Vote for BC-STV! TODAY!

This provincial election, I didn’t think I would vote.

I could not bring myself to vote for a candidate who has rammed through numerous highway expansion projects with utter disregard for what his fellow citizens think.

I could not bring myself to vote for a leader who pursued a hypocritical campaign of misinformation against the carbon tax for no reason other than to broaden her support base.

I could not bring myself to vote for a party that is so young and disorganized that, after over twenty years of existence, has still yet to elect even one candidate to the Legislature.

Our current system does not work and has been turning citizens off politics for decades. It’s no surprise then that all the major Western democracies across the world, save the UK, the USA, and Canada, have switched to a form of proportional representation for their elections. And it’s working -politicians work cooperatively, more women and minorites are elected, and engagement is high as people believe in the process of their democracy.

We have a chance today to make history.

Today is the day when we can change to a fairer electoral system: BC-STV.

BC-STV was the system recommended by the Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform, a group of randomly selected British Columbians who were tasked with the responsibility of finding a new electoral system that would better fit the values citizens in this province seeked from their democracy.

BC-STV will give us fairer elections, effective representation, and a responsive, diverse government.

If, you, like me, are disengaged with this election, and can’t even bear to face the ballot box, do something about it. Change the way our electoral system works, and you will change the way politics in our province is done.  And in turn, you may very well set off a groundswell of support for electoral reform that could sweep the rest of this continent. You and I will never have a chance to make history like this in our lifetimes again.

Vote YES to BC-STV.

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For one of the best arguments in support of BC-STV, please listen to Christy Clark, CKNW radio host and former Deputy Premier of BC.

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Supporters of BC-STV

• Michael Byers, UBC Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law
• Libby Davies, NDP MP for Vancouver East
• Richard Stewart, Mayor of Coquitlam
• David Suzuki, Environmentalist
• Bill Vander Zalm, former Social Credit Premier of BC
• Preston Manning, former Reform Party leader
• Denise Savoie, NDP MP for Victoria
• Mark Jaccard, Professor for the SFU School of Resource and Environmental Management
• Rafe Mair, broadcaster and former NDP MLA
• Troy Lanigan, President of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
• Seth Klein, Director of the BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
• Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada
• Andrew Coyne, national editor of Macleans, National Post columnist
• Bruce Cox, Executive Director of Greenpeace Canada
• Sean Holman, Public Eye Online and CFAX Legislative Reporter
• Bill Siksay, NDP MP for Burnaby-Douglas

Opposing the relocation of The Centre

The latest news out of one of Vancouver’s primary LGBT organizations, The Centre, is that it is considering moving from its current home at Bute and Davie in the West End to a street-front location at Burrard and 7th. The non-profit has been struggling for years to expand services and rebrand the organization – although most of these improvements required a new “Centre”. The current facility is small, run down, mice infested, unfriendly, and inaccessible.

However, as bad as that may sound, The Centre remains a highly used safe gathering space for the queer community – a community that has laid its roots in the West End and on Commercial Drive. These two areas are the only gay villages in the region. Now you can debate the validity of a gay village and whether they will survive the coming decades, but there is absolutely no question that human beings have a natural tendency to assemble and form collective groups.

Whether it’s ethnicity, religion, money, or sexual orientation, there’s a vast array of geographical communities in Metro Vancouver. South Asians live in Surrey, Christians live in Abbotsford, the rich lives in West Van, and the gays live in Davie Village – these are generalizations, but there’s truth behind it.

The fact remains that Davie Village is the geographical hub for queer people in the Lower Mainland. If you start to remove the services that that community relies on – such as the Odyssey or The Centre – then these services will either be replaced with a newcomer to the area to fill that void, or the community itself will begin to die if it doesn’t have the capacity to replace these services.

In the case of the Odyssey, if it doesn’t relocate to a new venue somewhere in the West End, it’s likely that their patrons will simply move to a different club – possibly taking back Celebrities from the influx of straight people, or begin going to the recently opened, but highly underwhelming Pulse.

