Guelph: Liberal Forever?

Finally, we got some poll data yesterday. From a company called KlrVu Research, we get the following breakdown:

Frank Valeriote (Lib) - 37 %
Gloria Kovach (CPC) - 26 %
Mike Nagy (GPC)) - 19 %
Tom King (NDP) - 18 %

Here's what KlrVu has to say about the poll: "This poll was completed in two rounds on July 27th and August 13th, sampling over 3396 random residents of the Guelph constituency representing nearly nine percent of households with a 95% confidence level and a margin of error of 2%"

Almost 3,400 people. That's a pretty big sample size, especially when you... Wait. What was that? "It’s been pointed out in comments that this polling company is the same firm that was used by pro-life groups a month or so back to try and justify that a majority of Canadians opposed Henry Morgentaler’s receiving the Order of Canada, which was questionable to say the least, since only 7000+ respondents out of 157,115 called actually responded to this poll question." - from Scott's Diatribes.

Okay, but even if this is a Conservative leaning polling company, and they've cooked up an allegedly bogus poll, why put out Valeriote as the front-runner. The theory over at Blogging a Dead Horse seems to be that the Conservatives want to position this as a race between just them and the Liberals, and thus marginalizing the NDP's Tom King (And presumably Mike Nagy as well).

I'm not sure where the benefit is in that for the Conservatives. My own concerns are the fact that this is a poll from a company I've never heard of and whose only other poll is dubious at best. Basically, I don't think Valeriote should take the weekend off and kick up his heels secure in the knowledge that he has a 10-point lead. I agree with Scott's take and suggestion that "the Liberal team is to continue to work on the ground as if you’re 10 points down, not 10 points up."

In other news the final list of all of Guelph's by-election candidates was released this week. And your options are:

Libertarian Party of Canada - Philip Bender
New Democratic Party - Tom King
Marijuana Party - Kornelis Klevering
Conservative Party of Canada - Gloria Kovach
Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada - Karen Levenson
Green Party of Canada - Mike Nagy
Independent - John Turmel
Liberal Party of Canada - Frank Valeriote.

Harper Grills Up Some Support

Photo Courtesy of the Guelph Mercury

Not to confuse the issue, but I actually like Stephen Harper. I like him in the same way I like George W. Bush. If Bush is the wacky neighbour you'd like to hang out with, whose Tim Taylor like ineptitude always has him getting into one kind of hijink or another, than Harper is Mr. Furley, the landlord that's constantly peeking around corners and misconstruing simple misunderstandings for something gay.

If there's one thing that keeps me put-off about Harper it's his forced allergic reaction to the press as if they were leapers. Contagious with the bubonic plague. And covered in slime. All right honestly, I sometimes think that Harper sees a gaggle of reporters at a scrum and thinks about the escape from the mall scene in Dawn of the Dead.

Witness friends, another example of the PM's quarantine treatment of the media at yesterday's barbecue in Kitchener. The last line of the Mercury article read: "The prime minister did not take questions from media, but did pose for pictures with the public after the barbecue."

Hm. That sounds kind of familiar:

"Journalists' movements were seriously controlled and monitored. Once members of the media had entered the venue, they were not allowed to step out only to come back in. That would have presented a problem if an incident had occurred among protesters while Harper was talking. Journalists could not stand on the sidelines to throw out questions when Harper walked by. They were asked to leave as soon as the speech was over. If they could not approach Harper, he would not have to confront them." - Lisa Varano, Guelph Mercury - March 2008

I made similar comments in my editorial in the Ontarion the following week. There's a pervasive Conservative attitude amongst some that the media is the enemy. Access means that journalists can take the words of politicians, turn them around and skewer them to mean the exact opposite right? We just hate Conservatives that much! I mean, as members of the "left-wing media" and the "media elite."

Varano called the area reporters HAD TO stand in as "the media pen," when I tell the story to friends and colleagues, I call it "The Black Media Square." I don't take pleasure in that. Considering that I've stood three feet away from Elizabeth May as she's given blood and I could have pantsed Jack Layton on no less than three separate occasions, is it too much to ask to be able to throw a question out to the head of my country when he comes to town. As for Dion, hey, at least I got a question in at the scrum. Hey, at least there was a scrum!

Let me be clear: I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy these games or having to think upon my Prime Minister in a negative fashion. As reporters, we have questions and he has answers. It's simple arithmetic.

