates as a representative parliamentary democracy. Rather than have three separate branches of government like the USA (legislative, executive and judicial), Canada has a weird blend. When Canadians vote in federal elections, we choose an member of parliament (through a single member plurality or first-past-the-post system, i.e. the most votes wins) who represents us and our constituency in Ottawa (the nation’s capital). Typically, the party with the most seats “wins” the election and the Governor General gives the opportunity to govern to that party. The leader of the winning party becomes the Prime Minister, who chooses his or her cabinet to form the executive branch of government. Contrary to some belief, Canadians do not elect a government or prime minister, we elect representatives who are supposed to do that for us. Usually this system works fine, as the winning party has more than half of the seats in the House of Commons, thereby halving a majority and the ability to pass laws without consulting the opposition.

During the 1990s, Canada was lead by Jean Chretien and the Liberals. They typically received popular votes in the 40%-50% range, while getting a majority of the seats (prompting many calls for alternative electoral systems, but thats another post on its own). In 2003 he stepped down, and his long-time Finance Minister, Paul Martin, took over as Prime Minister. However, a number of scandals overran the Liberals at this time and his government held only a minority of the seats after Chretien left, and eventually fell after the right was united by Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper won a minority of seats for his Conservative party in 2006. He has governed as Prime Minister since.

One of the laws Stephen Harper introduced was a fixed election date law. Citing that the parliament had become dysfunctional, in September 2008 he requested that the Governor General to call an election an entire year early (had his government been defeated by the opposition there would be a required election). Typically in minority governments in Canada, elections occur after a vote of non-confidence occurs. This means that the majority of the members of parliament vote against the government on a bill of confidence. The Speech from the Throne (the first thing read in any session of parliament that outlines the government’s goals for the term), budgets, any finance bills, and any other bills the government puts forth as confidence motions are all votes of confidence. Between 2006 and 2008 the Conservatives used many confidence bills to force the Liberals, still weak and poor since Chretien left, to vote for the government (often the Liberals would fail to show up in parliament as a way to abstain from voting).

After the election on October 14, 2008, Stephen Harper and his Conservatives received a slightly stronger minority government, despite having what many consider a lame-duck leader of the Liberals, Stephane Dion, as their chief opponent. Dion and his Green Shift Carbon Tax were so unpopular with Canadians that the Liberals received their lowest popular vote since the confederation of the country in 1867. With his weakest opposition ever, Harper still couldn’t convince many Canadians to support his party. In fact his party only received a popular vote of 37%. It would seem Canadians are still uncomfortable with Harper and his policies.

Since the election, Harper presented a Throne Speech, which passed with support of the Liberals. The Throne Speech is usually vague enough that most oppositions parties pass it.

On Thursday, November 27 (only a week ago), Jim Flaherty, the Finance Minister, presented an economic update, that the Conservatives promised to use to tackle the economic crisis and recession. To the opposition parties dismay the update contained a removal of the rights of civil servants to strike for three years, removed the guarantee for equal pay for equal work that protected women’s salaries, no promises for bailout or stimulus packages, no conditions for bank bailouts, no money for small or medium sized business, and to top it off, removed the government subsidy to political parties.

This subsidy grants $1.95 to each party for each vote they get in a federal election. It was introduced by Chretien to replace corporate and union donations to political parties, as well as caps on individual donations. Since then the Greens and NDP rely on the fund for half of their budget, the Liberals for two-thirds, the Bloc for 86% and the Conservatives for only a third. The government claimed that this represented each party “tightening their belts” during the hard times to come, and that they would stand to lose the most money (since they received the most votes). However, the disproportionate hit that some parties would take (it is common knowledge that the Conservatives are “swimming” in cash and can afford to run campaigns nearly all year long, while elections have fixed campaign spending limits) along with the extreme right-wing nature of many of the points in the update seemed to signal a strategic partisan attack on the rival parties.

Immediately after the release of this update, all three opposition parties slammed it. By the next day the Liberals and the NDP had recruited Ed Broadbent (leader of the NDP in the 1980s who brought them to their most successful showing) and Jean Chretien to spend the weekend discussing a coalition that could bring down the Harper Conservatives. The update, being a fiscal bill, was scheduled to be tabled on Monday, December 1, along with what’s known as opposition day (when the opposition parties get to table bills). By the end of Friday, the Liberals let out that they were potentially tabling a motion that said the House of Commons had lost confidence in the current government and that a new government could be formed within the current house, as well, fearing heating rhetoric, Harper delayed the votes by a week, postponing any non-confidence motions until December 8.

