Election Poster Critique, version québécoise

So I did finally manage to get all of my photos of the four more significant parties in the Québec election, to take place on Monday. I mostly went with the 'leader' posters (this is a rather disturbing tendency, considering we don't vote directly for the leaders, but for the representatives in our districts), with one little exception right off the top where the leader poster was completely different from the candidate posters for the same party. I even found (mostly) unadulterated versions. Here is my lovely critique of each of them, in alphabetical order by the name of the party in French.

Action Démocratique du Québec

First up is the leader poster, where they are trying to make it look like 'our pal' Mario has autographed it for us. This is really quite a vain one, and a big target for poster defacers. The version seen here has only the purple sticker added on the bottom, adapting to party slogan into a call for more support for education.

Here is the candidate version for this party. It's a funny thing, but for quite a long period when I looked at their posters, I read "Donnez-nous le pouvoir" (Give us the power) instead of "Donnez-vous le pouvoir" (Give yourself the power). Either way, it just gives me the creeps, but that is likely a larger analysis of this most right-wing party's ideas.

Parti Liberal du Québec

The thing that I have found amusing and yet disconcerting about this party's poster is their strange slogan: "L'économie d'abord OUI" (Economy first, YES). My disconcertion is not about putting the economy first, but about seeing a "OUI" on a red background. For us, with our politics often centred around the question of Québec nationalism, the OUI is usually on a blue background, so the red usurpation of the positive seems oddly out of place.

Their logo is just plain ugly.

And look, I didn't say anything about the crazy hair of the leader! (Oops!)

Parti Québécois


Now this one looks like some kind of religious iconography, with the light shining down on Sainte Pauline and illuminating her face in a quite flattering way. I certainly don't expect anyone to put an unflattering picture on an election poster, but the lighting is a bit over the top. I should add that she doesn't look one bit tired in this photo. ;-)

I continue to be puzzled by the change to the party logo. You can see the new one in the photo above and the old one here:

I get replacing the red tail of the Q with a green one — everyone wants to give the impression of being green these days. But I continue to be disconcerted by the change in orientation of the end of the tail of the Q: vertical in the new one, horizontal in the old one. What does this mean?

I am oddly drawn to the wacky little graphic element of the white circle echoed by the party logo, which is repeated on most of the formats of the candidate posters, but unfortunately not all. I think it is supposed to make us think of the circle on the ballot in which we must make our mark, but that just came to me now, weeks after first seeing it.

My other comment was: too many fonts on a single poster! I count at least three, and that is just too busy for me.

Québec Solidaire

Look! It's a two-headed party! Yes, there are co-leaders of the party and they even have separate sections on the party web site, which is fascinating. When they were not included in the debate, it was only Françoise David (on the left) who did a gruelling online debate participation with updates every couple of minutes as she responded live to the questions the other leaders were answering on network television. As you might gather from their name and this leadership configuration, this is the most left-wing party. While the poster is sort of 'designed' looking, it is quite utilitarian and betrays the fact that they probably don't have a ton of money for graphic designers or printing costs.
I even heard that some of their candidate posters are recycled from the last time around (we had elections only a year and a half ago — but that's a whole other story) with some stickers applied to freshen up the messaging.

Why no Parti Vert (Green Party)? Well, they're quite marginal in Québec politics, with several other parties incorporating green elements into their platforms. I saw a tiny poster for their local candidate last week, but didn't have my camera with me at the time. The poster seems to have disappeared since then.

Coalition OUI!

I went to one of the protests today regarding our big political crisis. The weather was lovely, but quite cool, and there was a brisk wind blowing, which made for lovely flapping flags carried by people in the crowd. I tried to take a couple of pictures of the crowd, but I was in the middle of it, so the panoramic shots just weren't there.

While the crowd was not huge, it was broad spectrum: pretty much all of the union centrals, student groups, artist groups, environmental groups, women's groups, and freelancers like myself and some friends I ran across in the crowd (plus Andrew who came with me).

I did manage to take a couple of photos of some of the more clever signs that people were carrying.

These two were quite fun: Darth Harper and Who's Sovereign Now?

What's especially funny about this one is the use of the Tory poster from the recent election campaign with their meaningless slogan (Québec is getting stronger). What has been added above can be translated as 'Get out the door' (more literally 'Take the Door'). The cutout Harper head, carried as a mask, is just a bonus.

Ah, but we are amused!

Here I was thinking that it is about time I get out there with my camera to record and then critique the new crop of posters from our Québec election, and then along came intrigue at the federal level!

Aren't these the people we just didn't vote for? Yes, indeed. The party that managed to capture over 46% of the seats with under 38% of the vote and then promised to be more collaborative this time around came out swinging in a most provocative way. This spurred the parties with the rest of the seats (except for that one independent) to cook up a delightful scheme to propose a coalition of themselves (actually of two of them with the external support of the third) to replace the government. Before we swing off into the land of denouncing the illegitimacy of all that, let's note that the two main partners in this coalition got more than 44% of the vote (yet under 37% of the seats). If you add in the third 'silent' partner, you get a total of 54.41% of the vote and 52.92% of the seats.