And as for why he didn't come to Guelph, well, there's a tradition and president apparently that says the sitting Prime Minister does not visit a riding while it holds a by-election. An article in yesterday's Mercury put it best, saying, "If he is truly not interested in influencing the Guelph byelection, it would seem to make sense that he would steer clear of Kitchener as well - where presumably questions about the Guelph race could be raised - until after Sept. 8."

(Almost) All Candidates Meet Again

Today there was another all candidates meeting, this time at Action Read in the Park Mall on Quebec Street. Two notable things right off the bat: 1) this one had the first appearance of Karen Levenson, candidate for the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada, and 2) Gloria Kovach was again conspicuous by her absence (Although that was not unexpected *see Sunday's blog*).

I arrived at Action Read as an audience member was asking about the correlation between global warming and foreign policy. Mike Nagy responded that most wars are fought over a lack of resources and that we can look forward to more wars unless we learn to share. He also said that Canada should be dedicated to giving .07 per cent of the country's GDP to foreign aid.

Tom King agreed with Nagy on foreign aid, but added that we need to get the World Bank out of developing nations so that they stop interfering and dictating what those countries can do through restrictions.

Levenson said that the government does not have a good record on battling climate change and that even though Canada is one of the world's biggest polluters though that fact is unlikely to change under the Harper government.

Frank Valeriote dropped this one on the crowd, "We used to be global leaders and now we're global lagers." He took that chance to put in a plug for the Green Shift plan and the need to make an immediate commitment to battle the issue.

The next question was about housing and the parties' plans for helping people secure low-income accommodations. King, not one to be out-quipped, said that past promises about housing have been like sugar cubes in a cup of coffee: you see them and then watch them dissolve away. He went on to say that the NDP has always had a very strong commitment to this issue and will be aggressive in pursuing it.

We need to bring society to a level where the voiceless, people and animals, can have a voice, said Levenson. While Valeriote said that we need a commitment of millions of dollars from the Federal government and that his party's attempt to bring about that funding in the last Liberal Parliament was undercut by the Conservatives when they took office.

Speaking last, Nagy said that homelessness was a growing problem in Canada and that we need 40,000 low income housing spots immediately. He also said that he'd like to see more focus on the creation of co-op housing in this country as well.

Levenson got to speak first on the next issue, healthcare. She said that we need to start working to create a healthier society and that includes the elimination of air pollution citing a study that said this year 22,000 people will die from pollution-related respiratory illnesses. Levenson added that with more pollution-related illnesses in combination with the aging population could cripple our healthcare system.

Valeriote said that we need to fortify incentives to bring more doctors to the region and help foreign-trained doctors more easily secure the credentials to allow them to practice here. He added that we should also fund more spots in medical schools in order to get more Canadians trained and practicing right here.

At the other side of the table, Nagy echoed some of the previously made comments before going on to talk about the Green Party's plan to put more of an emphasis on preventative care. He also said that we need to promote the nobility of being a General Practitioner, rather than just going in to be a specialist for the money.

King finished by saying that there's a nationwide shortage of doctors and nurses that needs to be addressed and that while poaching foreign trained and putting them to work here certainly solves our problems, it leaves these doctors' countries without.

Next from the audience came a pertinent question about layoffs and job security in the region and the matter of retraining them. To which Valeriote says he endorses the support of retraining programs, but that the opportunity exists in Guelph to improve are local economy by commercializing environmental innovations coming out of the University of Guelph.

Along similar lines, Nagy said that he'd like to see the food processing industry open up more, rather than shipping local produce elsewhere only to have it end up back here after being turned into frozen vegetables and the like. (Interestingly, the local news today had a story about the fact that most Ontario peaches slated for canning are sent to US factories.)

King looked at the issue differently saying that we should look to preventing layoffs by changing our trade policies and focusing on changing corporate thinking. Levenson agreed saying that we want to keep our jobs while paying the cheap prices made possible by cheap labour in China and India. She added that we should also work harder to create new, Green jobs.

The next all-candidates meeting will be a debate at Reid Hall at 7 pm in the Village in the Arboretum.

Harper Returns (Sort of)

It was announced today that Prime Minister Stephen Harper would be returning to Southwestern Ontario to campaign with Gloria Kovach. But in an ironic twist, the rally won't be held in the Roayal City, but in Kitchener. Yes, that sound you're hearing is you scratching your head in confusion. According to the CTV affiliate in Kitchener, the reason Harper isn't coming to Guelph is because the Kovach campaign couldn't or wouldn't foot the cost of hosting the PM, which I presume is substantial.