With The Centre though, it will be different, as there currently is no service provider like it around – and starting a non-profit is not nearly as easy or sustainable as running a nightclub.

If the organization, which is already dragging its feet and facing a budget shortfall – even with the very few services it provides – moves across the Creek, you can bet your butt that the patrons won’t follow. It’s just too far out of the way.

And what’s the point of a community centre, outside of the community?

Nor will a new replacement pop up in the immediate future.

If The Centre does choose to make the move, don’t expect its future to last much longer. Nor will I have high hopes for the overall wellbeing of the queer community, because without a community gathering space, we’re left with nothing more than a couple clubs and pubs and a book store.

Unless of course, something comes together to fill the void.

Maybe the best thing for The Centre is to move and die a quick death, creating a call-to-action for a new generation of community organizers to start a fresh organization ready to take over The Centre’s role for the 21st century.

Defending Ray Lam and his facebook pictures

This weekend, the NDP candidate for Vancouver False-Creek, Ray Lam, was forced to resign after “inappropriate” photos from his Facebook profile were made public. This hasn’t been the first time that political candidates’ dirty laundry has surfaced during a campaign – I recall this exact situation occurring a number of times during the federal election. Not to mention, in years to come, this is simply going to happen more and more as our use of technologies such as Facebook increases.

That said, there are a number of issues surrounding this whole story, and I firmly believe that Ray Lam should not have resigned.

1. These were private photos

The pictures in question were on Ray Lam’s private Facebook profile. These photos were not made available to everyone on the internet for a perfectly good reason. They should be just as inaccessible to the public as Joe Schmo’s box of Woodstock Love-In pics from the 60’s. They are both private media.

Now I know that once something goes online, it’s bound to never leave the internet again. However, Facebook is a locked-down social network, meaning people can only see what you want them to see – everything else is automatically privatized.

These photos weren’t public. They were leaked. And that is completely unfair to Ray Lam, his personal reputation, and the NDP.

We should all have the right to post whatever we want on our private Facebook profiles to share with our friends, and not worry that that media will get into the wrong hands.

This is an affront not just to Ray Lam, but to our collective online privacy.

2. The leaked photos were posted by News1130

Now I know we’re going down the rabbit hole here into the unregulated territory of the wild, wild web, but there is something absolutely unethical about the fact that News1130 posted the leaked photos in their report on the story.

I repeat – these were private photos. Ray Lam has rights to them, Facebook has rights to them – News1130 does not. They have no right whatsoever to replicate these photos in any manner without permission.

To post them without that permission is despicable. This will have terrible ramifications for Lam, who I believe should sue the company for this, and just goes to show how low our journalistic standards have dropped.

UPDATE: The Globe has posted them as well. The Sun, CTV, and The Hook haven’t.

3. The photos weren’t all that “inappropriate”

One photo had Lam grabbing a woman’s breast while dancing. Considering she’s smiling, and the fact that Lam is gay, I doubt this is cause for alarm. I don’t know about the Boomers, but Gen Xers do this all the time. And there’s nothing wrong with it as long as it was consensual.

The second photo had Lam in underwear posing with two friends. How is it okay to have nearly nude models strewn across TV, magazines, newspapers, billboards, and storefronts – but because Lam is a candidate for public office, suddenly this is not acceptable?

Have people seen what is on the Internet? Has the public ever gotten drunk and taken some fun pics? And who hasn’t shown some skin – whether at a club, on the beach, at a party, on the web, or in the privacy of your own home?

Neither of the pictures are inappropriate. And the material in them certainly wasn’t illegal.

And, again, judging what’s in these pictures is none of our business, considering they were private to begin with!

4. Elected officials are normal people

This just goes to show that elected officials, or people that choose to run for public office, are normal human beings.