So how, exactly, is that anything less than democratic?

The government reacted rather quickly to try to remove all of the objectionable elements of its 'economic update' that had caused all the uproar in the first place. Hands off the political party financing, leaving the public employees' rights in place, speeding up the date of a budget…do you think they might have seen the error of their ways?

Not a chance. They are now back on the attack, and their biggest argument seems to be to vilify that 'silent partner' in the coalition, which just happens to have won close to two-thirds of the seats they contested. And I get to hear person on the street interviews from across the country echoing that vilification of our legitimate democratic choice in Québec. You might question the legitimacy of the party as part of your election strategy, but once we have made our choice, you have to respect it. That is the essence of democracy, whether you like it or not.

Now comes the fun stuff.

Several alternatives are in the offing:

1 - Things could go as the coalition partners planned, with a vote of non-confidence in the government and the Governor General asking the official opposition if it can form a government. The government has already managed to delay by a week the vote that should have taken place yesterday.

2 - The Prime Minister could ask the Governor General to prorogue Parliament, essentially saying 'Let's start all over again in a couple of months', which is an odd thing for a government that is less than two months old to do. We might still be in the same situation when they come back, unless the government has a change of attitude in the intervening period.

3 - The Governor General could react to either of these situations in a manner other than what those approaching her are asking. (That's where things get truly undemocratic, but we are still stuck with this last vestige of feudalism.) She could dissolve Parliament and order new elections, refuse to prorogue and offer the chance to the opposition to form a government …anything but order them beheaded, since we did away with that some time ago.

What is certain is that I will continue to get a little steamed that it seems acceptable for people out there — including the Prime Minister — to suggest that some electoral choices are more equal than others. My Member of Parliament, who happens to be the leader of the Bloc Québécois, got 50.2% of the vote in his (my) riding. Some of the members of the cabinet who got less than that: Rob Nicholson (Justice), Peter MacKay (Defence), Diane Finley (Human Resources and Skills Development), John Baird (Transport), Lawrence Cannon (Foreign Affairs), Josée Verner (Intergovernmental Affairs), Christian Paradis (Public Works), Leona Aglukkaq (Health), Lisa Raitt (Natural Resources), Gail Shea (Fisheries), and that's without moving into the more junior positions.

The other thing that is certain is that I will find the time this week to get in my post about the Québec election…

No Dogs Were Harmed...

There's a funny thing about Brian's new dog: she reminds me of a few dogs I have seen in the context of my work over the last couple of years.

There was this HIV campaign for gay men conducted by COCQ-Sida:

There were other objects in the series, too, including sunglasses and, for the MSMs who are not necessarily gay, a lovely suburban home with a two-car garage.

This little chihuahua (pronounced CHI-HOO-A-HOO-A) had the unfortunate side effect of reminding some of us of a rather unfortunate LGV campaign run by our Direction de la Santé publique a couple of years back. Oh, it starts out cute enough, and was supposed to make us all think of any number of Fido commercials:

Lower down on the poster, however, things take a dreadful turn, as the graphic artist tries to illustrate the effects of LGV (Lymphogranuloma venerum) and winds up with something that looks a little like the unfortunate canine strayed too close to a rather near-sighted veteran in early November (that's the polite version):

Well, today really took the cake. There I was, innocently attending the 15ième Symposium sur les aspects cliniques de l'infection au VIH, more precisely the presentation on travelling with HIV, vaccinations and diseases one really doesn't want to encounter, when up on the screen flashed this image to draw our attention to rabies:

We almost fell off our chairs laughing, and I just knew that I would be able to find the image on the net.

So Brian, a word of advice: Don't let Hildy go outside to play!

Damned. Lucky.

I was on a crazy consumer high, trying to make sure that I got all of my shopping out of the way before tomorrow, which is Buy Nothing Day. (Yes, I know that Canada and Québec are to be found in North America, but there's that crazy Canadian thing about differentiating ourselves from our closest neighbours, so I'm pretty sure it's scheduled for tomorrow here.)

My plans were set. Go spend that gift card I received and a little more of my own money on something else, go to the bank machine to deposit and pay bills, then take out some cash for the rest of my shopping plans tonight. I dutifully left the bank machine quickly, as there was someone waiting, went to load my transit card with my December fare, and moved on for more.

The next plan I had to revise, as I was going to go spend another gift certificate I received as a lovely parting gift from my former job, but I realized part way there that the gift certificate was still in my apartment. Drat! Would I have to spend that tomorrow? Maybe Sunday...

