Dumas fille

(Editorial from the Mascaret election issue.)

Last month, I decided to stand up for fiscal conservatism and social justice and the environment, and run as the Green Party candidate for Moncton- Riverview-Dieppe.

I lasted two weeks. Ho ho ho.

It wasn?t the campaign: it was the national party administration. It has lost touch with the grassroots. There is no New Brunswick Riding Association for the Green Party, because it failed to conform to Elections Canada protocol. The Riding Association organizes nomination meetings. Without a Riding Association, there can be no formal nomination meeting.

However, the Greens are about the grassroots. Why didn?t they hold informal nomination meetings? After I stood as candidate (thinking no one else would, and despite my disabilities) I was approached by hostile and prominent Moncton environmentalists who would have thrown their hat in the ring - if there had been a ring and they?d known to bring a hat.

By the time they agreed to support me, I - as you may have read in the Times & Transcript - no longer supported the Green Party. A party calling for democratic reform cannot act undemocratically within itself. The Green Party is in a stage of transition where it could easily lose its way, and I urge all Green supporters to work hard to ensure that doesn?t happen. At risk of belabouring the point: the Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe candidate, Camille Labchuk, has a similar name to, but is not, me.

A month ago - what a long time in politics! - I also thought the $1.75 solution was a great idea. That?s the federal funding change where any party who runs candidates in all 308 seats, and draws 2% of the overall vote, gets $1.75 per vote. I thought it was a great encouragement for emerging parties. Now I think it causes them to fixate on money, leading them to run inferior or inappropriate candidates. The Greens, for example, have a candidate running in the Yukon from New Zealand.

The 2% restriction is being challenged on constitutional grounds, and this is another thing the public should get involved with. We do need more opportunities to become involved in politics - but we also need those opportunities to not corrupt us too terribly early.

A month ago I was going to run so I could vote for somebody I trusted. Now, I don?t know. The Green Party is still the only party speaking passionately about issues that are bigpicture important to me: democratic reform, the environment, social justice. But I can?t vote for a party whose leadership is showing such a break with its own ideals after achieving such a minimum of power. The Greens have to reclaim themselves, and it?s extremely important that they do.

Independent candidate Joel Macintosh is running because he believes it?s better than sitting around griping about the lack of lousy candidates. Bravo, Joel, and best of luck to you.

Given that the NDP has been the de facto leftist political party in Canada for decades, I don?t know why the NDP isn?t aggressively defending what should be its turf. Not understanding the NDP strategy on my core issues makes me not want to vote for them. But it?s my job, as a voter, to inform myself, and I hope you?ll do the same. I already know how the Liberals feel about my core issues. They don?t care. If they cared, disabled people such as myself would be able to afford food and shelter and medication.

Then we have the Tories: led by a man who supported the Liberal gun registry, and who generally seems to believe that the State does in fact have business in the bedrooms of the nation. We have too many sick, poor, bankrupt and homeless for private adult issues to be occupying a hundredth the airtime they get. It?s shameful and unacceptable and cruel. For all that Harper flaunts his religion, his nose for nontroversies is genuinely unChristian.

This is a far more important election than it appears. It is an opportunity to take power from the culture of entitlement, but only if you vote for, not, as Canadians so often do, against. Vote for the Canada you want. Read the platforms, talk to the candidates, and choose carefully.

(Getting tired of repeating myself in email, so here it all is.)

Here is my version of my brief tenure as a federal candidate for the Green Party of Canada in Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe.

Some weeks ago, Sharon Labchuk, Green Party of Canada co-chair, approached my mother, Louisa Barton-Duguay, about being the Green Party candidate in Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe. She declined, partly because she is already quite politically busy with SOS Eau Water Sankwan, a group very influential in keeping Vivendi-US Filter from its bid to privatize the water in Moncton, and partly because she is an artist and her pottery business is very busy this time of year.

On Sunday, November 27, Mom suggested I write to Sharon as a potential candidate. I offered to stand. Moncton has a strong environmentalist contingent and I was baffled that there was no candidate, though I kept hearing about people that were, for unknown reasons, not standing this time around. I stood because the values the Green Party represents are important to me, no other party is addressing them seriously, and it is unacceptable that they not be represented. Also at the time, I agreed with the party strategy of gaming the federal funding system, on the Mother Teresa principle that it doesn't matter where it comes from, it's what you do with it. I thought they were doing good things. I warned Sharon that I am disabled with Environmental Illness, and don't have much money, so was not sure I was the best candidate.

