Dwight Duncan - Save Our Schools!

I drove length of Riverside last night and noticed yellow stickers on Dwight Duncan's Liberal signs. I stopped and backed up to read:

SAVE OUR SCHOOLS!

I am not sure if conservative partisans tried to make Duncan look ridiculous or was the sticker really approved by our Honourable Member. I have a feeling that the latter is true.

Now, what does he mean by SAVE OUR SCHOOLS - from whom?

Perhaps from Dalton McGuinty and the Liberal government. (Just to make clear, I do not support J. Tory's proposal and his later flip-flops.) Preston Manning writes in yesterday's Globe and Mail:

What is most instructive, however, is the provincial breakdown. With respect to reading, Alberta students had the highest international score of all jurisdictions tested, with Ontario students in fifth place. In science, Alberta students placed third behind Finland and Japan, with Ontario students 15th. And with respect to combined mathematics, Alberta students placed second behind Hong Kong, with Ontario students 11th.

Preston Manning explanation for Alberta advantage makes sense:

Alberta excels in Canadian and international education comparisons because the province provides parents with a greater range of educational choices, more "freedom to choose" the best educational options for their children, and more resources to support those choices.

Alberta ensures equity and choice in kindergarten to Grade 12 by funding independent schools and home schooling, as well as the public system.

Giuseppe Gori, in his interview on The Agenda (posted here earlier), stated that the whole issue of funding for private schools was a desperate attempt on Tory's side to find a difference between two left-of-centre parties (Liberals & Progressive Conservatives). Here is what P. Manning has to say on the issue:

The educational debate in Ontario is narrowly focused on whether to publicly fund one form of alternative education, namely religious schools. The bigger issue is how to expand freedom of choice in education for all Ontario parents, while improving the performance of both public and private schools and ensuring their adherence to provincial educational standards.

Family Coalition Party platform on education is based on parental choice and improving schools through competition by introducing the voucher system. P. Manning seems to agree:

Can mixed educational systems such as Alberta's be improved? Of course. Freedom of choice could be further enhanced by providing parents with educational vouchers that they could cash in at the public or private educational institution of their choosing.

SAVE OUR SCHOOLS? I agree and some experts too:

In the words of Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby: "It appears that public schools are induced to raise achievement when they are faced with competition. ... This is not only good news for students; it should be welcome news to those who think that public schools have much good potential."

Now, Lynn Martin Show AM800 manipulates elections

Lynn Martin Show CKLW AM800 - I've just spent 40 minutes waiting in the phone queue to ask Windsor-Tecumseh candidates how would they address democratic deficit as created by local media censorship, and specifically how do they feel about exclusion of John Curtin from the Lynn Martin's show and exclusion of FCP and Greens from The Windsor Star coverage of local ridings.

Finally when the show ended I was told by the screener that Windsor West candidates during the show that followed would not want to answer my question, that they were only interested in their local issues. I tried to show him that it was quite presumptuous for him to speak on behalf of the candidates.

We are being actively blocked by the local media from sharing Family Coalition Party message with the voters. Producers of Lynn Martin Show @ AM 800 CKLW have refused to allow John Curtin to participate in the Friday morning show. All other parties, including Greens were invited. As I've described in the previous post, The Windsor Star has limited their coverage only to the three largest parties excluding both FCP and Greens.

The station's program director Keith Chinnery kindly explained to John that because FCP has no candidate in Essex then our candidates from the remaining ridings are not allowed to speak to their voters.

What a parody of democracy!

The Windsor Star manipulating election process

My letter to the editor:

The Windsor Star has committed an outrageous act of censorship or, at least, failed in its duty to its readers to offer factual information. In Wednesday's riding profile on Windsor-West, the editors had omitted names of two candidates running in the election. These are: Daniel Dionne (Family Coalition Party) and Jason Haney (Green Party). That's true that they both represent smaller parties. However both of these parties gained hundreds of thousands votes across Ontario in the previous election. The Windsor Star has ignored over 1200 Windsor-West voters that voted for Green Party in 2003. This is a manipulation of election process that no media can be proud of. Not surprisingly people are turning to the internet and bloggers for true and factual information. If you want to find out what is really happening in Windsor and Essex County check W.E.Speak at www.windsoressexspeak.com. There you will find a compilation of blogs, each with its own point of view and agenda that are not hidden.
Just in case that The Windsor Star is going to repeat its misinformation I will list the candidates for Windsor-Tecumseh: John Curtin (Family Coalition Party) and Andrew McAvoy (Green Party), for Essex: Jessica Fracassi (Green Party) and Aaron Parent (Libertarian Party), for Chatham-Kent-Essex: Mark Morin (Family Coalition Party) and Ken Bell (Green Party). I have not listed the three main parties candidates since I am sure the editors will not forget about them.

As I was afraid they have repeated this fraud in today's edition - this time in Windsor-Tecumseh riding profile.

In Wednesday's edition they blow up headlines and photos to fill the space to sizes never seen before on page 3 just to keep up the pretense of lack of space.

Today somebody forgot and left a gaping hole where the info on other candidates should be. Gaping hole not only on the page of a newspaper but in their reputation and democratic process. I can't recall seeing an empty space on the pages of The Windsor Star before.