Still more shopping. Yogurt and a couple of impulse items at the fruit store. I got to the cash and — surprise! Something was missing:

Yes, as I repeated in my head "Stupid, stupid, stupid...", I realised that I had beaten such a hasty retreat from the bank machine that I had left my card inside for the person who was in line behind me.

I rushed back with as much poise and dignity as I could muster. I broke out the other bank card I have in my wallet to open the door (the magnetic stripe opens the door) and went inside with great trepidation. Would I have to call the bank to explain my stupidity and then wait who knows how long for a new card? Would I discover that the person behind me had conducted a few transactions?

There, atop the machine, was a card. Grab. Insert. Enter PIN. Yes, it was mine. Next test: ask for printout of recent transactions. Only the ones I had done. My trust in my fellow humans has once again been confirmed to a degree that only Pollyanna might expect.

Damned. Lucky.

Aux urnes!

Well, I guess it's our turn now, set for 8 December. I don't expect we will have any choices that seem as inspiring as what happened last night in the U.S., but I'd venture to say that all of our choices will be to the left of all of the choices Americans had last night.

Hallowe'en

Cette année, on se déguise en clown...

...et on prend l'autobus.

And now it is also out in English...

(Apparently the English version doesn't ride the bus yet.)

Election Results

Having been out of town for much of the last week, I haven't actually commented on the election results. My most useful comments are with my calculator and photoshop image creating.

Below, echoing the comparison of beginning of campaign and near end of campaign polls from my previous posting, is a little comparison of that 'last poll' with the actual results of the election.

And then there is a comparison of the vote results with the seat results.

With that, I'm sure that some parties will feel the push to advocate for some kind of proportional representation system, while others might not be in such a hurry.

Polls

Well, I guess six weeks of campaigning did someone some good. We'll see if that holds up on Tuesday.

Friday en français : Changements

J'anticipe plusieurs changements mardi prochain.

Oui, c'est la date de nos élections fédérales, et certains de ces changements que j'anticipe sont reliés à cet événement. Chose certaine : mes parents auront un nouveau (ou une nouvelle) député(e). Facilement prévisible, car leur députée actuelle ne se présente pas. Et il s'agit aussi d'un événement assez heureux. Madame Hinton ayant beaucoup milité contre l'acceptation du mariage entre personnes de même sexe. Chose incertaine : peut-être un nouveau gouvernement minoritaire? Peut-être un autre parti politique à la tête? Pour savoir ça, nous allons attendre mardi soir et les milliers de changements de postes de télévision pour trouver la chaîne qui présente l'information de la meilleure façon en ce moment. Moi, je n'aurai pas de nouveau député et j'en suis content.

Pour moi, le gros changement de cette journée viendra plus tôt. J'ai un rendez-vous avec mon médecin pour faire suite à mes démarches de changer mon régime de médicaments anti-rétroviraux. J'ai reçu par la poste aujourd'hui la lettre de la Régie de l'assurance maladie confirmant leur autorisation de paiement pour la molécule que je veux substituer pour celle qui dérange mon sommeil et aggrave mes expériences de dépression. Tout ce qui reste, c'est d'avoir l'ordonnance émis par mon médecin et le remplir à la pharmacie. Ce qui a vraiment provoqué ce changement pour moi, c'était un épisode de dépression il y un peu plus d'une année. J'ai passé plusieurs jours où je ne pouvais pas prononcer cinq mots en ligne sans pleurer. Comme je suis assez conservateur avec mes traitements, j'ai pris le temps d'explorer mes options et suite à mon choix, le temps de le procurer. Mon approbation reste en vigueur pour douze mois (en effet onze, car l'approbation a pris du temps).

Un peu plus loin, d'autres changements s'annoncent.

À la fin du mois, je quitte mon poste actuel pour devenir directeur général de la coalition dont mon organisme actuel est membre, et où j'ai été membre du conseil d'administration et président au cours des dernières années. Oui, c'est de la continuité pour moi — je suis familier avec les dossiers et la plupart de l'équipe — mais ça représente aussi du changement au niveau de la perspective sur le mouvement que j'aurais à intégrer et ceci sera ma première expérience de travailler presque uniquement en français. Ma première journée de travail officielle est le 3 novembre, bien que je m'implique déjà pour des choses qui ne peuvent pas attendre.
Avec ce changement, j'espère aussi transformer certaines de mes relations de travail en amitié. Une ligne que je n'aurais pas traversée dans le passé s'effacera avec le changement d'emploi. Et j'ai bien dit amitié et pas plus. Nous verrons…

Miscellany

A couple of political swipes, post debates.

I think the best lines from the English version of the leaders' debate in Canada came from Jack Layton (paraphrased from memory):

(On Harper's assessment of the economic situation): You either don't understand or you just don't care.

(To Stéphane Dion on his qualities as a leader, after noting the number of times the Liberals voted to keep the Tories in power - 43): You haven't been able to do your job as Leader of the Opposition, I don't know why you're running for Prime Minister.