I received mail that morning from Sharon saying - as she was to say again to Jorge Barrera from the Times & Transcript this week - that I would be an "excellent" candidate and she wanted me to run. I told her that I was very busy that week finishing the layout for Mascaret (an independent magazine published monthly, but delayed this time for the election coverage) but would co-ordinate with her that weekend.

I had some trouble getting the paperwork I needed, particularly to collect the 100 signatures every candidate must provide to Elections Canada in order to appear on the ballot, but was also too busy to follow up on it very attentively.

Mascaret had allocated ad space for the Green Party as they usually advertised with us; I asked Sharon if this space should be a generic party ad or if I should make an ad for myself. She said to go ahead and make one for myself, and that I would be getting quite a jump on the other candidates by doing so. However, I had already written an editorial about my candidacy so thought also running an ad for myself was dubious, and ran a generic ad instead.

I asked Sharon about access to the local Green membership list and was told as soon as my candidacy was registered with the party that I would get access to "the database" over the Green Party web site.

After the magazine had gone to print Sharon said it would be bad if I ran an ad for myself, because candidates can't legally campaign until they are registered with Elections Canada. She said that I should plead ignorance if it came up.

I heard from Sharon that my endorsement from the party was in the mail. On Sunday, December 4, she called to say that Jim Harris, party leader, would make a quick stop in Moncton to meet with me at the Open Hands Food Bank.

By the morning of the photo-op, December 5, I was concerned that the paperwork wasn't in order, but showed up, did my thing, was sort of surprised that Jim didn't introduce me to the media as the candidate (and indeed, the media was unaware of my candidacy when I showed up that morning) but, rationalized it in a variety of ways and wrote favourably about the experience. I had been promised a copy of a photo taken of me and Jim, and knew there was a campaign blog with the photos so expected it would show up there, and never asked about it.

I was personally baffled by Jim's political presentation - suit and tie, sound bites and statistics seemed very politics-as-usual, and while I understood with the need to break from the hippie stereotype, felt that donning the "uniform of politics" (as recommended in the Candidates' Handbook from the party) was not a proven alternative. I am doing a masters in marketing as to provide skills to non-profits and broke artists, and have worked as a business methods consultant in another life. So I decided I would look into interning with the party to work on developing alternative ways of getting their message out. I started keeping some notes on things I thought the party could do better.

I have a button press so I made myself 100 Green Party buttons. Figuring there would be another election soon and not expecting to be the candidate again, I put my name in tiny print and made the logo big, so that Green supporters could go on wearing them - recyclable buttons, I thought, well in the party spirit.

I met with a very nice local Green supporter who said he had hoped to be my campaign manager, but had some unexpected work out of town, so couldn't. He said he would do all that he could, and was generally very helpful. I expressed concerns about my inexperience but reiterated that I was standing because I felt it was important and that no one else would.

There were some technical interferences with my candidacy registration getting in to the party HQ, and it wasn't until December 10 that I got access to the internal area of the site. However, I didn't appear to have access to the membership list. I inquired about this repeatedly and got some useful info, but nothing about the list. (In retrospect it is possible that I was asking the wrong people about this, or had access and didn't find it, but you'll see that in a sense it would not have solved a major problem.)

Also on December 10, the not-campaign manager contacted my mother and said that, in looking for a campaign manager for me, they'd found another candidate to run in Moncton - someone with far better resources and a high local profile. He had expected to run and was waiting to hear about a nomination meeting, but there wasn't one, and then he heard I was the candidate, so was willing to stand aside. I was asked to run in Mirimachi instead - a six hour drive away - and told I would not be expected to actually campaign there but that it was important to have a Green name on the ballot there. I agreed, but then my editorial started getting some positive notice, so there was indecision about whether it was a good idea to remove me.