The event is a barbecue at the Romanian Cultural Centre at 2150 Bleams Road in Kitchener. If you look here on Google Maps you can see precisely where the event will take place, and how far it is from the vast majority of Kitchener. Now, when Harper was here in Guelph back in March, it was at the Guelph Place banquet hall on Michener, a location at the time I noted as being as far away from the University of Guelph as you can get before leaving town. But at least the event is open to the public, so long as you register and pay up $25 each. For more info, go to Kovach's website here.

In other news, a fourth riding is now going to the polls in a by-election: the Toronto riding of Don Valley West. They'll be going to the polls on September 22nd, an announcement that has thrown more fire on the speculation that a full-out general election will take place sometime this Fall. Perhaps it'll be a good idea for the winner of our election to hold off on taking down their signs on September 9th.

Green Supporters Bike For Mike

It was perfecting biking weather today. Good thing too because the Green Party's Bike for Mike was scheduled for earlier this afternoon and there's really nothing too much worse than having to ride around in the pouring rain.

At 12:30, Green volunteers and bike enthusiasts began showing up at the Nagy campaign office. Some had Green signs taped to their bikes while the more bold hitched up a trailer to the back of their rides.

The woman on the left is Wendy Morley, a former Guelph resident that came out to ride today. She currently lives in Orangeville and rode on her bike from their to Guelph. That's a 100k round trip, excluding the Bike for Mike root.I took this picture from the railway bridge on Wyndham near Carden.

This one was at the finish point, as riders returned to the Nagy campaign office.

When everyone had returned, the Greens celebrated the ride (and volunteer Stan's birthday, here, standing on Nagy's right) with some cake. Nagy thanked the crowd saying that this was a critical bike ride; critical for the health of the planet and critical to get a Green MP in Parliament.

Liberal Roundtable Part II

From left to right: Kathleen Wynne, Carolyn Bennett, Frank Valeriote, Liz Sandals, and Karen Redman.
Photo By Anna Muselius

Here’s part two of my roundtable with Frank Valeriote, Liz Sandals, Karen Redman and Carolyn Bennett. In this half we get into Federal/Provincial relations, problem solving and more on the by-election

Now I turned to Sandals and asked her if the relations between the province and the Feds is really as frosty as it appears. I mention Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s comments about Ontario being the last place anyone would want to invest in.

“What I find is that people really resented that,” Sandals says, adding that Ontario is the economic engine of the country historically, so why would you go out and deliberately attempt to undermine the confidence in the economy of the country’s largest province? “The feedback we’ve gotten at the constituency office has been really quite angry about some of the comments he’s said.”

Sandals also says that her government has spent the last five years cleaning-up from Flaherty’s style as finance minister in Ontario and repairing the structural deficit they inherited. She also said that she fears that something similar will happen to the Federal treasury before Flaherty is done. “There’s a sense that traditionally that Conservative governments are good managers and it’s just not borne out by the evidence, certainly not here in Ontario.”

“I think ideologically they want the cupboard to be bare so that they have to cut programs because they don’t want to support programs,” adds Valeriote who referred to the cut to PromArt, the program that funds Canadian artists to go overseas. The announcement to cease funding PromArt was made that morning.

Sandals believes that the Federal Tories are looking for someone to blame the downturn in the economy on, and in their mind there’s no one better than Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Redman calls it retail politics. She says that the Feds are looking for niches to exploit: artists, women’s groups, activists, and then disenfranchise them. She also accuses the Harper government of employing the politics of personality, the way they’ll use a personal barb at the person that asked a question, rather than answering the question.

“I think that’s one of the reasons that all Canadians look at politicians right now, they listen to Question Period and they’re disheartened,” says Redman. “That’s not what they expect from the seat of democracy. This is very sad time for Canada and this [upcoming general] election will determine what kind of country we’ll be for decades.”

“We all try and figure out what we have to do for our community,” adds Bennett. She says that the solutions to the country’s problems have to be dealt with from the bottom-up, and refers to her collaborative work with her provincial counterpart, Michael Bryant, as an example of working together to get things done.