For the most part, though, I found the debate somewhat annoying, as they all shouted over each other, demonstrating their rudeness. Is that a leadership quality we're all looking for?

The US Vice Presidential debate was not much better. They were more polite, yes, but Biden was trying not to attack Palin so as not to appear mean, even smiling at her calling him O'Biden at one point, and Palin was just bein' folksy, ignoring questions she was probably incapable of answering — er, answerin' — and talkin' about what she wanted to Joe Sixpack and the Hockey Moms.

The best spoof of all is this faux Facebook page I stole from here. (Go to the source to see it full size; it's worth reading the contents.)

Facebook afficianados will notice that it's the Old Facebook, which we all miss.

Debat des chefs VF

Nous nous approchons à la fin du premier débat des chefs dans le cadre des élections fédérales et je ne peux pas me retenir d'offrir une petite suggestion, ou, comme dirait Johnathan Swift, une proposition modeste :

Aux prochaines élections on ajoute un autre critère pour la participation aux débats : un test de langue.

Oui, il est important de faire participer les chefs des partis politiques. Oui, il est important qu'ils se débattent en français comme en anglais. Mais il n'est jamais acceptable de massacrer la langue comme certains (et certaines) sont en train de faire.

Je suis certain que j'ai mes propres moments d'outrage à la langue de Molière, mais je n'ose pas m'offrir comme chef de parti politique canadien non plus.

(Et oui, je mets l'étiquette « Fridays en français » malgré le fait que nous sommes seulement le mercredi. Privilège d'auteur.)

Federal Election 2008

The leaders, picked from the CBC web site

So now that the reliable CBC tells me that it is day 22 of our election campaign, it is about time I said a thing or two about it instead of focusing all my attention at the spectacle down south.

First, I have to be amused by something I don't think we've seen so much in past elections: resigning candidates, some of them too late to be replaced! We have had no fewer than 8 candidates resign in the course of the campaign, for reasons varying from filmed internet drug use to getting naked with adolescent campers, to racist comments and attitudes about first nations people, to wacky conspiracy theories about 9-11, and way out ideas about concealed handguns expressed in their past blog posts (note to self: don't run for office, or at least first do a serious cleanup of anything I have said or written…). Still running: the Minister of Agriculture, who made tasteless jokes in the middle of our recent listeriosis outbreak on a conference call with scientists he didn't know that well; another Tory candidate who made remarks linking immigrants with crime. Funny how some of the strange ones who haven't withdrawn seem to be Tories.

Now we started off with a flap over a pooping puffin, which was quickly yanked from the web site notaleader.ca (ongoing Tory attack on Liberal leader Stéphane Dion). The popping puffin has survived in a YouTube video of the news coverage:

The pooping was hardly necessary, as Dion has been flying around in his polluting plane (yes, he bought carbon offset credits to cover that one) and not sounding all that convincing in terms of his delivery or his message. He struggles a bit with his English and he does that thing that always used to annoy me when I worked in a different part of town: repeats the same sentence in English and French, when that really shouldn't be necessary (and isn't for the TV coverage, which is translated). The best thing I heard from him was his assessment of the Arctic sovereignty issue while speaking to university students somewhere (I'm paraphrasing): We can't win against the Russians or the Americans, and we're too civilized to shoot at the Danes. Now that's funny and accurate.

The signs I took pictures of for my Bye-election Next Door entry were pretty much precursors to the signs that have now invaded every corner of the city. I won't bother to take up any more space with photos of those, but I should point out how obnoxious it is to put them so low on streetlight posts that they actually interfere with people walking by (or trying to navigate the sidewalks in wheelchairs). I wish that the law would require the parties to pay for the taking down of the signs as part of their election expenses, too. Instead, we will probably be seeing them with snow on them in December.

Now while I'm not going to take more pictures of the parties' signs, I will include some other things. Once again, we have a parallel campaign going on with respect to what was done a few years back by the federal government: jacking up employee and employer contributions to the Employment Insurance fund, restricting eligibility, and then 'stealing' the surplus from the fund to pay down the debt. Here's their sign this time around:

The most creative YouTube video prize has to go to the video protesting the Tories' cultural policies (from cuts to American-style determinations of what culture is wholesome enough to fund, with a healthy dose of not understanding Québec … or French):

There is a longer version on YouTube here and a subtitled version here.

The prize for a video mocking the political aspirations of someone whose claim to legitimacy seems to lie in his looks and the identity of his father goes to this video:

When this is all over, there might be some interesting developments among the parties, as the Liberals seems to be showing signs of weakening enough to lose their second place standing, maybe to the NDP. I think we're all (with one notable exception) hoping that the Tories don't get a majority, which seems to be the danger right now. I just don't want to hear any comments from my friends in Ontario about Québec handing the government to the Tories when Ontario has elected more of them than we have (four times as many in 2006!). All Québec does is refuse to send Liberals after all that they have done to embarrass and annoy many of us.