Whether it’s leaked Facebook photos, driving drunk while on vacation, or being the former leader of the National Citizens Coalition, our politicians have long histories, with different experiences, stories, and adventures. They’ve all encountered happy, wacky, absurd, and disappointing situations in life.

Just like the rest of us.

And while we may sometimes like to think of them as the clean cut leaders of society, they aren’t. Not even one of them. Because they are human.

They make mistakes.

The question is, do we want to accept our politicians are normal people who’ve decided to serve the public, and respect the line between their public and private lives, or do we want to set the bar so high as to expect Gods as our leaders and up end with nothing less than a bitchfest during elections based on who can scoop up the most dirt – leaving us with no good candidates left to vote for.

Prohibition doesn’t work – time for a new approach

In response to Keisha O’Hagan’s letter to the editor of the Langley Times: “Legalization won’t solve drug problems”

Here’s the fact of the matter: Nobody knows what would happen if all drugs were legalized.

We can however, make some hypotheses based on the last time a major drug was legalized – alcohol. In the US during the 30’s, a group of Christian women, confronted with the problems of alcoholism and abusive husbands, successfully got alcohol banned in a legal process known as prohibition.

Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, prohibition made the situation much worse. The fact was, and remains, just because a substance is illegal does not mean that the market demand disappears. And where there’s a market, there will be entrepreneurs looking to make some money. Because the market was pushed underground, these entrepreneurs tiptoed around the law, creating a dangerous situation for producers, sellers, and consumers.

Prohibition of alcohol led to widespread violence, as gangsters fought to control the market (ever heard of Al Capone?). Not to mention, the product could be very hazardous, as there was no quality control, and purchasing alcohol was a simple, though potentially dangerous, process. The key here though is that the market for alcohol remained despite it being illegal, and prohibition simply pushed that market underground.

When prohibition was repealed and alcohol made legal was again, the data shows that consumption levels rose for a few years, then settled back down to a steady plateau. Gang violence disappeared overnight, and the taxes charged on alcohol were now spent to help educate citizens about the dangers of the drug and treat addiction.

Prohibitionist policies don’t work. They ignore the reality of the situation. Our current drug laws are not only hypocritical – because tobacco and alcohol, two of the worst drugs around, are actually legal – but are in fact making the whole drug problem much worse than it needs to be. We’ve instituted the same prohibitionist public policies towards drugs for over half a century.

As Einstein once said, the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

We all want to reduce drug consumption. But if the current strategy isn’t working, isn’t it time we experiment with other solutions such as the Four Pillars harm reduction model, decriminalization, and perhaps even legalization.

If the outcomes are worse than today, then we can always reverse our public policies.

The status quo isn’t good enough. We ought to at least try something different.

Halt the Surrey District Education and Conference Centre!

Despite increasing enrollment, the Surrey school district is facing a budget shortfall of $9.5 million. Yet, the board is, at the same time, planning to construct itself a brand new District Education and Conference Centre at a cost of $80 million.

This is the wrong project, at the wrong time, at the wrong place.

The reasoning behind it makes sense. The board currently leases office space across the city to accommodate staff, leading to a lot of running around and inefficiency. However, their justification on economic savings due to new efficiencies amounts to only $1.5 million per year. It would take over 50 years for those savings to justify the construction of this new building.

TransLink itself is also running into planned budget shortfalls in the coming years. It too, like the district, has been saving a slush fund. The difference though is that TransLink is using that money to sustain operations without service cuts for the next two years. The School District, however, isn’t using any of this saved money to preserve the current state of education. Instead of protecting the quality of our schools, the board is willing to slash funding and make cuts, while spending millions on a pet project.

Not to mention the DECC is being built at 140th St and 92 Ave. We all want to see the City Centre develop and one of the keys to making that happen is the relocation of City Hall – it will stimulate development in the downtown and bring thousands of daily workers to the area. With 500 people projected to be working out of the DECC daily, and the fact that the building incorporates a conference centre – something currently sorely lacking in the City Centre – the question becomes, why isn’t the board constructing the DECC in the City Centre? The City of Surrey owns a lot of land in the downtown – perhaps a deal can be struck to share resources. It would obviously benefit the area just as much as relocating City Hall would.

