Jeffrey Aho

It’s been a fairly interesting week. Lots of international buzz due to terrorist topics. Besides the death of a key terrorist in the middle-east, there was an event that hit a little closer to home. A group of 17 Canadians planned an attack on several Canadian monuments, including the CN tower and Peace tower, and allegedly planned to storm parliament and behead Stephen Harper. You really don’t hear that too often; the call to behead our Prime Minister. Makes you wonder what Stephen Harper has done to invite a beheading…he’s only been in power a few months. Could it be his increase in military spending? Extension of the Afghan mission? Closer relations with the US?

Harper has been inviting groups to speak out against him since he stepped into office. From cutting funding to aboriginal initiatives, daycare, repealing income tax cuts, and backing off the Kyoto accord, it’s not surprising that people are standing up against him. Now, despite a clear and decisive majority in last year’s vote, as well as several of his own caucus telling him it will never pass, he’s going to waste time again and have a vote on Same-sex marriage. And why not? Everyone knows that same-sex marriage treatens the traditional family…even though it has nothing to do with religion and has provisions to protect the churches. Wait….I can’t even be sarcastic about it. I am disgusted with Harper for bringing this up again. Actions like this are why I will never support the Conservative Party. It is not acceptable to use parliament’s time to shore up social conservative’s support.

I’ve talked about this topic before and I’ll touch once again on it. Marriage traditionally was not religious. It was a contract between families and joined communities. It was several hundred years after Christ before it became part of the Church. It’s not even a sacrament and is a human institution (unless you are a christian denomination that makes up doctrine like papal infalibility and assumption of Mary). Same-sex marriage does not erode families, it just creates families. I can’t wait to see some stats in a few years comparing percentage of same-sex marriages that end in divorce compared to opposite-sex marriages. I will bet that same-sex marriages will survive more often.

When people talk about the “slippery-slope” and the “activist judges” I want to puke. The most common saying same-sex marriage is a gateway to polygamy. They are two completely different topics. It’s analogeous to if we were back in the 1800’s and giving visible minorities the right to vote and arguing that it will be the gateway to women having the right to vote. If our laws are bound to legalize polygamy, it will happen either way, NOT as a result of same-sex marriage. They are independant of one another. I have extreme faith in our Judicial system (which had a majority of conservative appointed judges throughout the 90’s when many landmark rights cases were made) to be non-partisan. We aren’t the US and our judges are picked for their qualifications, not their political affiliation. (Look at M. v. H., Vriend v. Alberta, and Egan v. Canada for decisions during a majority conservative appointed supreme court)

You get the point…so no need to continue more. In other news, the Leadership Campaign is heating up. There will be debates in Winnipeg this weekend which will be interesting. Also a satrical site about Volpe has appeared. He had it shut down, but it was moved to a different server (which apparently is out of their reach now). With this whole campaign funding fiasco it makes it even more clear it was the right decision when I rejected him for Comuzzi supporting him. Seriously…accepting thousands of dollars from kids? You are just asking for bad press. I’m surprised that election law doesn’t close that gap. It’s clearly a loop hole. How many of those kids truely made the decision themselves to support Volpe? It’s just exploiting them by their parents as a way to funnel more money for lobbying. Shame on them and shame on Volpe.

Ending on a high note, all of Canada should be pleased with the performance of Finola Hackett, who placed 2nd in the National (American, but open to international people) Spelling Bee. It’s amazing how far she went (improving from the year before) and is a wonderful example of youth education in Canada. It’s nice news to hear in between the beheadings and the religious nuts.

***EDIT*** News today, Canada’s Unemployment Rate drops to 6.1% (32 year low).

Currently Listening to: Office Chatter

Random Wikipedia Article: Warchalking

I think I’ve actually settled in finally to the fact that we have a Conservative government. While I disagree with the softwood lumber deal, the GST cut (over the income tax), and the child care program, they seem to actually be getting stuff done and that has pleased many people. Today I saw gun registry has been axed. I’m quite glad that they followed through with this as I believe it really added no value and just cost extreme amounts of money. As long as they don’t go too far by repealing abortion and same-sex marriage laws, I think I may get through this government.

In a follow up to my last post, I am getting closer to making up my mind over who I’d like (and my riding) to support for the Liberal Leadership. The Globe released an article saying who were the bilingual candidates and this really has influenced my opinions. This effectively crosses off Fry, Bennet, and Dryden (Who you’d think would have better French from all that time in Montreal!) from the running for me. For reference, Wikipedia’s entry on the Liberal Leadership Candidates and the Globe’s profiles.

