OfficiallyScrewed.com

In addition to the need for cleaning up multiple cards/voters and non Canadian voters in this post, I thought I would mention the following:

This morning on Canada AM there was a young American student studying at the University of Toronto. he wants to be a journalist and when he realized that you can vote without proof of citizenship, he used his student card and a bill (to show his address), and he got a ballot. He DID spoil it, and I hope Elections Canada does not charge him. His only purpose in doing this was to do it to write about it, and hopefully expose this major issue. Considering I blogged about this yesterday, I commend this young man for his help in pressuring for new policy on registering voters in this country.

Read the story here.

Well, it was just bound to happen. With all the speculation on who would be running for the Liberal Party leadership, one of the names constantly mentioned is Frank McKenna.

Not one to disappoint, Frank McKenna submitted his resignation today to Prime Minister Designate, Stephen Harper.

There was some speculation that Harper would leave McKenna in his role for awhile, which would have prevented him from running for head honcho of the Liberals. I believe McKenna made a shrewd choice. Had he remained as ambassador and missed his shot at the brass ring of leadership, he might have been left out in the cold should Harper decide to replace a short time after the Lib convention.

Another issue that is quickly becoming big news is that the Liberal Party is in debt. Original reports were that they are only $1.9 Million in debt. But tonight on Duffy’s Countdown, he and Warren Kinsella were discussing this and the rumour is that the decimal place is out, implying the debt is closer to $19 Million.

Via Sheila Copps, we already reported on the debt as per Elections Canada here, and the total was over $34 Million.

In any case, with the new donation laws, whoever takes on the job is going to have to be popular enough to raise a lot of money in smaller increments which will make fund raising a big part of the job.

I was fully intending to put together a list of recommendations for Elections Canada after my experience working for them on Election Day. But this made me speed up the process.

I worked as an Information Officer, which meant my role was to provide information to the voters, but in my role, I got to watch a lot of the proceedings from a unique vantage point of having to deal with almost every voter as they walked in the door.

My 2 Critical Situations of Concern

1) I had a gentlemen come up with three Voter Registration Cards. All had the slightest difference in his name so he was showing up in the system 3 times. i.e. he could have changed his look a bit, and come in three times to vote. I told him the Registration Officer would be glad to help him with a correction form, and he said he had done that twice before. I was told this a few times by different people with issues or wrong names or wrong middle names, etc. It is obvious that the correction forms are not being processed or not being processed correctly.

As a recommendation for an easy ‘mass fix’, Elections Canada should cross reference the electoral list by name vs. a Social Insurance Number (SIN) and have all irregularities or duplications investigated and cleaned up. WHERE someone lives is not an issue. But making sure the official list of electors is accurate would be high priority to me, as I hope it would be to many.

2) Proof of Citizenship is a major concern I have. In Sections 3 and 4 of the Canada Elections Act it states:

In my DRO (Deputy Returning Officer) Training, we were given a handbook to keep. It is entitled Ordinary Poll Election – A Manual For Deputy Returning Officers and Poll Clerks. In this handbook on page 5-12 it lists the types of identification required to register as a voter. The list is broken out into three columns to outline which documents contain a) name, current home address and signature, or b) name and current home address, and c) names and signatures. You need one item from column a) or one from each of the b) and c) columns which together provide all the required information.

There are a few items listed which would qualify as proof of citizenship, yet nowhere is it indicated that proof of citizenship is required. This is a critical point. Hypothetically, ANYone could walk in with a drivers license; or a health card and phone bill; or a credit card and blank personalized cheque; and get registered.

I find this a gross example of an exploitable guideline. Continuing from the recommendation in 1) above, you could take the cleaned up list, and run it against the Citizenship list I am sure the government has somewhere. Anyone who uses excel can probably figure out an easy way to do it. Any names not on the citizenship should be stricken.

Taking this one step further, from now on, when someone goes to register they should have to show proof of citizenship. A passport; or citizenship card; or a birth certificate/photo ID combination would help minimize the risk of non citizen’s voting.

Some may think these are pretty harsh suggestions, but how can we go around the world telling other nations what democracy is and scritinize their elections (as we did for the Ukrainian elections) when we have such fatal flaws in our own system?

I am open to criticism on these suggestions in the comments below.