Ultimately though, this is about the students. How does building an $80 million Conference Centre, at a time of budget cuts and staff layoffs, at all help the students of Surrey aspire and achieve their best in school? This is the utmost self serving project I have ever seen a civil service undertake.

We need to immediately halt this project. Money from construction needs to be used to sustain the current budget levels until the economy revives. Furthermore, the School District needs to work collaboratively with the City and private developers to ensure this major public facility will be built in the heart of our new downtown.

Kevin Falcon bashfest

As the general public has known for a while, TransLink is on the verge of going bankrupt. Due to the expansion and replacement of the bus fleet, the Golden Ears Bridge, and the Canada Line, TransLink has recently taken on a mass of new operational costs and new debt.

And that doesn’t even include any of the boatload of expenditures that will come on board if TransLink even attempts to fulfill the Provincial Transit Plan. The authority needs $150 million per year to continue existing services, and an additional $300 million per year if it hopes to complete desperately needed expansion.

What the general public might not remember is that TransLink has been on its toes since inception in 1999. Although it had an innovative new governance structure, giving the region control over our own transport network, the authority was consistently denied funding mechanisms by the province, leaving TransLink to essentially bear the brunt of the provincial downloading of services. The NDP government of yore refused to collect the original vehicle levy, and the Liberals of today cancelled the parking site tax and restructured the organization after it voted twice against the then-named RAV Line.

What we’ve been left with now is an authority with a bad reputation that provides half-assed service, which is required to fulfill huge expansion plans that can never be paid for because the Province has all the money.

And what does the Transport Minister say? The one who happily proclaimed that, due to his depoliticization of the organization, the authority could now make the tough decisions and move the region forward. The one who claimed that TransLink would now run smoothly with its new funding scheme of 1/3 property taxes, 1/3 gas taxes, and 1/3 fares.

When faced with the reality that his funding mechanism is not good enough and that his “professional board” is proposing new revenue opportunities to raise the money required to fulfill his $14 billion Transit Plan, of which the province is only funding a third, all our Transport Minister can say is, “Frankly, I’m not at all convinced they require additional sources.”

You’re not convinced?! You’re not convinced?! A $150 million dollar deficit is not enough to convince you? Your own people that you stuck onto the board are telling you that they need more money, and you are not convinced?

Minister Falcon, this is not a question of faith – it is a matter of fact. And if you “believe” for one minute that you can make such impactful decisions on the public based on your faith, think again.

This is your own fault. You forced RAV through the pipe, you denied TransLink any new funding streams, you restructured the organization and put in your own people.

Now stand up behind your decisions and support TransLink, because it all comes back to you. And trust me, the transit riders of 2009, squished like sardines on SkyTrain or standing the rain as bus after bus passes them by; they will not be as kind as they were a decade ago. You can expect far more than just a load of manure on your lawn.

What to do about gang warfare?

Six shootings in six days – that was the headline on CTV’s six o’clock news. Gang warfare has shot up again, after dying down for several months, and has hit every corner of Metro Vancouver, from Kitsilano to Coquitlam to Abbotsford. 

All I’ve heard are repeat calls for more cops and tougher sentences. Some I’ve spoken to insist that Canada’s justice system is far too lenient and that we need to be taking an “eye for an eye”. 

Every once in a while, I’ll read that this gang warfare can be attributed to rivalry in the illegal drug trade. 

Obviously, the trend in public safety, or at least the perception of public safety, is that things are getting worse all the time. Before we try to solve this gang warfare problem though, I think we need to examine a number of things:

• Are there more gangs now than ever before? If so, why?
• Are gangs more violent than ever before? If so, why?
• Do harder sentences deter gangsters from said lifestyle?