By the end of Saturday, Harper and Flaherty had removed the party funding aspect of the update, as well as the removal of the right to strike. However, it seemed too late to slow the momentum of the budding coalition.

Also over the weekend, a member of the Prime Minister’s Office released a tape recording of an NDP caucus teleconference where they discussed past attempts to work with the Bloc to topple the Conservatives. In Canada, recording a conversation is legal so long as one party involved in the conversation is aware of the recording. It is unclear whether the tape was recorded legally, so the NDP are calling for a criminal investigation. The Conservatives maintain that an invitation was mistakenly sent to one of their employees who recorded the conversation.

On Monday afternoon, the leaders of the Liberals, NDP and Bloc signed an agreement stating that the Liberals and NDP would enter into a coalition, supported on confidence votes by the Bloc, and sought to replace the Conservatives at the earliest possibility. The coalition promised that a Liberal government would take control, but would give a quarter of the cabinet seats to NDP MPs. This would represent the first coalition government in Canada since the First World War. While the Liberals and NDP combined have less seats then the Conservatives, with the support of the Bloc they represent a majority of the House and a majority of the popular vote from the past election.

Now, one of the options the Governor General has when the government loses a confidence motion is to ask if anyone else feels they can govern with the confidence of the House. This has only happened once in Canadian history.

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday parliament was in session and denigrated quickly into shouting matches and harsh allegations. While Dion and the coalition challenged Harper to face a confidence vote, the Conservatives called the coalition “traitors” for working with the “separatists” of the Bloc. The Conservatives further attacked the coalition calling it “undemocratic” and forged in “back room deals.” Quickly it was found that in 2004 the Harper Conservatives had attempted a situation almost exactly the same to attempt to oust then Prime Minister Paul Martin. Further, in 2000, the Canadian Alliance (the precursor to the Conservatives) attempted to form a coalition with the Bloc and Progressive Conservatives to oust the government.

On Tuesday the Conservatives launched radio ads attacking the coalition and on Wednesday Harper took to national television for a five minute speech in which he chastised the opposition as undemocratic and wrong for Canada. He refused to use the word “separatist” in the French translation, opting instead for the less divisive word “sovereigntist.” After his speech, which provided no new information, Stephane Dion gave a rebuttal, which suffered from low quality, arriving late to the networks and Dion’s weak English.

On Thursday (today) morning, Harper visited the Governor General, who ended her European trip early, to request to prorogue parliament. To prorogue parliament essentially means to take a time out. Everything is put on pause for a break. Typically it occurs when a government needs a bit of wind down time for the year end or summer break. No Prime Minister has ever requested to prorogue to prevent a vote of non-confidence. While being generally symbolic, it would have been within the rights of Ms. Jean to deny Mr. Harper the request and instead ask him to face the music. However, setting precedence, the request was granted and parliament was closed until January 26. The government is still able to spend money and operate, however no new bills will be presented and any spending to occur should be approved when parliament resumes.

Had the request been denied, Harper’s government would have fallen on Monday, and he would be visiting the Governor General to request an election (the second within as many months). She would then have the ability to deny that request and allow the coalition to govern.

Harper has promised to present a budget as soon as parliament resumes, the earliest a budget has ever been presented. However, the coalition claims that without “monumental changes” they will bring down the governing party at first chance.

If the government falls in January, it may be more reasonable for the Governor General to call an election, since, although they haven’t done anything yet, it will have been a longer period of time since the past election.

Current polls show little support for either the coalition of a continuance of Mr. Harper’s government. At this point, the likely consensus of Canadians is that the government should settle down and get to work. The problem lies in the best way to accomplish that, be it by coalition or a more cooperative Conservative Party. Also, rumblings have been heard from within the Conservative Party that it may be time to replace Stephen Harper as their leader.

The biggest cog so far for the coalition has been Stephane Dion. Still few people like Mr. Dion, and he has pledged to step down in May when the Liberals choose a new leader (one of Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, or Dominic LeBlanc). Canadians are also very inexperienced with coalitions as compared to their European counterparts, where coalitions are the norm in government. Many see a coalition between ideologically different parties as disastrous and they question if it will even survive until January.

So now, until January 26 Canada will be under a PR war between the Conservatives and the Coalition. Both will claim to stand for Canada and democracy. Both will launch extensive ad campaigns, and fight for the hearts of Canadians, even if the key decision lies with Mr. Harper, his cabinet, and the Governor General.

Barack Obama is looking to reverse executive orders on oil drilling and stem cell research implemented by President George W. Bush, the president-elect’s transition team said Sunday.

Here’s an interesting bit from a recent interview with president-elect Barack Obama:

JIM ANGLE: He was asked what he’s been doing to get ready for office and whether he talked to any previous Presidents.

PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA: I have spoken to all of them, that are living, obviously, President Clinton — I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any séances. [emphasis added]

Obama later apologized for apparently mocking the supernatural belief system, but that doesn’t remove two facts:

1. It was Hilary Clinton who did séances, Reagan used astrology, either way, superstition. (I imagine Laura and George just used good ol’ fashioned prayers).
2. Obama is willing to make fun of superstitions. People who generally buy this stuff don’t do that. This means there is potentially a sceptic in the White House. Imagine the ratifications of that – a president who consults knowledgeable advisers before acting. It’s the most promising thing I’ve heard about him so far.

Exciting times.

Bitter ol’ PZ Myers (I know the man’s not truly bitter) wrote a couple of posts since the election of Barack Obama, which “pissed in peoples corn flakes.” He’s written (emphasis mine):

Obama is a conservative/centrist Democrat who will at best implement a small shift in American policies — he hasn’t promised any strong change in Iraq, and his health care plans are an incremental improvement over the existing situation.

…

We’re still afflicted with the curse of religiosity as a political prerequisite, and Obama has strengthened it. That is a poison that will harm us over the long term; we may have made the more rational choice in this one election, but reinforcing the potency of irrationality will come back to bite us over and over again.

I dread the possibility that jubilation will lead to complacency, that moderation will produce stasis, and that what will follow an Obama presidency could be something far, far worse than we can imagine.

I should also add, before everyone condemns this as simply the act of a primitive society, that the same impulse is at work right here in America. Those people who voted yes on Proposition 8 in California were simply performing a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone at those who offend their moral and religious sense of propriety.

Honestly, I can say I fully agree.

When I look at Obama versus McCain (pre-election, not tied to Palin), I didn’t see progressive leftism versus regressive conservatism. I saw a right to center-right candidate and a right-wing candidate.

I would not vote for either candidate if they were running here in Canada.

The problem, as I see it, is that American democracy has been stolen, not just by the Republicans, but by the Democrats and the Republicans.

By some major scam, the two main parties in the USA have convinced nearly everyone in the country (including the third parties) that “a vote for a third party is a wasted vote.” The Democrats blame Nader for costing Gore the election in 2000 (think about the rationality of chastising someone for trying to represent another voice on the stage, and try to reconcile that with the ideals of “rule by the people”) and the Republicans are such a mixed bag of Christian fundamentalists, big businesses, and libertarians that I’m surprised they haven’t killed each other yet.

Yet, despite their disdain for each other, neither party would admit that the American electoral system is deeply flawed.

Why would anyone want more than two choices for government, one might ask? Doesn’t having two parties make it as simple as a governing party and an opposition, and when one doesn’t work, you can vote for the other? (I have actually heard these questions from Conservative Albertans).

This of course makes as much sense as on the Simpsons when Kang and Kodos take control of the US and put each other as the nominees, or Futurama when John Jackson and Jack Johnson run against each other. The essence of the satire is that with only two choices, they tend to become nearly the same politically in order to appeal to the widest demographic. Why do you think American landslides occur when one party gets more than 55% of the popular vote?

So how do you fix this problem?

First, with the Democrats in power, Obama needs to prove his commitment to democracy by capping all election spending, and not at the ridiculous amount he raised and spent, but at something that’s reasonable for a popular (but as of yet unelectable) third party can have an equal chance of getting it’s message out. Election ads can then also be given equal time on the major networks (for all parties, not just the two main ones). This won’t happen, of course, because he’s got power now and won it through raising ridiculous amounts of money. I’d like to be wrong here, but I’m not holding my breath.

Second, strong third party candidates should be included in the televised debates. Canada put Elizabeth May, Green Party leader, on the federal leaders debate (bringing the number of leaders present at the debate to five), and America could follow suit. Having Nader and Barr at the leader’s debate would definitely have rallied their respective supporters and given them realistic chances at least a few college votes.

Third, stop letting partisan companies put electronic voting machines in. Create a federal election overseeing board and ensure some standard. Make sure that this standard can’t be violated by Republicans, Democrats, or anyone. It’s not hard, but it stops things like 2000 in Florida. I think the issue is Americans need to learn that sometimes government isn’t bad.

Finally, although I’m not familiar enough with it, the electoral college system likely needs to be revamped. I’m not sure if this system is still valuable to American democracy, and perhaps change would be for the better.

So in conlcusion, I’m not saying that Canada has a great electoral system (we don’t), but I feel sorry for American voters who had to choose between two candidates who are forced to pander to get as many votes as possible. Take the momentum you have, America, and push for some electoral reform.