I met with some local environmentalists on Saturday morning and they expressed very strong concerns that they had been cut out of the process, but were also concerned about whether it would hurt the party if I pulled out. A local candidate was found for Mirimachi so I wasn't needed there (a relief to me). I was open to the idea of withdrawing altogether "for health reasons", but also spoke strongly myself that I wanted to be sure the alternative candidate would do a good job. An unexpressed concern was that alternative candidate was an older man (all those at the meeting except me were men, in fact), and Sharon had been excited about my being a young woman (bear in mind there are shockingly few women in politics in Canada). However, I felt the need to involve the locals was more important than my physical properties.

They eventually decided that it was up to me to stay in or withdraw. Then they called a couple of hours later and said I should stay in, that I was a good candidate - one complimented me on my debating skills and another on my political awareness, so my quality as a candidate, disabilities notwithstanding, was not an issue - and they would support me. I thanked him tersely, hung up, and went on thinking. I was very dissatisfied with the party mechanics and felt I should withdraw on ethical grounds. This was not the Green Party I thought it was. I said, "they now support me as candidate, but now I am not sure I support the party." That afternoon I was reluctantly talked into staying, on the logic that I could do more to fix the party from the inside.

My mother had been collecting signatures for me but was increasingly baffled that I didn't have access to a membership list of local Greens.

I started writing up my concerns - which are numerous, and go far beyond this one issue. I felt very uneasy about the path ahead of me, and my disabilities flared up. I spent Tuesday, December 13, swapping between unconsciousness and vomiting. Also on Tuesday, a letter arrived with a "campaign kit on a CD" containing, among other things, a Word document (small and easily emailed) that I had to fax in to get the membership list. The postmark was dated December 6. The Green media HQ called; my mother answered it and blasted them for overall party incoherence. They asked why I didn't just get contacts from the previous candidate; my mother reminded them that the previous candidate died of cancer only a few months ago, and her campaign manager had been her mother-in-law, so it was reasonable for me to prefer to get the information directly from the party.

Meanwhile I was getting emails suggesting that I place orders for campaign buttons, signage, etc, immediately, if it was to arrive in time for post-Christmas campaigning. However, I still couldn't legally collect campaign funds because I wasn't registered with Elections Canada, only with the party! Even if I'd taken care of the signatures without the membership list, no candidate can register with Elections Canada without an auditor, and I had not received my auditor letter.

Literally sick and tired in all directions, I wrote to Sharon that I was standing down. I got a bunch of mails from her, but told her to take up any outstanding issues with my contact person since I was busy being sick.

On Wednesday, I received the auditor letter, making Wednesday, December 14, the first day I could have registered with Elections Canada.

Wednesday afternoon I got a call which somebody else here answered, and mis-identified the caller as probably being from the Green media HQ again. I was nauseated, cranky, yet relieved at not being the candidate anymore, so I started the phone call saying they should already know I'd stood down because of party disorganization. Then the person identified himself.

He was actually Jorge Barrera, reporter from the Ottawa desk of the Times & Transcript. I paused and considered how much I wanted to say. Barrera's got good technique, though - I predict great things for him - plus I'm not much for sitting on my opinions. So I talked for about 45 minutes about everything I'd seen - the nut of which was, the party really needs to grow up and get back in touch with its original principles. I was also quite disenchanted with the federal funding formula that I had been touting in my editorial only a few weeks before.

Feeling broody, I went looking for the picture of me and Jim, and noticed the writeup about Moncton had never mentioned me and the picture wasn't there. Mom went through the whole blog and saw a pattern of its exclusive focus on Jim without much mention of the candidates, even though the blog would be a great way to contextualize the candidates on a national basis and make us all feel like we belonged to the same big thing. Later it seemed this was symptomatic of the larger problems.

That night, Green HQ called saying my nomination papers were on file with them, and that my Elections Canada deposit (each candidate must give Elections Canada a $1,000 deposit to be on the ballot) had been sent. My mother said politely that I had already stood down. The caller said, "Oh crap, I have to get that money back!"

Thursday morning I got email on the internal mailing list for Green Party candidates describing problems with the party acting questionably toward its own candidates in BC and how this problem had been growing for years. That email is pasted at the end of this blog entry.