To the Tune of …The Beverly Hillbillies Theme

So here's a new feature that I dreamed up this morning. I hope to repeat this to other tunes and on other topics, but if I don't manage that, I guess I'm still left with this morning's inspiration:

Come and listen to a story 'bout a gal named Palin
If they made it onto land, surely she would be a-whalin'
The chef's out the door, so she's huntin' for her food
And up from the states comes a doddering dude

McCain that is … John McCain ...
'Maverick' … votes with W

Well the first thing you know, young Palin is a star
The yahoos are cheering from a-near and from a-far
The lipstick's hardly dry when we start hearing the tales
Trooper-gate! Drill the park! Oh my god, I hope she fails!

Loses … goes down in flames ...
She could end up in charge, ya hear?!

She lives next door to Russia, so she knows her foreigners
Sex talk is wrong, she'd rather be a grandmother
Gather up the clan, and include the bastard's dad
There's no time to waste, there's a nation to be had

One-liners oughta do … content optional ...
VP? PTA? They're all letters don't you see?!

Well she's got the gals convinced that she's breaking through for them
I don't know if they're dense, but the reasoning's rather dim
Banning books and stopping choice doesn't seem so good to me
And I don't think we can sacrifice our rights and still be free

That's it folks … if your rights are gone,

Just what are you protecting?

Any more verses out there? Just follow the rhyme scheme: AABB and the talking part…

And Furthermore…

A couple of days have gone by since John McCain announced his choice for Vice Presidential nominee. A very clever move on his part, I must say, to find a woman who is on his side of all the big women's issues (i.e.: the wrong side). Who knew that the PTA could lead to something so big so quickly?!

I certainly hope that none of the former supporters of Hillary Clinton will be duped by this move. Surely what the candidate stands for is more important than her/his gender, or at the very least the candidate's gender will not excuse her hostility on the important issues.

Speaking also of important issues, I have been struck by the use of a phrase that is no longer commonly used in Canada: 'Equal pay for equal work.' Oh, we haven't given up on the notion, we have just moved on to 'Equal pay for work of equal value,' which theoretically allows us to compare accounting to welding, and which is generally the term that all of our political figures use, even the most right wing ones.

Picking up on that thought, I will soon be able to express my opinions about our own federal election, as our lovely (if we are to believe their pre-election advertising, which hit the airwaves this weekend) Prime Minister seems poised to break his own fixed election date law and put an end to the planned bye-elections by asking the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament and 'drop the writ' this week. I'm sure the campaign will give me lots of thing to say in the coming weeks.

Watching US Politics from the Sidelines

It's a fascinating spectacle to watch what's happening south of the border this week. I'm sure next week will also be fascinating, but in a scarier, foreboding kind of way. I can't help but point out, however, the things I find completely bizarre from the perspective of someone living outside that reality.

Michelle Obama speaks very well, and I have to say that seeing and hearing her makes me like her. I can't help but wonder why the spouse of a candidate who is not running for office herself has such a prominent place in the political process. That doesn't strike me as being pertinent.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (and I did notice that on Thursday night that Obama added the Rodham back into her name) is also a good speaker, even if she talked a little too much about herself in promoting support for Obama. And the crowd just happened to have 'Unity' signs to wave amongst the 'Hillary' signs. How spontaneous! She did have a good line about the coincidence of Bush and McCain being in the Twin Cities next week, which was a good dig.

Bill Clinton may have had the best line of them all, which I will probably misquote (as I did earlier this evening on the phone with a friend): America should lead by the strength of its example and not by the example of its strength. I liked that one.

Joe Biden kind of scared me with all his military talk. He sounded ready to invade - er, send to troops to support the government of - Georgia. Isn't getting into wars part of the problem we're all hoping to fix in this election? What happened to the diplomacy talk that we have been hearing from Obama all this time?

On the militarism angle again, I was horrified by the line up of (admittedly retired) generals, admirals, etc. trooped out on stage to show their support for Obama. I thought the military only got involved in politics in countries on the edge of a coup. This kind of scared me, too. Not only that, but the general who spoke was really quite wooden and seemed to be very obviously reading from a teleprompter.

I'm going to have to recuse myself from commenting on the incessant flag-waving, since I do come from a rather flag-wavy part (for now) of Canada. Somehow the striped starry ones scare me more, but that is probably a function of history tainted by recent and mid-term memory.

The 'real' people they brought up to speak about their own experiences were okay. Certainly most 'ordinary' people wouldn't be able to speak quite so smoothly in from of a crowd of many thousands, so I'm not sure how many people in the audience thought this was anything other than staged and coached (and probably written for them). Not that it would be a good idea to just send some regular folk up on stage to say whatever they wanted, but still… The best line among them, of course, was Barney Smith, who wants a President who will put Barney Smith ahead of Smith Barney. Again, funny and clever, but who really wrote it?