“I think that the future is going to be citizen-centred federalism,” says Bennett. “The citizen is represented by three or four levels of government, knows that those representatives are going to represent the interests of their families and their communities and do the best they can as opposed to running around and blaming someone else for why it can’t be done.”

“Ultimately what the citizen wants is you to solve problems,” explains Sandals. “With so many of the issues; a piece of the puzzle is municipal, a piece of the puzzle is provincial, and a piece of the puzzle is federal. And if you’re going to solve the problem you need the people in all levels working together.”

Sandals added that she and Valeriote used to co-chair the joint committee of the two school boards in Guelph; Valeriote for the Catholic and Sandals for the public. The Guelph MPP says that she looks forward to rebuilding that partnership should Valeriote win the by-election.

In the meantime, Redman will remain the steward of the Royal City until someone is elected to take her place. I asked her about her role as the substitute MP. “The Guelph office is open for business as usual.” she says.

“Brenda Chamberlain was a great representative of this community since 1993 and she has a great staff there and they’ll continue to serve the constituency of Guelph until September 8th when the people will express their wish as to how we go forward. So the office is open as usual, the staff is there to answer questions concerning any Federal issues, I’m there to sort of oversee it and they shouldn’t see any difference in how they’re serviced in the community.”

I asked Valeriote about what he was looking at heading into the last month of the campaign, and if he’s feeling the grind on the trail, he didn’t show it. “I’ve been doing this for two years and I’m remaining focused on September 8th,” he says enthused. “We’re focusing on getting out, meeting people, discussing the issues and sharing with them what we think the solutions are.

“I’m telling people that I want their ideas,” Valeriote continues. “I had a wonderful conversation yesterday who had some great ideas for improving healthcare. She’s a librarian here at the University and I asked her if I could plagiarize her ideas and she gave me permission. I mean that’s the beauty of running a campaign, it gives the opportunity to coalesce everything you’ve been studying, everything you’ve been working towards, it brings it all together. I’m actually excited about this next month.”

As for the youth delegates at the conference, I asked the panel about what they were hearing as to what the important issues are. Redman says that the Green Shift has been huge with the young people, adding that the environment has historically been a topic that they have cared a great deal about.

“This Green Shift has engaged people as well,” adds Valeriote. “Once people understand it, they appreciate the effect and they embrace the whole idea of the Shift. That’s been my experience at the door.”

Bennett says the she’s appreciated the fact that a discussion of women’s issues happened in a plenary session as opposed to a workshop for a change. “It’s usually the add-on in the room you can’t find,” adds Sandals jokingly.

There’s been a great spirit here, says Bennett, as the 250 some young people are all looking and talking about the future. “We will have to decide between a Dion government that listens and uses all the talents in the caucus and in his cabinet, listening to citizens bottom-up, or whether it’s a Harper administration.”

Mike Nagy: Green With Anticipation**

(**The Director's Cut)

Another Thursday, another candidate profile. For the "theatrical cut" of this interview click over to Echo's website here, or pick-up your copy of Echo Weekly on newsstands everywhere across the tri-cities.

Everything about Mike Nagy is saying “chill” today. The Green Party candidate has just come from John Galt Day festivities, including a couple of hours of canoe–related activities in the river. His t–shirt says “Be Cool” and he kicks back in his campaign office with his feet up. Is the perpetual also–ran getting complacent? No, actually: Nagy’s finally waging the campaign he’s always wanted to.

“Since we’ve been on hold for two years, it’s given us time to plan,” says Nagy, who hasn’t been able to plan more than a few months ahead for the last few years out of his desire to throw himself into this campaign full time. (He also added that “You have volunteers and staff that want to plan their lives too, it’s not just the candidate’s time.”) “We’ve learned a lot of lessons from the other campaigns and that means we’ve become very organized and disciplined. And with that, it’s attracted some very skilled people.” That includes the person that gave Nagy's campaign their near-perfect location on the corner of Gordon and Wellington. Nagy says that it shows that they are running to win, that they mean business.

But Nagy’s third go on the ballot was never an assured thing. Green support has been growing steadily in Guelph over the last decade on both federal and provincial levels. But it was Ben Polley’s third place victory, garnering 20 per cent of the vote, in last October’s Provincial election that finally swayed Nagy in favour of running. He added that a victory of 10 per cent, it would have been a different decision, "But if you can get 20 per cent in a provincial general election, that means we can probably do better in a by-election federally.” That combined with the prospect of a by–election rather than fighting a national campaign locally, got him excited with the real prospect of a Party breakthrough. “With this election the enthusiasm is high because they can taste a win and they know that one [Green MP] can lead to five or 10.”