But then again, I’m not American, so you don’t have to take my advice.

Specifically she mentioned the familiar saying “like comparing apples and oranges” in an effort to imply that her critics were attempting to compare two completely unrelated things.

But let’s let science do the work for us!

In 1995, Scott Sandford, of the NASA Ames Research Centre, provided a detailed fourier-transform infrared spectroscopic (FTIR) analysis of both apples and oranges. Their findings? Apples and oranges were “very similar” and the comparison was “easy to make.”

But if you don’t have access to FTIR equipment, you can still do scientific comparisons between the two objects.

First, by inspection, both are somewhat sphereical, roughly the same size (within the same order of magnitude, varies by species), one is red while the other is orange, both have peels, although the orange has a thicker peel that is typically inedible, and both are seeded fruit. When sliced open we find the orange is more liquidy and comes in pre-sliced convienience (like it was deisgned… no jk), wheras the apple is crispier and has a core.

You can weigh the two fruit and find they have a similar mass (again, to an order of magnitude – I am in physics, this is all that matters to us). You could also drop them from baloconies to see which makes the bigger mess.

In fact, I imagine you can construct countless, controlled, scientific tests to compare apples to oranges.

Taking the conclusion of Dr. Sandford’s paper:

Thus, it would appear that the comparing apples and oranges defense should no longer be considered valid. This is a somewhat startling revelation. It can be anticipated to have a dramatic effect on the strategies used in arguments and discussions in the future.

Let’s go a bit further.

In 2003, inspired by Dr. Sandford’s findings, Mark Fonstad, William (Pugatch) Flynn, and Brandon Vogt decided to do a topographical geodetic survey to determine the validity of the statement “Kansas is flatter than a pancake.”

By grabbing some “samples” from the local IHOP (I’m not sure why they call them international, we don’t have any IHOPs in Canada) and calculated the surface topography of both the pancake and of Kansas.

Their findings were that the “flatness” (with 1 being perfectly flat) of Kansas was 0.9997 while the pancake was 0.957. They concluded, scientifically, that Kansas is truly flatter than a pancake.

So go out, find some familiar saying, like “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” or “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” and do some science.

The station is AM 930 The Light. On their website is featured ads for Focus on the Family and Christ Centred Professionals Club (among others). This showed me that it would be a very en”light”ening interview.

I recorded the stream and posted it on my blog. Check it out there and see how far into the call ins you can get (hint: they advertise Expelled several times).

First there’s the time commitment. I maintain my own blog, with a post or two per day, I try to write for my student newspaper’s opinion every couple of weeks, I have a club to keep running, outreaching to other regional clubs, maintaining campaigns, planning a week’s worth of events in January for my engineering club, participating in off-campus groups and events, keeping myself fed and my apartment clean, and on top of all that, actually putting some time and effort into school. But after several years of university, I’ve learned the art of time management versus procrastination. There is always time to write (I’m writing this from class right now).

Next, there’s the scale of the writing. Oftentimes, Edger gets a vast amount of in depth, long articles. They’re well-written and cover a lot of philosophical and scientific ground. However, my writing style isn’t always akin to that. Sometimes I just want to post a link (which I do from time-to-time when I find interesting ones that aren’t covered yet), other times (like this) I feel like just rambling until I feel like I’ve made my point (read: I never proof read my work, it just kind of flows from my head). Basically, I’m saying that I doubt that I’ll ever be writing long philosophical treatises here (but kudos to those who do). Although, again, this doesn’t really prevent me from contributing short articles frequently.

What I think is my current biggest stumbling block is the issue of audience.

I’ve written on most of the religion topics before. I’ve read most of them again and again and again. It’s sometimes refreshing to see a new take on a familiar issue, but that’s a rare gem in a sea of redundancy. I also assume that most of the readers (and definitely the authors) here are in the same boat.

There are a few articles that go up here that stir the pot, addressing global warming, nuclear energy, and other somewhat controversial, but secular topics, that for a short term spark some interest, but for those to become the norm would be to remove the original goals of Edger.

So what we end up with, is a sort of secular circle jerk of preaching to the same old choir. (I realize the sad irony that this issue has likely been written on on countless blogs before). Whereas my writings for The Gateway reach an broad audience of upwards of 30,000 students (who don’t all agree with me), and even my blog (since my blast of political posts through the election) reaches a range from secularists to socialists to physics aficionados (and most importantly, my friends).

Yet for the time being, I’ll continue begrudgingly contributing to Edger, hoping that in some way we can break free from a base audience of tech-savvy “New Atheists” and routinely reach the greater public. The only problem being, I have no clue how we do that.