Barack Obama is an inspiring speaker. I remember thinking 'this guy will be back' when I heard him address the Democratic National Convention four years ago, and many of his speeches over the course of this campaign so far have been really good. Of course, when he spoke four years ago, he actually spoke up for Muslim Americans, while he spends more time trying to distance himself from them now. (On a side note, the whole religion thing is quite strange to me. In Canada, politicians get treated with a degree of suspicion if they mention 'faith' or their religion, while it seems to be a required element in the US.)

I hope that we all get to find out that Obama is as inspiring at leading every day as he is at speaking now.

And a quick swipe at his opponent… Why is it that you get to be a war hero when the most notable thing you did was to get caught and imprisoned by the people whose country you were bombing? I would think the ones who didn't get caught would be the heroes, even if they were doing unspeakable things that in a just world would have been prosecuted as war crimes. I'm sure I'll have more to say about him after next week.

Opera … check!

Yay! My friend Michael and I bought our season of opera tickets on Friday.

That's them, above, with the promotional images superimposed on them.

Bye-election Next Door

On 8 September there will be bye-elections in three ridings, two in Québec and one in Ontario. The one that's been hitting me in the eye is the one in Westmount-Ville-Marie, which is the riding next door to mine, covering Westmount and the downtown of Montréal.

As an aside, I have to object to Elections Canada's having dropped the "e" of the "bye" in bye-election. What's up with that?!

I took some photos of the signs that are up for the four major candidates (haven't actually seen any other signs), so here they are with some comments. Forgive the quality of the photos, but I was actually on my way home from the Atwater Market with delicate raspberries and blueberries in my shopping bags, and the photos were taken one-handed while walking toward the bus stop.

First up (and worst quality photo), the Liberal.

Marc Garneau is best known as Canada's first astronaut. In political circles, he is known as the Liberal candidate who lost to the Bloc québécois when he ran in Vaudreuil-Soulanges and was snubbed by the current Liberal leader Stéphane Dion when he wanted to run in Outremont. (Those who follow such things will remember that Dion's hand-picked candidate lost that bye-election to Thomas Mulcair of the NDP.) Perhaps the fuzziness of the photo I took was prescient, or at least appropriate. ;-)

What strikes me about the poster is the stodginess of how the photo is included (in a box, not incorporated in the graphics) and the high-school-like web site address: votemarc.ca (French version votezmarc.ca). The posters are in two versions, English and French, and attached back-to-back around poles. I find this interesting, as the "two versions" approach (versus the "bilingual" approach) is usually the mark of the Québec government, whatever party is in power. The federal Liberals have usually taken the bilingual approach.

Next up might be Garneau's stiffest competition, the NDP.

Anne Lagacé Dowson is a pretty well-known radio personality (especially for those of us who have our radios permanently tuned to CBC Radio One). She has taken a leave from her journalist role to run, and is hoping for a repeat of the Outremont results in this neighbouring riding which includes another slice of a wealthy section of town (Outremont being a much more francophone wealthy area, Westmount being a little more anglophone and mixed).

You'll notice that I managed to cut off the NDP logo, hidden right at the top of the poster in the green area, but it certainly wasn't as prominent as the candidate in any case. And, speaking of green, I wonder if that splash of green at the top (doubtless to make a point and a swipe at the Green Party) also explains why these posters are much smaller than the other three party posters (about a quarter of the size).

Third up is the Bloc québécois.

I don't think Charles Larivée has any chance of winning, or any pretension that he will, but the Bloc will always run a candidate in every Québec riding, whether or not the anglos dominating the riding would ever consider voting for them. On this principle, I think the Bloc should start running candidates in Labrador, and maybe certain parts of the Ottawa Valley on the 'wrong' side of the river, but that's my own hegemony talking.

I laughed out loud when I saw the slogan on these posters: "Présent!" For those who don't grasp the meaning behind it, including Barry Wilson of the local CTV News, this is a very effective dig at the Liberals' practice of "opposing" the Harper government's legislation by sending in a small number of their MPs to vote against, but keeping enough of them absent so as to allow the legislation to pass and avoid an election. Get some principles, Liberals!

This poster is in French only (hey, this is Québec after all), but the Bloc website is, interestingly, also available in English and Spanish. I don't see any Spanish anywhere else!

Last up (and here's hoping this is predictive of his results) is the Tory.

I actually know very little about this candidate, apart from what is on his web site. It looks like he has been a behind-the-scenes actor in the Progressive Conservative Party and now the Conservative Party for some time, but without electoral success. If the Tories are going to win any of the three bye-elections, it won't be this one.

What's interesting about his poster is that it takes the federalist "bilingual" approach (see above) and it has a slogan that means nothing at all. I guess they're trying to suggest that Québec is getting stronger because of the actions of the Conservative Party, but it rings like an observation and you would really have to stretch to attribute any strength-getting to something that the Tories have done. Maybe it means relative to Ontario, which is due to the Tories' having attacked Ontario so much. I'm not so sure I'd be proud of that.