Without those answers, I don’t think we can, or even should, attempt to resolve this issue. 

However, based on what I know, and assuming the increase in gangs and gang warfare is due to rivalry in the illegal drug trade, here’s my suggestions:

1. Legalize, regulate, and taxes drugs

Sound crazy? Tell that to the editorial board of The Province.

The market for drugs has always, and will continue to exist. Currently, that market is being pushed underground and into the hands of gangs. They make obscene profits, while putting their customers at risk, either through involvement or relation to the gang, or through an unpure and unsafe product.

Meanwhile, the underground marijuana trade already generates $6 billion in BC’s GDP annually – more than twice what forestry contributes to our economy.

It’s not just marijuana though. The crystal meth market is booming, and heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy all remain regular staples in the drug trade. Even if we legalized pot, the gangsters would just move onto another drug.

And so, would it really be that bad if we legalized drugs? In doing so, we would take back the market from the gangsters, regulate its usage like tobacco and alcohol, tax it (and generate huge revenues), and invest in proper unbiased education about the pros and cons of drugs so that people make informed decisions about its usage.

2. Invest in education

Once the major profit schemes of gangs are all but eliminated (see #1), that’s not to say gangs will disappear. They exist and will continue to exist for many of the core reasons people join them – acceptance, failing in school, a poor home life, etc.

The people that join gangs are the ones that have fallen through the cracks of society. We cannot allow that to occur anymore, and it starts with the fundamental of an education.

The school system must be reformed to encourage innovation, creativity, engagement, skill development, individuality, belonging, and brilliance. All students must leave the system with the capacity to change the world for the better.

3. A regional police force

If Metro Vancouver is good at one thing, it’s not cooperating at a regional level. The level of bickering that occurs among the cities in the region is absolutely unacceptable, whether that’s at the regional board or at TransLink. Our municipalities need to understand that working together to accomplish common goals for the betterment of the region will ultimately improve the quality of life from West Vancouver to Langley.

The Metro Vancouver Regional District was a very innovative model for its time, and has been, all things considered, relatively successful at meeting its goals. It’s due to Metro’s success that the region hasn’t been amalgamated like Montreal or Toronto. 

TransLink, as well, was a novel approach to regional transportation planning and governance, and while it’s had its fair share of problems, its model continues to inspire cities around the world.

In my opinion, it’s high time that we begin examining a regional model for our police force. Criminals do not recognize municipal borders, and neither should our cops. The success of the several regional task forces should set the stage for this discussion.

If anything, this should ultimately save money for the municipalities by reducing overlap, provide greater oversight by splitting from the national RCMP, and deliver improved public safety across the region.

4. Reform the justice system and sentencing

I don’t know too much about our justice system, but it’s one of those things in Canada, like healthcare, that we partially pride ourselves on, yet constantly critique as being not good enough. Generally, there seems to always be this consensus that criminals get away with murder (literally) far too easily. And, based on what I know about sentencing, I would agree with that statement. We are too lenient – in some cases.

I fully support restorative justice. People make mistakes and should be allowed a second chance at life. Currently, some sentences definitely do not fit the crime, and this approach should be more proactively taken than simply throwing the criminal in jail.

However, that said, when criminals become repeat offenders, we must take a harder approach. Restorative justice should continue to be the ultimate goal, but it must be balanced with retributive justice – “let the punishment fit the crime”. If anything, keeping repeat offenders in jail is not so much a solution to changing their psyche, but keeping the community safe from their likely offences.

As the number of separate criminal incidents increases per individual, their sentences must dramatically increase as well. Such a system would let criminals know that, yes, it’s okay to have made a bad decision, as long as you learn from it. If you don’t, you are no longer off the hook and you will pay for the consequences.

Suggestions for all future new bus routes

I went out of my way home today to ride the #364, a new bus route connecting Scottsdale to Langley Centre via 64th Ave. To check if buses would time up, I used TransLink’s mobile iPhone site (pretty darn good, btw). What I encountered however was a list that showed no stops along half the route.