Saw Barrera's article that afternoon. (Email me if you want a copy.) It gets the main issues right - the party is behaving undemocratically and gaming the funding system. However, the party was looking for a candidate in this area from May onward, they just didn't involve the locals appropriately. Sharon said - as noted in the article - that they couldn't have formal nomination meetings because there was no New Brunswick Riding Association. The reason for this - not mentioned in the article - is the riding association was dissolved by Elections Canada for not following proper procedure. I don't know the details. However, I still feel if they'd turned to the grassroots they're founded on, they would have found locals willing to hold informal meetings and recommend candidates, which would hew to the spirit of the party in a way that wholesale appointments do not. The article also notes that Democracy Watch agreed with me that parties "could not be trusted to uphold democracy in their own ranks and should be subject to Elections Canada scrutiny when it comes to selecting candidates".

Today I read at The Tyee that the Green party admin has been ignoring the grassroots in a serious way for over a year - the membership voted overwhelmingly (83%) to split the federal funding amongst the riding associations, electoral district associations, and head office, but Jim Harris decided this was no good. I personally have no idea where the extra million dollars went but find it curious that the Financial Controller position in the party is vacant.

The party's also announced it won't release its new platform until early January (interestingly the Policy/Platform officer position is also vacant). Actually, five of eleven of the officer positions in the party are vacant.

I have not torn up my Green Party membership (though I also still haven't received it in the mail yet...) and still believe in the core principles of the party - fiscal responsibility, democratic reform, social justice, equal rights, and an intelligent attitude toward the environment - that made me stand up for it. But the reality has diverged unacceptably from the ideals and I won't support that, or conceal it; concealing abuse enables it to continue, whether it is domestic abuse, corporate abuse of the environment, or a party touting democratic reform while behaving undemocratically. I've been following politics since I was two years old and I know it's a disgusting business. However, good enough for the other parties is not good enough for the Green Party. It is not allowed to act like this. In doing so, it contravenes its very existence.

I am reminded of a minor feud I had with someone at the David Suzuki Foundation. The DSF doesn't take government money, for fear that it would compromise their principles. I felt that was foolish - they should apply the Mother Teresa philosophy. But now that I've seen what an ultimately tiny amount of money - a million dollars a year - has done to the Green Party, I viscerally understand why the DSF has taken such a hard line against temptation. I still disagree in principle, but in reality... No, there must be a middle path, between corruption and opting-out. There must be a way of doing this that is both efficient and ethical. But I definitely see their point much better than before.

Sure, I'm inexperienced in running a political campaign, and certainly some of the problems resulted from that. I'm more than willing to take my share of responsibility here. But only that much, and no more. Remember that I was the candidate, and could have stayed such, but as I said, I'm not much for sitting on my opinions. Jim Harris said at our photo-op that, "we like mouthy people in the Green Party". Would that that were true.

Excerpt from my email to the leaders of the Green Party:

I have also given an interview to the Ottawa reporter from the Times & Transcript detailing that, among many other things, I am withdrawing because I felt the process of my selection was improper. I recommend that, although time is short, a proper meeting be held to select the new candidate. I will turn over my campaign materials, such as they are, to the new candidate.

There are things I have said in the interview that will be difficult to hear and I imagine some of them can be argued one way or another. Bear in mind, however, that the locals were willing to put aside their complaints and support me, despite the inappropriate process by which I was selected. I could have remained the candidate and benefitted from the problems I see. However, we are supposed to be about transparency and accountability, and if we hide from our problems, we are no better than they, and prone to exactly the problems that cripple them. I feel that much of what I have said will ultimately create a stronger party that I will be proud to maintain membership in - something that cannot be said of any other party in Canada.

I'm not normally one to take horoscopes seriously, but Mom brought home this week's Free Will Astrology:

Writing in November's Esquire, Chuck Klosterman described the National Football League as one of the most successful socialist institutions in the world. As evidence, he notes that rich teams in the biggest markets are required to share their revenue with poor teams in small markets. The league's best franchise in recent years, the New England Patriots, has won so many games because its star players have volunteered to accept reduced salaries, making more cash available for the team to assemble the best possible collection of second-line players. I recommend a similar approach to you, Aquarius. It's a propitious time to bring the NFL's brand of communalism to the group or business or tribe that's so important to you.

