Democracy is safe.

[lance_sibley]

I just got home from voting. (Hm, I really should have a City Hall icon for this post. *grin*) I must say, though, I wasn't impressed with the campaign this time around; I never heard from any of the mayoral candidates (all I know is what I saw on the news or read in the paper), nor did I hear from any of the candidates for City Councillor in my ward, nor did I hear from any of the candidates for School Trustee. One would think they didn't care whether they won election or not.

Since I knew nothing of any of the candidates for School Trustee, I left that part of my ballot blank. This may be the first time I've ever done that - but why should I vote in a race where I don't know what any of the candidates stand for? That's just stupid.

(And before anyone points out that a lot of people do just that, for those of you reading who aren't Canadian, municipal candidates here don't usually have party affiliations, so I couldn't even vote for a particular party. Generally speaking, only a subset of candidates are affiliated with a party, and they're all NDP - the other parties don't bother with municipal politics. And frankly, I've never been impressed with the NDP's approach to municipal politics.)

---

It's amazing how tiring sitting around a table can be. I had two meetings this weekend; Saturday's wasn't bad, but Sunday's was long - about five hours, plus over an hour transit time in each direction. When I got home last night, I barely had the energy to make dinner, but I managed it, plus I managed to stay awake for Desperate Housewives (which was a letdown after last week's episode, but how could it not be?) and Studio 60 (which suffered from Berman/Braga Syndrome - the ending came out of nowhere in the last five minutes), and I read through most of the material in the text for tonight's Scripting Languages midterm. I managed to get to bed before 2 this morning (wow), though I slept until nearly noon. I have one chapter still to read (the chapter on arrays, which we just covered last Wednesday), and then I want to go through the lecture notes. I don't expect to have any problems, though. (At least, I think the midterm is tonight. It's listed in the course outline as being this week, and it's the first thing listed under this week's topics, but the instructor didn't say anything about it last Wednesday night. One would think that he might have mentioned it. Unless he wants to get through the next chapter, which is the last chapter on Javascript, first - that would make sense.)

Comments

[whitesangria.livejournal.com]

there was nothing on the freaking agenda, how could the meeting have been five hours?????

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

It's probably best not to talk about it in an open LJ post. ;)

We may not have started exactly on time - I don't recall whether we did or not.

[whitesangria.livejournal.com]

No, not the best place, but man... five hours??? Sigh.

[crusherdisciple.livejournal.com]

I'm with ya on the not voting for things if you don't know who the heck the candidates are or what they stand for. That drives me crazy and it happens no matter how much I try to research beforehand.

[gurudata.livejournal.com]

Hiho,

Suffice it to say that a few things came up over the course of discussion...

Cu,
Andrew

[whitesangria.livejournal.com]

Yes, but if they aren't on the agenda, you can't make decisions and vote on them... that's the rules in respect of corporations. Not on the agenda, nothing can be decided...

[gurudata.livejournal.com]

Hiho,

Surprisingly, it was all things that were on the agenda, and no votes were taken. It was all just discussion... Some related to things you and I have recently discussed on msn. I'll say no more... well, not here anyhow. :)

Cu,
Andrew

[gurudata.livejournal.com]

Hiho,

I just realized that I misspoke: There was one vote taken. I requested that our new corporate event (the one I'm in charge of) be granted an exemption from the 10-meeting minimum requirement in the bylaws, and this passed.

I *think* that's the only vote that was called.

Cu,
Andrew

[whitesangria.livejournal.com]

Since a discussion of that event was intended to happen, and everyone knew that, that one is fine. It's the "other business" stuff that gets us into trouble.

[mencc1701.livejournal.com]

I haven't been paying attention to the Toronto races at all... the Ottawa race has been pretty heated, so that's had most of my attention.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

Why would you be paying attention to Toronto anyway? I'd have expected you to either be voting in Ottawa or Peterborough.

(Though Toronto is the Centre of the Universe... :P )

[mencc1701.livejournal.com]

I voted in both. ;) But Toronto is a city I like to keep an eye on, since it has a pretty huge impact on the province.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

I voted in both. ;)

"Vote early, vote often!" :P

(I'd say, "What are you, a Chicagoan?" except that in Chicago, it's the dead that vote...)

But Toronto is a city I like to keep an eye on, since it has a pretty huge impact on the province.

Mm hm - like I said, Centre Of The Universe^TM. Don't deny it.

[mencc1701.livejournal.com]

The more votes the merrier! ;) And at least one of the people I voted for won...

Y'all wish. ;)

[eastman23.livejournal.com]

There's NDP candidates at the local level? O_o We didn't have any of those in our elections last month. We had a few Green Party people running around (none got in IIRC). As for school trustee... I just picked the ones that were running for re-election. *shrug*

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

There's NDP candidates at the local level? O_o We didn't have any of those in our elections last month. We had a few Green Party people running around (none got in IIRC).

Interesting - I guess they don't stick their noses into municipal politics everywhere? I had sort of assumed that it was a nationwide thing for the NDP to support municipal candidates.

As for school trustee... I just picked the ones that were running for re-election. *shrug*

I didn't even have a clue who the incumbent was. (And since I don't have kids, and never will have kids, why should I have an opinion on the school board anyway? Okay, I would probably vote for a candidate who promised to bus all the local punks to somewhere like Flin Flon... ;) )

[mencc1701.livejournal.com]

There are and there aren't. There wasn't a real NDP candidate running in Ottawa (though Alex Munter supported the NDP at times), but there was in Peterborough. It's not consistent by any means.

[ferrio.livejournal.com]

I like to tell people that 19 years ago this past summer, I was at a neighbourhood BBQ for local NDP party workers/supporters/families with my grandparents - I'd just moved back from the States and had been living with them for two years by then. While there, the 'block captain' was talking with them and said that starting with the next election, the party was going to provide support to choice local candidates.

Back then, as now, I felt it was a bad idea - local politics should be about local issues fought over by local elected officials. (I should point out that back then I was a NDP supporter like the rest of my family, but today I'm more Conservative.)

As I said, I don't like seeing party politics at the local level, but in my mind the NDP has now let the genie out of the bottle. With each ward having a strong obvious NDP/socialist candidate - with one or two exceptions - and two, three or even four candidates that would be considered as 'center/right' splitting that vote, you end up with what I see as a democratically palatable version of a one-party state. In fact, I feel that that is one of the reasons why voter turnout rates in this city have been plummeting, as more and more 'right wing' voters don't bother to show up at the polls, thinking "Why bother, my vote is just going to be split."

BTW, did you check out last Thursday's NOW Magazine and their recommendations for the election? I swear, every other candidate they endorsed had some connection to the NDP back rooms.

And while I said I don't want to see party politics at the local level - just take a look south of the border to see how nasty it can get - I do believe that what this city needs is a grass-roots peoples-movement of center-right individuals to try and put something together by 2010 in order to bring some stability and balance to City Hall.