***

A final observation about web sites. With the exception of the Bloc candidate, each of them has set up a web site under her/his own name, which I find a bit disturbing. It used to be that Canadian politics was about the team and, yes, about the contribution that the individual would make to the team. VotezMarc.ca, AnneLagaceDowson.ca and GuyDufort.ca, whatever their actual content, are a bit too individualistic for my taste. As for Charles Larivée, his poster leads us to the web site of his party, but his party is obviously counting much more on winning the bye-election in Saint-Lambert, because that's where all the emphasis is for the bye-elections.

And yes, I will be glued to the TV on 8 September because I am a political junkie and a stats nerd and election results are almost as good as a baseball game for stats. And besides, the Olympics will be over by then and the new TV season not begun — I need something to keep me off the streets.

Jammin'!

After a few years of not doing so, I finally managed to find the time at the same time as I could find the fruit and made jam — twice in the space of a week!

On the left, the raspberry jam I made on 4 August. On the right, the raspberry-blueberry jam I made last night. Notice how the addition of blueberries makes it just a shade darker.

Here's a look at what the production looks like on the shelf above the remaining pickles that I made last year (plus some pickled peppers — not picked by Peter Piper — and a couple of purchased items I keep with them).

Martha Stewart might have dusted before taking this picture, but I have my limits. ;-)

Friday en français : une sortie bien attendue

Ça fait maintenant quelques semaines depuis que j'ai reçu les nouvelles : après vingt-trois ans ensembles, ma petite sœur et son amie se sont mariées et elles ont enfin annoncé leur relation à mes parents.

Ma famille a grandie et j'en suis heureux

Le mariage a eu lieu dans un petit village où elles demeuraient pendant plusieurs années et sans la participation des membres de la famille, sauf, bien sûr, des membres de leur famille choisie (des amis de longue date avec qui elles restent toujours en contact).

Revenons un peu sur l'histoire de ma famille. Après plusieurs tentatives en personne, j'ai fait ma sortie par lettre en 1981 à l'âge de 21 ans. Je craignais la réponse de mes parents car j'avais entendu des histoires d'horreur de la part de mon entourage et je n'avais aucun indice de la réponse qu'auraient pu avoir mes parents. Tous les deux élevés dans une petite ville en Colombie-britannique, mes parents n'avaient pas abordé le sujet dans ma présence. À la fin, je n'avais rien à craindre : ils m'ont téléphoné le jour où ils on reçu ma lettre pour me dire qu'ils m'aimaient et que rien ne mettait en question leur amour de leur fils. Quelques mois plus tard, ma mère m'avait même dit qu'elle regrettait les occasions à travers les années où elle avait sûrement du m'offenser par des paroles insensibles (pas à ma connaissance).

Il faut souligner cependant que j'ai vécu des années très difficiles avant cette lettre en 1981, mais que la réaction des mes parents a eu un effet très positif pour moi. Sachant que je pouvais compter sur eux, je n'avais aucune hésitation seize ans plus tard, lors de mon diagnostic du VIH-sida, à chercher leur soutien. Ils l'ont offert, comme toujours, sans réserve.

C'est pourquoi donc que ma sœur a du vivre les mêmes difficultés (ou bien des semblables) que j'ai vécu? J'aurais pensé que j'avais posé la geste difficile, de dévoiler ma sexualité dans l'ignorance de la réponse que je pouvais attendre. Elle aurait pu suivre assez facilement, non? Mais non, c'est un sentier que chaque homme gai et chaque femme lesbienne doit faire pour soi-même. Un grand défaut de notre société, selon moi, et un défaut qui mène à des dépressions, des suicides et des comportements destructeurs qui pourraient être si facilement évités.

Elle a commencé avec moi, son frère gai avoué, tout comme moi j'avais commencé avec la sœur qui était étudiante universitaire : des expériences qui devraient offrir la possibilité d'une ouverture d'esprit non pas garantie par une vie dans notre village, à l'abri des changements sociaux de l'époque. Par la suite, c'était mes deux autres sœurs qui m'ont posé la question à plusieurs reprises — « est-elle…? » Je leur ai dit de poser cette question à elle, « …mais vraiment, posez-la! »
Peu à peu nous sommes arrivés au stade où tous les enfants de la famille savaient, mais que personne n'était capable de deviner ce que mes parents savaient. C'est vrai que depuis vingt-trois ans mes parents accueillent son amie (maintenant sa femme!) comme leur belle-fille, et souvent mieux que leur autre belle-fille (mais ça c'est un autre histoire). Mais de temps en temps, mon père ou ma mère laissait échapper un commentaire qui nous faisait dire entre nous « Ils ne savent pas! Comment ça? » D'où la réticence de ma sœur et de ma nouvelle belle-soeur de faire leur sortie plus tôt.