On fighting a nation campaign, Nagy pointed out that in the last general, Federal election, the Greens got $2 million on national campaign as compared to the $26 million the Big three spent just on TV ads; 13 times more than the entire Green national budget. Things are different in the by-election though, “Everybody’s on, I wouldn’t say equal footing, but our goal will be to beat them.”

There's another bonus to waging a by-election according to Nagy. “The main icing on the cake is that people know in this campaign that they can actually vote for the Green Part, break their tradition just for once, and know that its not going to bring down the government, know that it’s not going to change the power, and they can be part of history to put a Green in Parliament.”

Unfortunately, that victory will have to come without the help of the Greens’ biggest base of support: students, many of won’t be able to vote on September 8 due to Elections Canada rules regarding by–elections. Nagy says he’s disappointed, but regardless of the fact that its summer vacation, the Greens reached their goal in total number of volunteers. Now they’re focused on doubling that number, according to Nagy, who adds that even his main campaign staff, from campaign manager down, are volunteers.

(The exact quote: “He have people from head office coming in every once in a while helping, but my campaign manager’s a volunteer, my financial officer’s a volunteer, my office manager’s a volunteer, so it’s not a paid campaign.”)

Much of the growing support for Green is attributed to increased concern generally about the environment. Nagy explains that a lot of this has to do with the fact that people are coming to see the correlation between the environment and a host of other issues, from the economy to international relations. “The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, and nature always bats last,” he says pointing to the rise in natural disasters. It's evidence, Nagy says, that a lot of our problems in this world stems from a deficit of resources. “Green’s believe in their vote,” he adds. “It’s not something that they take for granted or randomly do. A lot people go through the colour spectrum, land on the green, and that’s where they’re going to stay for a very long time.” Nagy noted that this is usually because they've been let down by the other main parties.

That’s something Nagy can understand first hand. During his youth and years in university he was a staunch Liberal. He had friends and family working in the party and even got Christmas cards from Pierre Trudeau. Nagy says that it’s always been his dream to go the House of Commons as an MP, but his dream has since been amended to get there under the Green banner. “I might have taken the easier route and gone through one of the three major parties, but none of them spoke to me,” he adds.

Victory isn’t a foregone conclusion though, and Nagy knows that this is going to be a hard fought race for all candidates and their parties, but that doesn’t mean he’s not looking towards the future. The Green candidate says that, if elected, he wants to be an honest broker in Parliament and help break the partisan deadlock. "You have these three other (national) parties but they’re not working together. They’re not listening, they’re confrontational, and they’re partisan. And Green’s having no baggage in Parliament, we’re the [ones] that can break the communication gap” “The Green Party does not have all the answers, but we have a lot of new answers,” explains Nagy. “A lot of the other parties have answers and we want to work with them too. But right now, a lot of good answers are stalled. They’re locked up in vacuums and vaults. It’s about who yells loudest in Question Period.”

If that sounds like a big job, you're right and Nagy agrees. But he says that running as a Green Party candidate has given the capability to handle any task no matter the size. “Being a Green naturally, we’re use to working with very little and having to work extra hard and that means speaking longer and going to more events because you don’t have the advertising and it means a lot of patience and determination.” He also says the he's extremely patient with dialogue, with good listening, negotiation and facilitation skills honed from not just years of campaigning, but his professional background in sales & marketing, managing and business development and staff management.

“Something that my father said several years ago really stuck with me," explains Nagy. "The idea of the opposition is to denounce bad legislation and support good legislation, and all they do now is yell and denounce everything. [...] The Green vision is to go down a new sustainable path for Canada, that’s our overall goal. Really, in the end, it’s a concern for delay for new action. Most Canadians think that the ship is heading in the wrong direction and my goal is to turn that ship around.”

Nagy says that he knows some people see his idealism as naïve, but that attitude has spurred him to prove that he can do more. “I’m determined. When Nagy says he’s going to do something he does it. And I know my limits. If I know I can’t do it I’ll say, ‘Look, I will do it but I can’t get to it for X-number of months. I don’t like breaking people’s hearts or expectations.” It’s what’s led him here: the allure of a potential Green seat in government – the first in North America. “This is the hard path, but it’s a rewarding path. I’ve made so many friends in many different communities out of this over the last couple of years, friends that I’ll have for the rest of my life. People have humbled me with their commitment and their love and support. If I win, I’ll do everything to not let them down.”