This picture of the Harpers is via the Edmonton Sun. If I was out googling for images and came across this, I might come up with quite a few descriptive words. But none of them would be ‘scary’.

The Harpers are in town now. I just listened to someone tell me they ran into him once at the hockey rink in the wee hours of the morning. Gadzooks!! He must be a slave driver getting his kids out of bed at that God awful hour to excercise!! (Yes, Virginia, that was sarcasm)

I am glad that the transition has already started. It will be a couple of weeks before it happens, so we have to wait for the official schedule when the PM-elect speaks on Thursday.

I know what my 9 year old loves to do too. Cookie loves to swim. All summer, everyday, she would come up and ask if she could go swimming.

Early morning hockey, kids who love to swim, a wife who genuinely smiles a lot. He must be a demon!!! (more sarcasm) We’ve edited

Still Scared? You shouldn’t be. He lives and breathes Canadian values. He has done and will continue to do us all proud.

It may seem like a stupid question, but has anyone looked at maps of Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal lately? I am pretty sure you can scratch Vancouver and Toronto from this list of cities with no Conservative representation, leaving only Montreal left without. The key here is the pickup line. This is the imaginary line drawn around a city where the vehicle majority moves from SUV’s and Cars in the city, to the pickup truck in the country. Vancouver and Toronto both have Conservative MP’s within the pickup line.

In Vancouver, the city is starting to sprawl into the mainland. Yes, the border may not officially included some ridings, but if anyone doubts that Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam is part of Vancouver, needs to take a drive from Vancouver through Port Moody and Port Coquitlam. These two areas are highly dense and are a continuation of the Vancouver city proper and from what I hear, you wouldn’t notice much of a difference.

When you cruise around the Greater Vancouver area you have others as well. Randy Camp took Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission. John Cummins took Delta-Richmond East.

Looking at the Big Smoke, there are bedroom communities that the urban sprawl has reached. In the east we have Oshawa and Whitby in particular. There isn’t any no man’s land in between Toronto and Oshawa. You can even see the huge residential growth happening a bit further east in Clarington.

Jim Flaherty took Whitby-Oshawa. Colin Carrie took Oshawa and Bev Oda is returning as the MP from Durham which covers Uxbridge and Clarington.

To the west of Toronto, Mike Wallace took Burlington and Garth Turner took Halton. Halton is home to a big chunk of Oakville. Although not part of the GTA, these areas are very well developed and connected to the 416 area code with main streets and residential surburbia. If there wasn’t signs, you would have no clue you exited Toronto when driving clear through Oakville and on to Burlington. The 407 has made the drive from Pickering to Burlington pretty much an easy cruise across the top of the city without dealing with traffic or highway interchanges.

A city line may be drawn to designate where the metropolis ends, but the desire to live close to it has created no delineation when it comes to the scenery. Suburb after suburb, mall after mall, strip plaza after strip plaza, Tim Horton’s after Tim Horton’s. A drive around Vancouver and Toronto will clearly show that the above areas can be included in their respective cities.

Last night and all day I have listened to various pundits, newscasters, TV personalities, and other sorts all talk about how the Conservative minority was smaller than expected. How everyone thought it would be big enough to easily pass many bills. And how could the party members be happy because of the lack of expected support from the electorate spoke volumes. The question of ‘how could we have the sponsorship scandal happen, such a poorly run Liberal campaign, a tight Conservative campaign, yet still only have 124 seats.

Three years ago, the Queen Mary was heading left. It was almost out of sight on the horizon.

It was that long ago ago when the right wing of Canada was splintered in two decent sized entities splitting the right wing vote. Before the 2004 Election, Stephen Harper (and Peter McKay) did what they needed to, in order to make the right work together. Without a policy convention, without years of time under their belts as a party, they managed to take 99 seats in parliament. It was a strong showing for a party still in its’ infancy.

It was at this point the Conservative Captain had hit the brakes and pulled the ship up short of sailing off into the storm.

Not two short years later, after a solid policy convention, the party made a clear nudge to the left of it’s perceived view. The ‘reform’ side of the party, although the majority at the time, realized that social issues took a back seat to the need to clean up government, and clean up crime, and get back to the basics.

This was the Turning of the Queen Mary.