S'il y a en tout ça une lueur d'espoir, c'est la normalisation du mariage entre personnes de même sexe qui s'installe à travers le pays. Un peu partout, dans des petits villages tout comme dans les grandes villes, il y a des familles qui se rassemblent pour participer à ces mariages comme observateurs, comme participants et ça devient du quotidien. Ce sont des événements familiaux et non pas des manifestations politiques, et ça, c'est l'évolution qui doit se répéter dans tous les aspects de la vie d'une personne gaie ou lesbienne avant que nous soyons vraiment égaux.

Dans le cas de ma sœur, je regrette qu'elle n'ait pas eu la présence de sa famille lors de son mariage, mais je suis content de pouvoir dire avec certitude que les secrets sont maintenant finis et qu'elle peut compter sur l'entier appui de sa famille. Si seulement on pouvait dire la même chose pour tout le monde.

Distinct Society Lesson #3: Construction Holiday

Yes, we've seen National Moving Day and, thanks to Brian, we have underlined the advent of the evil yellow margarine.

Now let's have a look at this week's lesson: the annual two week construction holiday!

Yes, each year during the last two weeks of July, most construction sites grind to a halt and the whole force of people working in construction go on holiday. Traffic becomes distinctly lighter in the city (but heavier on the highways for the days at the beginning and end of this period), campgrounds are full all over the province (and over the borders into Ontario, New Brunswick and into New England) and — who could doubt it — the price of gas mysteriously rises.

This lovely tradition apparently dates back to the 1970's, when our government moved to make uniform the working conditions in the industry. In the interest of safety, it is better to have two weeks of no construction work than many weeks of construction with suboptimal numbers of workers as they try to take vacations in a staggered manner.

Of course, there are exceptions, and various road projects and other things considered vital get exemptions from the period, allowing them to keep their workers on the job. But you can pretty much forget about that deck you were hoping to build, unless you are doing it on your own. Even then, inspectors will probably stop by to make sure you are not breaking the rules…

OOP: Capitale nationale!

I've just come back from a very quick visit to the region of the Capitale nationale (Québec City), so I thought I would share a little bit of what I did.

I took the train and, due to an unfortunate set of events that saw me taking a non air-conditioned train back from Toronto a few weeks ago, I had a credit that made it easy for me to book myself in VIA1 (first class) with all the attendant drinks and food. The picture above is of the Fleuve St-Laurent as we cross the bridge into the great void of the 450 area code. Eeek!

I guess we do need someone to grow our crops to feed us, and the countryside all the way was dotted with lovely green fields that will yield crops for our consumption later on.

I also tried my best to get a picture of the typical Québec farmhouse, which has a very distinctive shape. These were either too far away, as above, or so close with the train moving quickly that they ended up a bit blurry, as below.

I went for just a day, but with the goal of spending a little time with my friend Madhuri. I think the picture of her above is quite lovely, but you can see that I have not at all perfected the 'holding the camera at arm's length to take a self-portrait' thing. The one below gets a little more of me.

It's hard to believe that we have been friends for over thirty years, since we were both in high school. (For those with calculators, we were both in high school at age 3.) There is just something comfortable about our friendship that I really enjoy. We don't see each other a whole lot, but it is always very natural and easy when we do. I also enjoy both of her daughters, who are a credit to her parenting skills.

We spent some time wandering around the lower town, pictured above, and the upper town (okay, I only have the City Hall), pictured below. Québec, at least the old part, is an extremely beautiful city. They have worked hard to maintain its charm and integrity and it shows.

This is also the 400th anniversary of the founding of Québec City, so there are many delightful activities going on and little reminders of the occasion everywhere.

What I found funny was that these lights are all oriented in the same way: you can read them when you are heading east toward the escarpment, but if you go the other way, you see 'OOP' (hence my post title):

The other observation I would have to make is that there has been much criticism of how much space the federal government has been taking in this celebration — everything from sending the Governor General as the official representative to the kick-off ceremonies in France, to referring to 1608 as the founding of Canada (which is a bit of a stretch, to say the least). I found the ultimate evidence of their nefarious plot to take this over in the little badges that people wear to give them access to the concerts that are a part of the Summer Festival.

The badge seems innocent enough when photographed in the day or with a flash.

In the dark, however, the evil federalist plot reveals itself in the colour of the little flashing light on the badge. Red enough to provoke even the most mild-mannered of nationalists! Why-oh-why is this light not blue? I blame the lax attitude of our current Québec government, letting the Canadians usurp the festivities! ;-)

And, although this does not flow with the rest of my story, I must show the other reason I so love Québec City. Erico and the Choco-musée will always make a trip there worthwhile. Below, on a fittingly coloured plate, are the lovely products I brought back from there.

Yum!