Nagy says that as soon as he’s elected, he’s going to reverse campaign and start knocking on doors to see what people want him to take to Ottawa. The idea is to get a larger picture of goals within the community, take he can take back to Parliament as an agenda. People will know his values, he says adding, but at that point it will just be a matter of getting into specifics.

As the website says, “Vote for the party your children want you to vote for.”

Liberal Roundtable Part I

Last Saturday, I attended “Summer Fling” at the University of Guelph. It’s the annual gathering of Ontario’s Young Liberals, and by sheer fate it happened to be at the one place in Ontario that’s having a by-election campaign right now. Not that I’m alleging a conspiracy theory of course, I’m sure this event is planned long in advanced. It’s just funny to me how things work out.

The opportunity afforded was the chance to talk to several high profile Liberals. Bob Rae and Michael Ignatiaff were scheduled to speak, but several other provincial MPs and MPPs were in attendance. In an interesting feat of logistics I got to do a roundtable of sorts with four of them: Guelph MPP Liz Sandals, Kitchener-Centre MP Karen Redman, St. Paul’s MP Carolyn Bennett and, of course, Guelph Liberal MP candidate Frank Valeriote.

I started with Valeriote. The last time I talked to him after all was technically before the election began. (Day before, to be precise.) I asked him how the campaign had treated him thus far. “It’s obviously intensified,” he joked. “It’s the same strategy just more of it: we’re just trying to get out message out.”

As for OYL meeting, Valeriote said that he found it energizing and inspiring. “It encourages me to know that the youth in our country are so interested in their future, because that’s what this is about: planning and strategizing their own future.”

One of the topics of discussion at the ‘Fling was the role of women in politics. Now women’s issues are not a foreign concept to Valeriote, his community involvement has included his role as Founder of the Guelph Wellington County Committee Against Family Violence and he was a Board Member of Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis. Valeriote says that from his perspective, Guelph has never been underrepresented by women in politics

Liz Sandals is perhaps evidence of that. She knows first hand the challenges but also knows that they’re not universal. “I think it depends on the community,” she says. “I think Guelph is one of the few communities to get past gender. Being a woman running is no longer an issue and that’s the way you want it to be.”

Sandals also points out that the demographics of women and when they come into politics is different than men. For example, if you are a woman with a young family and far from the seat of government, than running for office will require a certain amount of sacrifice. As a result most women start close to home in their municipalities as trustees, councillors or activists. “I think in some ways if you have a base of community service then it makes things easier because the community already knows and trusts you and knows what you’re capable of,” Sandals adds

Carolyn Bennett agrees. “This basis in community shows a palpable motivation to make a difference; this isn’t someone going after a salary or a title, this somebody who is part of a community and knows a community can do better,” she says.

Bennett points out that community is a key factor, especially in a campaign like this; the issue in a by-election is who better understands the community. “The great men are the ones that fight for women’s issues and are prepared to take the needs of a community to the table regardless.”

But Bennett says that part of what keeps more women from getting involved in politics are that the games put them off. Many women just don’t want to be “dropped into the locker room,” she says. “There still are guys that are running for the games, the gotcha and the put-down stuff, like they’re running for the debating club rather than trying to make a difference in people’s lives.”

Karen Redman explains that she’s tired of exorbitant qualifiers; that a woman running for office seems to need a proverbial laundry list of credentials. “The most tiresome thing when you get into politics is when you hear, ‘we need a really good woman to run for riding x,’ when the reality is we need more good people and having more women in really changes the dynamic.”

The total number of women in the House comes to 21 per cent, while female Senators make up 35 per cent of the upper house. With this gender gap in mind, Redman adds that the important thing is not just find more women candidates, but to familiarize male members with the issues. “We have male colleagues that regularly attend women’s caucus meetings every Wednesday afternoon, and they get it. That’s why you’ve got a Ken Dryden that can speak with passion about the kind of childcare vision we need.”

Bennett sees the current political climate as especially important in regards to the impact on Canadian women. “I guess what I feel right now is that this is going to be a big election,” she explains. “Is it going to be about Stephen Harper’s top-down, paternalistic approach or will it be a bottom-up, team ready to govern, that values community and have great Members of Parliament with a leader that wants to know what’s important in their community.”