I’d really like to meet the other candidates, but the Waterloo meet is during the week when I’m working in Windsor. Maybe they’ll come down here. After meeting Hall-Findlay, I’ve scratched her off my list as well.

Leading for me is Rae. While he has a lot of Ontario baggage, he did what was needed to be done in the early 90s to fight the recession. Intellectual, bilingual, high profile, and very good views in my opinion. The next tier I’m going to stick Kennedy and Ignatieff, though they seem quite opposed to each other. Respectively, too left, then too right. But only on a few issues. I want to meet them before ruling them out. Third tier is Brison (French problem), Bevilacqua (Low profile), Volpe. Volpe apparently has Comuzzi supporting him…and we all know I hate Comuzzi…it’s like being in league with the devil…something has got to be up with that.

I’m going up to Waterloo for the Long weekend (I get 4 days actually). I plan on seeing the Da Vinci Code and catching up with friends for a nice enjoyable weekend. Not rushed like 2 weekends ago.

One unrelated topic I’m disgusted at the UW Admitted Students Forum. The lack of moderation has spawned countless threads and discussions that are breeding false information. It’s mostly the blind helping the blind with no one telling them which ones of there opinions are true or not. Atrocities range from program information, to co-op, to student services. Many of the moderator responses are even misinformed! There are so many opportunities for them to set the record straight, or to provide more info. (Example: thread on clubs lead into service territory and people were just let to believe that GLOW was a club). It’s just a rumour mill that will disappoint or surprise people when they see the error of their discussions. Shame on the Office of the Registrar for their failure in the propagation of truth and information.
Oh, and everyone should check out Mike’s book.

Currently Listening to: Dear Mr. President – Pink

Random Wikipedia Article: Evil Albino

Exam are over. I passed. No more comments on the topic.

I have moved cities again and am now back in Windsor working for Nemak. Same place, same job (same house even). Seems like it’s going to be an average work term.

Recently the only news seems to be a new announcement for someone entering the Liberal leadership. There are so many now that I am not really sure who I want to support at this time. Martha Hall-Findlay came to Waterloo to speak to us and I was unimpressed. Of course I am considering Scott Brison (who shares several views with me), but I’m concerned that he may not have enough French down at this point. Maybe he’s not ready to be PM just yet. Maurizio Bevilacqua looks promissing, though I need to read more into him. Gerard Kennedy has been cited as being a friend to students, but he might be too left wing fiscally for me. While Michael Ignatieff may be highly intellectual and skilled, I fear he may be to Neoliberal for my liking. (He has that whole torture thing going on, and was for the War). I think it’s a good thing that there are so many candidates. Sparks some policy debate and doesn’t force me into a specific vein of thought just yet, as a small group would. Dion is also up there in my books. There are several more candidates, and I guess I’ll just have to look into them before making a decision.

Yesterday the new Conservative government announced it’s first budget. I’m more confident than ever in my decision not to vote Conservative. Their tax policies are way off base. From the moment they announced it, I’ve been against the 1% reduction in the GST (Next year, 2%). My prefered method of tax cuts is through income tax. There’s something wrong when I, a full time student, am paying a great deal of income tax (Or any at all!). Their child care plan is outrageous too. By giving individuals $1200 (of my money!) to spend as they want, you aren’t improving childcare. I don’t mind supporting childcare, but I expect my contributions to be efficient. I think the most efficient way is to set up day care places. For the people who truely need it, this is the best choice. I support assistance to people who need it, but I expect them to put effort back. And if they are working, then funding their childcare is a worthwhile cause. If they are able to work and aren’t, then they are just abusing the system, and I won’t support deadbeats.

That said, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Finally I can deduct my $100s of books, which will help a little (to compensate for the INCREASE in income tax for me). They didn’t pull back the Liberal income tax cuts completely, which is better than what I thought they would do, but they did roll them back a 1/2%, which could have been left the same if they didn’t have their stupid GST rollback. If they end up with a deficit, there will be hell to pay. Our VP Education (at Waterloo), Jeff Henry, has already issued a press release condemming the budget for ignoring Education issues. They have a lot of things they need to fix if they want Liberal support. For now the Conservatives are in bed with the Bloc. Not unexpected.

Finally, here is some budget highlights.

Currently Listening to: Hockey Monkey – The Zambonis

Random Wikipedia Article: Quine