The Proletariat Congress

There are a number of ways one can submit their voter’s ballot in Canada. This was developed to allow for people to vote in absentia, whether they are out of their riding or out of the country. There are also ways for people to vote if they are unable to get to their riding’s polling station. Elections Canada makes it easy for voters to get the job done. Their website provides the information sought by the elector (or voter).

This ensures transparency in the system.

Or at least it should. The current system is no longer good enough for the minority Conservatives, who want to make life difficult for veiled Muslim women; to make voting more difficult for this group by violating their rights.

When voting in absentia, the voter must provide valid identification, but only to register to vote in absentia. The elector is required to submit the following:

• pages 2 and 3 of your Canadian passport, or a Canadian citizenship certificate or card; or
• a birth certificate or a baptismal certificate proving that the elector was born in Canada.

It doesn’t require valid photo ID if the elector was born in Canada. Yet the Conservatives feel the need to mandate that Muslim women not be allowed to vote while veiled. This is more than a small inconsistency given what is permitted and accepted by Elections Canada.

The Tories were furious over a decision by Elections Canada to allow Muslim women to vote with their faces covered by burkas or niqabs during three Quebec byelections in September.

“During the recent byelections in Quebec, the government made it clear that we disagreed with the decision by Elections Canada to allow people to vote while concealing their face,” Van Loan said.

“That is why … we committed to introducing legislation to confirm the visual identification of voters.”

So, let me get this straight, while an elector can vote in absentia without photo ID, a veiled Muslim woman cannot have her face concealed when she goes to a polling station in person, even if she does present valid photo ID?

Bill C-31, which was passed last spring, required voters to show one piece of government-issued photo ID — the most basic standard of voter identification — or two pieces without a photo before being allowed to vote.

But not while in absentia? Is it any wonder why people hate the Conservative government? This is the kind of sheer hypocrisy that will cause this minority government to implode on itself. If they’re going to change the rules, they need to initiate the change across the board.

Marc Mayrand of Elections Canada, explained that it was allowed for the veiled Muslim women to vote without having to show their faces as he accepted the photo ID (up to 2 if the woman didn’t wish to remove the veil) as valid proof of the voter’s identification. The current law also allows for the elector’s ID be verified by another registered elector in the same district. Though this is not required by the current law due to the methods used for electors to register to vote in absentia.

Tories introduce bill to ban veiled voting

The usual suspects have been bland at best. The predicted and supposedly inevitable pissing contest has yet to really pick up. The parties vying for the votes from Ontarians have kept the drama down. It’s boring. Aside from the one controversial issue of faith-based school funding there has been nothing that has kept the spark alive.

The campaign ads have been rather absent, though I can’t confirm this as I generally don’t have a tolerance for prime time television, which is the best time to air ads to reach potential voters.

There has been talk of solutions to the current healthcare issues, the main issue being with the waiting lists and whether or not the existence of a private system would help it, though at a cost to the taxpayer. The cost would go through OHIP (NHS for you Europeans and for you Americans… well… just call it “universal healthcare”).

Overall the leaders have failed to impress me with tirades about how they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread and beyond and why their party as all the answers, yet cannot provide the proof that they can fund it plus the proposed tax-cuts that are marched out ad nauseum every election.

It seems that the biggest deciding issues are the faith-based school funding proposal fielded by PC leader John Tory and the MMP, which if it succeeds would change our electoral system. The other parties have come out against the faith-based school system, which would legalise a form of segregation, even if Tory denies it.

The religious communities can push for it, but they probably won’t get it because the majority of voters are either content with sending their children to a public system or are like me and prefer to keep state and religion separate.

October 10^th will decide that.

Limited democracy seems to the only brand of democracy on the shelf at the political store these days. Despite the expectation that all participants should have equal air time, only the big names in politics are getting the much vetted air time they need in order to reach out to the apathetic voting public, most who are disenfranchised from media reports singing reiterating of the shallow corruption plaguing every pore and crevice of the dankest corners of our legislative assemblies.

As the largest names in Ontario prepare to take to the dusty campaign trail, which is a long one with thousands of handshakes, photo ops and debates, one party is being shut out of the first debate for reasons unknown. The party being shut out has thousands of supporters and is no less legitimate than the Liberals, Conservatives or NDP.

The Green Party of Ontario wants to make a difference but they are being sidelined.

According to Frank de Jong, the leader of the Greens, the choice of the broadcasters to shut the Green Party out of the September 20th debate, while giving airtime to the Liberals, Tories and NDP is effectively telling the public that those three parties are the only true options for the voting public.