When once asked about what the most important issue facing Canadian women was, Bennett said that she couldn’t really bring it down to just one issue, or one government department for that matter. “Everything that women care about lies in three or four different government departments, and therefore different jurisdictions.”

Amongst these issues are poverty, violence against women and housing, the funding and administration of which happen to varying degrees at all levels of government. “They’re complex issues that require collaboration and co-operation across government departments and across jurisdictions.”

Valeriote says that he doesn’t see this as a problem as long as you come at a problem in the spirit of collaboration. It comes back to the ability to build bridges between people with differences, he says, and an ability to get past all that. “You’ll find generally, if you reach out, they’ll respond,” he adds.

Redman puts the question simply: “We’re within a year of going to a general election and the question is: ‘What kind of Canada do you want?’”

As for the Canada she wants, Bennett says that we need the people that care about issues and bring them together. At the same time, stopping Stephen Harper should be the most important thing for all of the activists on all the issues that will bring forth a more progressive Canada.

As a result, Bennett says, she’s seeing people of previous affiliations coming to the Liberal party and seeing it develop as a more progressive voice in relation to the Harper Conservatives. “This is such a critical time that we’re finding these extraordinary candidates that are prepared to come and run with us and Stephane Dion.”

To be continued on Friday

Chow joins NDP parade through Guelph

The location: The Stone Store. The topic: Bill C-51. The special guest: Olivia Chow, a Member of Parliament from Toronto and the significant other of NDP leader Jack Layton. The objection to Bill C-51 hasn't been an engulfing hot topic like, say, the environment, but to a lot of people that like all natural foods, alternatives and supplements, it's very important indeed.

Chow says that Bill C-51 will make 75 per cent of the natural food and health products in the market right now illegal. "Bill C-51 is going to try and control everything so that only big pharmaceutical companies will be able to get their products approved. Small companies, like the one I'm in front of right now, will have a hard time surviving."

The Trinity-Spadina MP was highly critical of the Conservative government saying that their reasons for putting this bill through was in order to help out corporate donors in the pharmaceutical industry, while denouncing the Liberals for saying that their against parts of the Bill while noting that they intend to vote in favour of a second reading. The ideal solution, she says, is to push for an amending to law that creates a third category for Natural Health products.

"What is most important is when the House of Commons comes back on the 15th of September, we need a Member of Parliament, with a clear position and will take that position and say No to this Bill," added Chow. Three guesses as to who she thinks that MP should be.

"This is a store that I frequent for a number of items that would fall under the rubric of health products that would be affected by Bill C-51," said Tom King. "I just don't understand parts of that bill. I mean, we're smart boys and girls. I don't know if we need the government telling us what we have to do in every instance."

King went on to say that the bill will effectively put businesses like the Stone Store out of business. He said the bill was, "Part of Harper's mantra is to get government out of people's lives but he doesn't mind letting corporations in to control those lives and in many ways, Bill C-51 is exactly that."

But Chow reinforced that what needs to be done in order to protect the industry is create a third category and regulate it through act of law, because regulations can be changed on a whim of whatever government's in power. "It needs an act that will enshrine it in law that will protect it, regulate it so that it good for the country, good for ordinary Candians and good for the industry," she said.

Courting the Vampire Lobby?

In the midst of a busy day including a radio interview, a press conference in front of city hall, interviews with the National Post and the Mercury, a supporters' rally and a Make Poverty History Guelph-chapter meeting, Nagy found time to give a little blood. Not only that, but he brought special guest Elizabeth May with him to the Blood Donor Clinic on Silvercreek.

The Green Party leader said it was the first time for her donating blood since her hip surgery last fall. Nagy mentioned that he's been a blood donor since 1986, although he had to give it up for a turn as he traveled heavily for his job. But Nagy says that giving blood is, "The most direct way for Canadians to give to other Canadians. [...] You can help someone without them even knowing it."

May was in good spirits saying that she would have liked to be in Guelph sooner, but she was in New Glasgow this past weekend participating in a dragon boat race. May's team beat the team led by Peter MacKay, defence minister and currently the man holding the seat that May is running for in Central Nova. A glimpse at things to come, or an indictment on MacKay's boating skills? You be the judge.

See the Green Press Release here.