In the next 18 months to 3 years, the Tories will have to show that their sound policy is good for Canada. There is a lot of middle ground with the Bloc, the NDP and even some Liberals. Finding good solid policy based compromises is very attainable.

The Tories have the benefit in knowing that if the other parties shoot them down quickly, the electorate will scream in volumes for not working for us and running perpetual campaigns. (Although, I technically think the campaigning will be ongoing for the term of our 39th parliament because many do expect it to be short lived and not break the 3 year barrier)

If the Tories can walk the line well, then the voters will see that they aren’t scary, this will give them a good shot at gaining some seats the next time around.

In other words, the Queen Mary is now almost fully turned and ready to head back to the center again. To say the country is going right is correct. To say that it is going right of center is a far cry.

Remember, when you are on the Queen Mary as many Conservative supporters have been for several years now, it is often hard to feel that she is or has turned.

Be happy the government has changed. Be happy our Auditor General will have fantastic new resources to ensure our tax dollars are spent wisely. Be happy that by the time the Liberals fill Stornoway, we may have quite a bit to smile about in terms of policy coming out of our elected officials.

My wife is not political, but even she breathed a sigh of relief because she knows if the Liberals had won, I would have been looking for a job in Alberta or Quebec instead of here in Ottawa, in effect, giving up.

From my view, our glass is 124/308ths full. To some it is 184/308ths empty.

Sail on Captain Harper, sail on.

What created the success in Eastern Ontario? Why did we elect 9 of 12 Conservative M.P.s? What is different about the Ottawa Valley?

1) CFRA – In my honest opinion, CFRA has done a tremendous job of not only being fair, but of keeping everyone in the valley abreast of political ongoings. Lowell Green, Steve Madely, Michael Harris, John Counsell, Nick Vandergragt, and many more do an incredible job keeping all politicians on their toes and holding them to task. With this being the premiere talk radio station in Ottawa, they have earned the respect of countless people in the Ottawa Valley.

2) Civil Service – Ottawa does have a higher per capita civil service than most other parts of the country. This really says something when those working within a government managed by graft and corrosion have quietly spoken their mind. Maybe not in the fashion of Allan Cutler, but in tiny amounts of one vote, they added their voice to those who know we need to clean up government. I know many will lose their jobs under the new government but many know that a booming economy with rich people working hard and spending more money will create countless jobs everywhere.

3) Wealth – There are a lot of wealthy people in Ottawa. Excluding all the diplomats and ambassadors, the city has a thriving technology community, (of which I am a member), along with a lot of rural farmland tied in to the urban ridings. My riding is largely farmland with numerous towns of several thousand, but it also contains Kanata, the Silicon Valley North. This brings together a combination of rural farmers without money or help from the sitting Liberals, as well as the high income, high tax paying high tech sector. This created a 22500 seat plurality for a small landslide.

4) Military – In the area we have NDHQ, National Defence Headquarters This puts thousands more in the area. They are spread out right across the city considering the NDHQ has overload at their primary facility and has locations in a few areas around town. We also have CFB Petawawa. Home to over 4400 military personel and 1000 civilians. If you include family who are nearby all these fine soldiers, you can see what that nasty attack ad must have done.

There are other reasons I am sure. But I do feel that this part of the country should be proud for not having fear for a change in our leadership. The sun did rise today. No fire and brimstone came raining down upon us.

I want to post this to say Congratulations to each and every Tory who won their riding tonight. A special congratulations to Stephen Harper, my new Prime Minister; to Gordon O’Conner, my returning M.P.; to every blue riding in the Ottawa Valley. (Thank you Lowell, you can add to your count of 5 ridings in earshot being blue); and to every other Tory M.P.

In fact, I would like to congratulate every one of the 308 new M.P’s and each of their competitors for a hard fought election. Eight weeks for everyone on the bustings is a long time.

I am so exhausted as I did get called in by elections Canada. Look for my more coherent blitherings on the day tomorrow night. I have a full day in Hawkesbury tomorrow checking out a potential new job so won’t be back until tomorrow night.

Feel free to leave your comments on the election in this post.

Good night my friends. Job well done by all. As a Canadian who is pleased of the change in leadership, I would also like to add a final quick thanks to the bloggers out there for sparking such interest and accountability in the public eye. The 65% voter turnout is a testament to you guys (and gals) in my eyes.