For our electoral system to be truly democratic, the Green Party needs equal airtime along with the other parties who are vying for public approval. The Green Party needs a fair shot at the ballot; they should be given the time to tell the public what it stands for before the public casts its deciding ballot on October 10^th.

If you ask anyone on the street they will tell you: `Yes, the Earth is in trouble and humans are the cause of it.’ The problem is the electoral system needs to modernize and we need to make sure the Green party is part of the leaders’ debate and is given equal coverage to other parties if we’re going to save this planet. ~ de Jong

Even if the Green Party was to gain no seats in the election but if they were given equal airtime at least then they would have been given a fair run. That’s democracy. You rise and fall on equal terms as your opponents.

What are the others afraid of? Are the big boys afraid that another small underdog party would unseat the old boy’s club?

Why aren’t the Greens taken more seriously?

Religion is stagnant; its individual core tenets and principles steadfast and unyielding to change and the evolution of societal norms in the 21^st century. It is inflexible and its followers are most resistant to change when that change is an front to their “moral principles” and what to them is morally acceptable. Stricter beliefs and intolerant leaders create intolerant followers and believers.

The faithful see their beliefs as the only way and the beliefs of others as heathen beliefs that will damn them for eternity. The faithful want to see their children given a proper ‘moral’ upbringing, even if it means forcing their beliefs on others as has been done for hundreds of years before some people said enough is enough.

One subject in the public school that has caused controversy other than mandatory prayer is that of the teaching of creation as an alternative theory (or intelligent design) along with the theory of evolution. At least in the US this has been an area of sensitivity for both religious and secular proponents. It hasn’t been cause for attention here in Canada, or at least in Ontario until opposition leader John Tory brought up the subject of faith-based school funding.

He has made an election promise to create a separate public system for parents who want to send their children to a religious school and it would be publicly funded. This move would violate the sacred boundary that separates church and state. A boundary that the provincial Conservatives have held no respect for, as former Ontario Premier Davis in 1985 reversed his 1971 decision regarding the full-funding of the Catholic school board.

It is already enough of an insult to the taxpaying public that we have to fund the separate Catholic school system along side the public system that is struggling under constant deficits and compounding funding problems brought on by the controversial school funding formula introduced originally by the Harris Conservatives as part of their ‘Common Sense Revolution‘ promise.

The last thing a modern secular society needs is more public funding for the religious agenda. We need a solid line drawn between the two. We cannot and should not endorse the use of public taxpayer funds for a religious education. To create a system based on this idea would be introducing a modern form of segregation.

Additionally, if the public were to fund such a system, what measures would be in place to ensure that the provincial mandated curriculum was followed by all schools and that all students got equal access to the same academic knowledge that their peers in the secular public system would get?

They teach evolution in the Ontario curriculum, but they also could teach the fact to the children that there are other theories that people have out there that are part of some Christian beliefs. It’s still called the theory of evolution. ~ John Tory

Why should the public pay for students to be taught Creation? Creation has no place in any classroom unless that classroom is one that teaches philosophy and allows for the debate. Creation has no scientific merit and as such, is untestable because it fails to meet the criteria that would allow for it to be tested as a plausible scientific theory. It should and always remain outside of the science classroom as it is a myth and myths have no place in the world of facts.

Theories in themselves do not have to be factual but they must have testable elements. Creation isn’t even a theory; to be a scientific theory, it needs to be testable based on the scientific method. Evolution is testable given the characteristics. Creation and Intelligent Design cannot be tested because there is no way to test for God.

If parents want this included in their child’s education then they should pay to send their child to a private school. If not then send them to the public school but don’t expect the taxpayer to foot the bill for your child’s religious education. Religion is a personal thing and it does not belong in the public school system.

Tory ignites creationism debate

EDIT (Sept. 6/07, 3:15pm) - A Conservative party spokeswoman, Ingrid Thompson, has issued a statement clarifying the remarks made by provincial Conservative leader John Tory. She has embellished on his earlier comment, explaining that schools that would teach creation in science class would become ineligible for public funding.

If there are schools that teach creationism in science class, they would not be eligible to be funded as part of this proposal.

She went on to add that all faith-based schools that want to qualify for funding would have to follow the Ontario curriculum.

Creationism in science class would disqualify schools for funding: Conservatives

Saying that schools that teach creationism in science class does not undo the damage that was done by John Tory and his endorsement of creationism as a teachable subject.