Reading in the Canadian Federal Election (Before the election) by: Mohamed S. Kamel

Reading in the Canadian Federal Election

(Before the election)

Mohamed S. Kamel*;

Jun 15, 2004

While the federal election is looming in the very near future, it is important to try to evaluate the system and the parties before they start bombarding us with there artificial election propaganda.

We have a democratic system that have some advantage and some disadvantage as all human been products, we have a system that gives us, the voters, the write to choose without any direct pressure but in the other hand the pressure is coming form the election propaganda and the media interference, the greatest power in our century, special with the concentration of the media in the hand of few interest groups.

We have a system that, to a limit, control the expenditure of the candidates and the parties and make them accountable to all expenditure, a system that just been modified two years ago to use the tax payers money to finance the parties as per the vote they gain, a system that pay to the parties $1.36/ voter/ year. This system is still missing a very important future, still missing the proportional representation which distributes the seats in the parlement as per the percentage of the votes for each party But above all this system did not know the election fraud yet.

Before they start bombarding us with there artificial election propaganda, we should take a deep look at the different parties positions and actions not platforms, because platforms do not represent anything but empty promises.

We had two parties alternating governing Canada, The Liberal and the Conservative; they alternated the government as long as there are no other parties able to influence the outcome of the long debates in the parlement.

This concept have been changed in the last year and half since June 2004 when the Liberal party was not able to achieve the absolute majority, where the power came back to the people, where every party and member of the parlement started to count the days looking for the very close election were people dose not forget yet.

So we gain some basic wrights, we gain the Gommory inquiry, not real full investigation, but still an investigation of a party in power. With a pressure and political manoeuvre from the NDP assisted by the Bloc Quebecois, we get the some financial pay back to the municipalities, some commitment to the health care, limiting the control of the big corporations over the government and we get limitation to the USA controlling of our regulations and foreign relations.

Let us summaries the evaluation of the main federal parties through out the last few years;

Category	Bloc Québécois	Conservatives	Liberals	New Democratic Party (NDP)
·   Undemocratic Laws (Security Certificate, Bill C-36, proposed Bill C-18),	·   Opposed undemocratic laws and Pushed for sunset clause for Bill C-36	·   Supported Security Certificate, Bill C-36, proposed Bill C-18.	·   Issued the so-called anti-terrorist laws which legalize the use of secret evidence and proposed a law that could strip Canadian citizenship under the secret evidence act.	·   Opposed undemocratic laws and Pushed for sunset clause for Bill C-36
·   Media concentration and free speech	·   Limit ownership in media corporations	·   Generally supportive of large corporations	·   Does not see a problem with media concentration	·   Calls for limiting the ownership in media corporations
·   Health Care:	·   Federal government should give up the idea of a Canada wide Healthcare standard and live it up to the provinces	·   Doesn’t object to the idea of a two-tier healthcare system	·   No mechanism to protect the public system and refuse to fight private health care!	·   Believes in the importance of a Canada wide standard and one tier public healthcare system.
·   Education	·   Quebec should decide on its own education system.	·   Not ready to increase spending on education.	·   Little energy directed towards the issue of education and there were no increase in education funding.	·   Increase educational budget and help repay student loans.
·   War on Iraq and the United Nations	·   Did not support intervention in Iraq without UN approval.	·   Supported the war on Iraq and called for participation with the USA with or without UN approval.	·   Refused to participate in the USA’s war on Iraq, but allowed individuals to participate, Canadian army is participating in the occupation of Afghanistan.	·   Opposed the war on Iraq with or without UN approval and the invasion of any country.
·   Space militarization program “Star Wars”	·   Against participation in the space militarization program “Star Wars”.	·   Supports participation in the USA space militarization program “Star Wars”.	·   Plans to participate in the USA space militarization program “Star Wars”, started a partial participation.	·   Against participation in the space militarization program “Star Wars”.
·   Palestine	·   Called for Canada to act in conformity with its own politics of refusing to recognize Israeli control over occupied lands and concerned about the USA denying the Palestinians the right of return.	·   The most pro-Israel (Pro-Zionist) federal party in Canada	·   Recognizes the right of the Palestinians to a state but without pressuring the occupier (Israel) and refuses to refer the apartheid wall issue to the international court and oppose any UN resolution against Israel.	·   Supports the Palestinians’ right for self-determination and their right of return and opposes Israeli practices as well as the wall

We have to insist in participating and not be afraid of any minority government; we have to recognize that the parties in opposition have strong power as long as we don not have dictatorship of a party with vast majority.

We have to recognize that our vote is valuable and our future is in our hand not in any single politician hand.

* Mohamed S. Kamel, is a Freelanc ewriter, editor of the International News and President of  Alternative Perspective Media (APM-RAM), could be reached at info@apm-ram.org