It’s been a busy few months, but we’ve finally ascertained meetings with the right levels of administration and could potentially see this resolved by the end of November (university administrations move pretty slowly).

Here’s an exerpt (the full story will be taken down in 30 days, after which you can find it on my blog):

A student group at the University of Alberta is fighting to make the school’s convocation ceremony a God-free event.

Specifically, the U of A Atheists and Agnostics society objects to one line in the service, when the chancellor charges graduates to use their degrees for “the glory of God and the honour of your country.”

The group is petitioning the university to either remove the line or change the wording to respect their “God-optional” views.

The god-optional refers to the last story the Edmonton Journal ran on my group.

So first, let’s try to go through the order of events as objectively as possible.

1. We’ve been working at the University of Alberta for a while now to try to achieve a secular convocation ceremony. As part of this campaign, I wrote an opinion article for the campus newspaper, which attracted both negative and positive reactions (about two weeks worth of letters).
2. The UofA Atheists and Agnostics large (5′ x 8′) hanging banner gets vandalized over a weekend after hanging in an atrium for several weeks and the entire previous semester. The contact email and website were cut from the bottom and the phrases “God loves you,” “Jesus is coming,” and hearts and crosses are drawn across the banner.



3. We later figured out, after removing the banner (while unveiling the new one), that the heart and cross were added to cover up some other writing. We couldn’t make out what was written under the heart, as the writing was mostly indistinguishable.
4. I reported the incident to campus security the morning I discovered the banner and issued press releases to all the media outlets in town that I could get a hold of. CTV (local television) later did an interview with me (not YouTube’d yet). I also wrote my first blog post on it.
5. After having a number of the “atheist community” blast me for using the word “hate” I wrote my second post saying simply that I called this act for what it was, although it wasn’t the position my group had taken. This was further clarified later in the week when another member of my club’s exec appeared on campus radio to discuss the issue.

So what are my thoughts on the issue?

First, one of my Christian friends (who heads the local IVCF chapter), wanted to point out:

1. The hate crime (I don’t mind calling it one… it was) was performed as it seems as a response to previous events on campus in which I had only a few glimpses of knowledge.

2. To comment about the vandalism without commenting about the convocation debate seems in some sense to be making a sideways response to the one event.

I find it utterly appalling that he tries to justify this action as a retaliation for my writing an article in a campus paper. I wrote some words. They drew and permanently damaged property that wasn’t theirs. Big difference. I may have offended them, but they actively worked to remove the ability of my group to advertise itself – a right possessed by every group on my campus (including the Pro-Life group). Being offended isn’t a protection we afford people in Canada (generally).

But what else happened here? When I went out actively looking for support, I instead was told: “this is more of a love crime” from some atheists. People I expected to side with me and back me up in denouncing an act of targeted intolerance against my group instead chastised me for overreacting.

Let me emphasize, my friend, an evangelical Christian, and the Pentecostal group on campus agreed with my denunciation of the event, while atheists and the United Church chaplain (a very liberal church in Canada) thought I was being unreasonable for expecting some sympathy.

I can understand having small posters vandalized or ripped down – at 5-15c a piece, I would be surprised to see all of them after a week. But for someone to go out of their way to deface and damage a large hanging banner, required planning, time, and effort (I believe they actually removed it from the building it was hanging in, did their damage, and then re-hung it – mainly because it was attached to the wire it hung from differently).

So why the argument? I really don’t see why, as an atheist, I can’t say that an act of intolerance against my group is equivalent in terms of intolerance and hate to writing “God hates fags” on a gay-support group’s banner, or “terrorist” on a Muslim banner. Just because they put a heart on it doesn’t mean that’s what they’re feeling.

Even if I grant that they may actually feel that God does love us, that still doesn’t change the intent of the actions, which was to imply that our group shouldn’t be spreading its message, and should instead accept Jesus (or burn in hell, as the implied alternative).

So I just thought I’d put it out there: clearly a double standard exists within the atheist community that we can’t cry foul, even when it happens to us. And I think this is the greatest tragedy of this entire debacle.

So here’s where I’ll summarize my positions:

It’s a hate-crime to commit any crime based on intolerance. However, standing on a bench shouting that atheists should burn in hell, while in bad taste and rudely offensive, should not be a crime, but should not be encouraged.

Finally, to end on a positive note, here’s the video of my group coming together to repaint and hang a new banner:

Just A Taste Of What You’ll Discover…

How to banish premature ejaculation.

How to eliminate “quick” erections.

How to become a multi-orgasmic male.

…

Discover why God hates “sexless marriages.”