Notice the gap in stops between 134 St and 166 St

Faced with such an oddity, I opened Google Maps to check if there was in fact bus stops along the middle stretch of 64th, and according to it, there wasn’t!

There should be a bus icon around where it says "13600"

So, when I transferred, I walked two Surrey blocks to get to the closest stop that existed, at least according to TransLink mobile and Google Maps. 

Well, it turns out, as I ride the route, that there are in fact stops all along the bloody avenue.

Anyways, I get on the bus around 7:40pm, and it’s completely empty. I rode for most of the way, and not one person got on. I’ve faced this situation numerous times, whether I’m riding alone, or with only 5 other people. Seems like a waste of gas to me to be using such a large vehicle when obviously the demand isn’t there. 

Without further ado, here’s two suggestions to improve all future transit riding experiences everywhere:

Suggestion #1: When introducing a new bus route, update your information so you don’t confuse your customers. I assume both TransLink mobile and Google Maps are taking their data from the same GTFS stream – if so, update the damn data files! 

Suggestion #2: Be more flexible with vehicle usage. When ridership isn’t sufficient to warrant a 60 foot bus, only run that bus during peak hours, and use a Community Shuttle at all other times. And when a Community Shuttle route is so busy that it warrants a 40 foot bus, use that vehicle instead (as is already done on the C74 route). 

/rant

Dead or alive (the coalition)?

I haven’t blogged about this whole affair simply because so much was happening, and changing, each and every single day. It seems, now that Parliament is prorogued, that the whole conversation will now shift and reorganize – to what I don’t know, and that will depend on whether the opposition parties decide to forge forward in an election-like campaign for a coalition government.

Public opinion doesn’t seem to be in their favour however. Harper’s lies and divisiveness in the past few days has done nothing less than completely disgust hundreds of thousands of Canadians – actions that are quite literally fanning the flames of national unity for the sake of short term personal and political gain. However, in doing so, he’s been extremely successful in rallying his base and many other Canadians with lies and incendiary language such as “traitors”, “separatists”, and “coup d’état”. Typical Republican crap that pits us versus them. 

The silent majority finally stood up and said enough was enough. You may question progressive policies, you may play politics in the House of Commons, you may slowly remove the rights and institutions that make Canada what it is, but when you begin questioning our patriotism for this country, then god dammit you asshole, you’ve stepped way too far. It’s utterly repulsive and it’s unlikely that such division can be repaired anytime soon. 

Rumour is that the Libs want to pull out of the coalition. We will see if that is true in the days ahead. I truly hope not, simply out of the fact that if the coalition falls apart, Harper will gain a majority next election – if things continue the way they are going. 

If the coalition continues however, and my fingers are crossed that it does, here’s what coalition supporters need to do. 

1. Organize

The Conservative machine is in full swing and boy, their base is like sheep! They are easy to range up, and regurgitate the talking points like programmed robots. The Conservatives have the money and the energy to put out the nastiest PR campaign ever. 

We need to get our things together! Right now, there’s three organizations, not including the three opposition parties, that are trying to rally supporters – Make Parliament Work, 62% Majority, and Canadians for a Progressive Coalition. They need to coordinate and work together to make sure that there’s no crossover and that people can get the required info from either one single source, or the same info from all three sources. 

2. Rally the base

We are all human and all emit strong response when emotions are in play. The Tories play this way, and so should we, but only with our base – which is quite broad all things considered! 

I am disturbed when I hear Stephen Harper calling Quebeckers separatists. I am provoked when he claims “Western Canada” will not stand for a coalition. I am royally pissed when I think of the all the years he’s been in our government with the sole purpose of gaining power and destroying the Liberals. It’s all a game to him.

