Shopping Carts in Ravines

taken in Brooklyn by Greenpoint station

Election results from FairVote.ca:

- Green Party: 940,000 voters supporting the Green Party sent no one to Parliament, setting a new record for the most votes cast for any party that gained no parliamentary representation. By comparison, 813,000 Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able to elect 27 MPs.
- Prairie Liberals and New Democrats: In the prairie provinces, Conservatives received roughly twice the vote of the Liberals and NDP, but took seven times as many seats.
- Urban Conservatives: Similar to the last election, a quarter-million Conservative voters in Toronto elected no one and neither did Conservative voters in Montreal.
- New Democrats: The NDP attracted 1.1 million more votes than the Bloc, but
the voting system gave the Bloc 50 seats, the NDP 37.

Anyone in BC, there’s a referendum on May 12th that looks like the best shot of anywhere in the country to transition to a properly proportional system. STV seems as confusing as our MMP in Ontario, but at least you have a cartoon to try to explain it.

We had…….. arguments on Facebook?
(Polls show that elderly landed immigrants do not, in fact, care about your Facebook group.)

Hopefully BC starts something and the rest of Canada can catch up with it.

Vote For Environment: How to vote smart in your riding to defeat the Conservative party.

Just input your postal code to see information on how best to vote against the Conservatives in your area. It’s sad that this sort of thing is necessary, but that’s a century and a half old parliamentary democracy for you.

Save The Planet: Stop Harper!

The song: “You have a choice”
feat. K-OS, Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies, Ben Kowalewicz of Billy Talent, Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace, Sarah Harmer, Hawksley Workman, Jason Collett of Broken Social Scene, Ian Lefeuvre of The Hundreds and Thousands, Darren Dumas of The Salads and the Arts Offstage Choir under the direction of David Reed.

The Conservative party member running in York South-Weston (Toronto) Aydin Cocelli has been placing many signs around the area that I believe are in violation of either the Federal (Canada Elections Act) or municipal (Toronto Municipal Code) laws, or possibly both, requiring that signs only be posted on private property.

In this offensive example, he or his supporters (I seriously doubt he has many supporters in this riding who aren’t also named Cocelli) have NAILED a sign to a piece of local youth-created community artwork.

As King Harper said, ordinary Canadians don’t care about art - or ethically-run elections, or the people of Toronto, or…

A bit old, yes, but I felt it was worth posting to give an idea of the current state of the Canadian State.

Okay, now this YouTube post is actually a serious one, on The North American Union / Security & Prosperity Partnership (NAU/SPP):

NAU/SPP information:
Stop the NAU (US)
Canada Free Press: NAU/SPP Articles
John Birch Society (US)
The Canadian Action Party

A protest is being planned for February 16th in Toronto (and hopefully other places as well). Facebook event listing for Feb 16th anti-NAU protest in Toronto

Big scandal, some poor folk living in a middle class area (no, NOT the building pictured above!):

The quiet street that runs off Danforth Ave. near Broadview Ave. has been in the news since it was revealed that three houses there, valued at nearly $500,000, are owned by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation and are rented to low-income families.

The issue is that Case Ootes feels taxpayer money could house more people for less cost in ghetto highrises, while others argue that healthier communities are built out of better integration.

Neighbour Tom Allen said that he had no idea his neighbours’ home was TCHC-owned social housing, and would not have otherwise found out. The difference between The Bridle Path and Jane & Finch, on the other hand, is pretty immediately apparent to anyone from either.

Just like the difference between the horrible building pictured above, located in a miniature ghetto between Spadina and Bathurst on the south side of Sundad, and these TCHC-owned homes that so tastelessly camouflaged their residents’ worthlessness amongst the fantastically-moneyed citizenfolk who belonged on the street.

Simply dumping all the city’s poor in hidden areas, like the anti-grid Regent Park now under reconstruction, is one thing… but in areas like Weston, that low-cost housing specifically replaces industrial employment on a mass scale, and the huge numbers of penniless people are left choosing between working at Tim Horton’s or drug dealing and gun crime (those are literally the only sort of employment options left in the area).

Weston’s food bank is closed more often than not and lacking pretty much always, Weston has more jobs-for-youth services than jobs to give those youth, and if people in this and similar areas weren’t isolated from the rest of the city, it would’ve been damn obvious a long time ago that we need to do something!

Probably the most interesting candidate running in the upcoming provincial election. More on Lucky’s campaign at http://www.votecat.net/

Don’t worry too much about your MPP vote, just make sure you vote Yes for MMP in the referendum!