Shame on you!

Go! FCP Go!

MMP - good people still don't get it

Here is my conversation with friend of mine, politically involved and educated young man who wrote to me:

Unfortunately, considering the political climate, there is a very clear danger that Gwen may be right in a sense... I would not be surprised if the Liberal and NDP and maybe Green party lists did exactly that type of "inclusion"... and this would weaken our already weak Legislature.

I have to vote for the current system, even though it would be nice to see a couple of FCP MPPs.

I am really surprised by your stand after all the information I've sent your way.

You say yourself that that the current legislature is weak. Sometimes the only way to fix a broken leg is to break it again and set it anew. Yes, that's true that, in a short term, the the culture of death may benefit from the change. But so would culture of life. Aren't we as Catholics directed to choose a greater good?

Once pro-life side has a presence in the parliament (sorry but pro-life MPPs representing pro-abortion party don't count) our efforts at grassroots level will be supported and have a voice. We know that in the current system there is no hope for pro-life cause. Show me even one legislative (federally or provincially) pro-life victory in the last 40 years! As far as I can see, we're heading the other way, loosing with every step.

On personal note, the MMP system would solve my dilemma in Essex riding. With no FCP candidate locally, it would allow me to vote for Richard Knaziew without voting for rabidly pro-abortion, pro-homosexual John Tory and his party. With the present system I will not vote for anybody who promotes himself as "John Tory candidate" as Richard does on his signs and in his speeches. I don't see him as an effective pro-life witness when he is so enamored with a looser like John Tory as his leader.

BTW, as much as Richard was pretty good in the radio debate, his referendum answer was just plain stupid. The electoral change is not an issue worth debating during election campaign? Give me a break!

Good job with getting Richard on the second page of Windsor Star today. It is great to have pro-life issues up in front. However isn't a bit disingenuous if he promotes his pro-life stand without also explaining militantly anti-life stand of his leader? It seems like our pro-life cause is used here for dirty politics to confuse voters and get them to vote for PC party that has exactly the same stand on life issues as Liberals.

Here is what Giuseppe Gori says on radical left gaining with MMP:

Simple ethics

a) Why are we really talking about the NDP and the left?
Because the people using this argument want to scare their audience (people who are small "c" conservatives and undecided).
If they were talking to a Workers' Union meeting they would never raise that point!
This tactic of course is unethical. It is called scare-mongering.

b) The system we will choose on October 10^th, after more than a hundred years of FPTP, would have to be in place for a long time.
Who knows which parties Ontario voters will form and support just FOUR years from now? Imagine 40 years from now!

c) An electoral system must be fair, at a meta-level. It is a constitutional matter, and should not be a political matter.
On this I wrote another article. This is actually the main point.
See: "Ontario, Why Change? MMP - A synopsis"

d) Judging the electoral system change on the basis of who benefits from it is dangerous and unethical:

- Dangerous because the alternative to more democracy is more oligarchy (or even worse.)

- Unethical because someone justifies a choice of method (the means) on the basis of the objective (the end).
"The end justifies the means" is a proposition widely rejected by Christian ethical standards.

FCP's John Curtin debates at 3 PM

John Curtin, FCP candidate for Windsor-Tecumseh will be taking part in All Candidates Meeting at:

Edward Street Neighbourhood and Senior Centre

Location:
1150 Edward St.
Windsor, ON
N9G 1E5
Phone: (519) 945-7426

Tuesday October 2nd, at 3 PM

MMP-Debunking the fearmongers

The debate on electoral system continues:

Andrew Coyne in National Post writes:

(...) apologists for the status quo have more or less given up arguing for first past the post on its merits. The pretense that it delivers "stable majorities" can no longer be sustained: recent elections in Ontario have produced, in order, NDP, Conservative and Liberal governments, none with a majority of the votes, yet each interpreting the support of its own minority as a mandate to impose a succession of radically different policy regimes on the rest of us.

So instead first-past-the-posties have focused on raising fears about the alternative. These fall into two broad categories: fears about proportional representation in general, and fears about mixed-member proportional in particular.

So weak are these general arguments against PR that opponents have lately shifted their focus to the alleged failings of the mixed-member system. I'll deal with these next time.

Giuseppe Gori clears

MISINFORMATION ON THE REFERENDUM

The "Against change" side relies on people's mental inertia for defending the status quo, but some people are also using misinformation and fear as weapons in their arsenal. We do not think this tactic is ethical.

The "For change" side criticizes the FPTP system based on facts. This is because people are familiar with the current system and would immediately spot misinformation.
The people who want change have the burden of proof and must also overcome a two-folded supermajority to effect change.

Steve Paikin leads a debate on The Agenda click on the video for Sept 27th show (left column)


LFL&A blogs exclusively for MMP:

Voters Win!TVO.org's Battle Blog of Sept. 17 asks Who's Afraid of MMP? Who has the most to gain and who has the most to lose if Mixed-Member Proportional representation goes forward?

CBC has a handy pro-con table on MMP (scroll to the bottom of the page)

FCP's Giuseppe Gori interviewed by Steve Paikin