The base needs to be reminded of this and reminded directly by Stephen Harper himself. Rallies should be playing interviews or quotes from our PM. We need to get riled up. This in an extremely exciting, and dangerous, time in our country’s history. Stephen Harper must go – that’s the message the base needs in their head 24/7. 

3. Give ‘em Hope

And for all the hundreds of thousands who don’t care about politics, who are completely turned off by what’s going on in Ottawa, we gotta give ‘em hope. 

People don’t know what’s been offered by the coalition. They haven’t head of the economic stimulus package, with support for the auto, manufacturing, and forestry sector. They haven’t heard of the billion dollars in infrastructure for transit, gateways, water and clean energy. They haven’t heard of the restoration of funding cuts from the arts and culture, nor of the pension, EI, and RIFF changes to support workers and seniors during this economic crisis. They haven’t heard about the introduction of a housing retrofit program, nor the North American cap and trade emissions trading system, not to mention the restoration of the national child care and early learning program, and the Kelowna Accord. 

If I learned anything during my run for city council, it’s that people want to know you are offering them a better tomorrow, that your plans are realistic, and that your actions are bold and swift. The coalition’s policy accord is all three of theses things, and when compared to what the Conservatives have accomplished in government for the past two years, it really makes you question how the hell Stephen Harper’s made your own life better. 

There’s action for workers, seniors, families, children, and the First Nations. There’s action on climate change, the energy crisis, arts & culture cuts, social security, and immigration. 

Hearing their plans is enough to spoil the average Canadian who, in the past two years, got a couple cents off their purchases everyday, while housing and gas prices skyrocketed, nothing was done about climate change, nothing was done to address the current economic crisis, nothing was done to solve homelessness or gang warfare or our First Nations or the child care gap or our crumbling infrastructure. 

If we communicate this message of hope for a better tomorrow, then I truly believe Canadians will come together behind this coalition and, like our counterparts down south, start chanting, in non-partisan unison, Yes We Can. 

4. Get’er done!

There’s seven weeks till the House resumes. If the opposition parties stand behind this coalition, here’s what I propose. 

Each and every weekend, we need to hold a rally, in cities across Canada, and these need to grow in size each time. We need to take over public squares, parks, City Hall steps, MPs’ offices, and even the streets. 

 We need to ensure that we pull support from each and every corner – students, seniors, families, unions, workers, transit riders, religious groups, immigrants, glbt, aboriginals, etc. We need to ensure the speeches are inspirational. We need to ensure programming gets better and better with each rally. We need catchy chants that we can shout out at the top of our lungs. 

It needs to be a movement. There needs to be momentum. 

Continue to push the message throughout the week on talk radio, facebook, polls, and by flooding the papers with letters to the editor. Mobilize the troops. Give supporters a reason and a means. 

Show the Conservatives and their base that the progressives in this country will not stand idly by while Canada burns from coast to coast to coast because of the greed of Stephen Harper.

Hate mail from “Jason Krog”

This just hit my facebook. What do you think I should do?

ur fuking 18 u faggot. stop…dear god just stop…What the hell is the world coming to when an 18 year old that is still a virgin is trying to be part of city council. This is not an episode of the simpsons or family guy where anything can happen. You have barely finished a semester of post secondary, have no fucking life experience, barely got your lisence, still can’t conversate properly as I can see in your tv interviews, how the fuck do you expect to sit on a council with a bunch of experienced men and woman and deal with the problems of surrey residents? The people that voted for you are just as dumb as you are. Hell even a 30 year old is young for something like this..me and my friends were talking and we think you’re making a mockery of the system where a bunch of 18 year old retards are trying to land important government jobs…you ugly faggot, get a post secondary degree, get married, have kids, GROW UP A LITTLE before you try and pull this shit again. i swear if you ever accidently run into me campagning handing out ads I will punch you square in the face if you’re still under the age of 30…bye

UPDATE: Jason Krog is apparently a Vancouver Canuck. This was obviously a fake identity. Easy enough to do – I’ve created a Paul Simon account on facebook before!