It's almost mindbending to think of the NFL as socialist, considering how aggressively corporate branded it is, and how much sheer money it pulls in. But it shows that we can learn new techniques from very unexpected places.

I just spent an hour removing Viagra-sales vandalism from a site I operate that used to, so to speak, not have doors, but will now have locks and require keys, all so that some jerks can make a little money.

Well, no, not a little money. If the internet is a superhighway, these guys are creating gridlock - without paying for gas or even the cars they drive! Spam costs practically nothing to send; all they need is some cheap software, a CD full of addresses (often advertised for around $49) and a free dial-up account. They send out millions of emails. If they only get a thousand responses on a $50 product - not hard to get when they're asking millions of people - they've made $50,000. Not bad for an afternoon's work.

Spam is what happens when environmental controls aren't good enough, when politicians don't understand technology and it outgrows legislation. Spammers constitute a vanishingly small percentage of the internet, but they consume far more than their share of its resources. Since the election fever caught us all, I haven't had time to manually go through my spam folder. I've let over 11,000 pieces pile up since November 21. I've only received around 500 legitimate mails over the same time.

Sending spam is even easier when a virus writer is involved. It's estimated that an unsecured new Windows computer will be infected with something within 20 minutes of being plugged into the internet (which is why I have a Mac and why my brother is very strict about what goes on his Windows computer). The chance is increasingly good that that infection will turn the computer into a blind pipeline to pump out more spam.

Even if you're not unknowingly abetting it, you still pay - your internet provider pays for the bandwidth to receive the spam, and the computers to process it. It has to pass those costs on to you. Then there is the cost of your time to go through the spam and throw it away. Junk mailers, whatever other sins they commit, actually subsidize the postal system; spammers only profit off everyone else's investment. They are constantly looking for new free online facilities to exploit: they shill on blogs and wikis and force people - people like me - to spend even more time removing and preventing their garbage.

In 2004, United States alone, that cost topped $10 billion dollars, and spam volume has doubled since then. Spam also far too often contains illegal and downright vile content; I have often received disgusting enough standard pornography and recently started receiving child pornography.

Like most environmental problems, spam requires an international solution. However, their abuse is obvious and all governments - except a few who profit explicitly by encouraging spammers to base there - would have a better virtual ecosystem by banding together to prevent it. An international agreement to make mass mailers bear the true cost of their advertisements could be a tiny stepping-stone toward co-operation on more vital issues.

For more information about the true costs of spam and the impact it has on you, please visit the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email.

Dear Christian Science Monitor,

I agreed wholeheartedly with "On the hunt for a conspiracy theory" until it offhandedly labeled Environmental Illness as a hoax.

When I was well, I taught myself to read, took ballet and gymnastics, and was a published author. Then I turned five, and began a lifetime of pain, throat and viral infections, and months-long bouts of bronchitis. The tissue at my joints was so swelled up that walking gave me huge, visible bruises.

Five years ago, I saw an MD specialized in Environmental Illness. I was cynical and suspicious, as Environmental Illness is often "treated" with unscientific and possibly hazardous placebos. I insisted on being treated scientifically.

Since then, research, prescriptions, physiotherapy, and strict avoidance of a ton of natural and synthetic antagonists have much improved my quality of life. Ten years ago, illness made me quit school. Now, I am running for office, and start an MSc in January.

Environmental Illness is not a "neo-con plot" or a hoax. Lumping it in with other falsehoods is how I got to stay sick for 25 years, and be a drain on society instead of a pillar of it. I am the living contradiction of your intellectual laziness.

Camille Gabrielle Taylor

I read the Monitor often, though I am not a Christian Scientist. It is generally an excellent publication that provides incisive coverage of global issues, and should not be confused with religion-centric magazines like the Watchtower. For its scope, detachment and honesty - it's won seven Pulitzers - it is most like the Economist, and a terrific example of how religion can contribute positively to modern society.

From About Us at csmonitor.com: The idea is that the unblemished truth is freeing (as a fundamental human right); with it, citizens can make informed decisions and take intelligent action, for themselves and for society.

A good goal for all public servants.

This morning I toured the Open Hands Food Bank with Green Party leader Jim Harris.

Though, we almost didn't.

What they do at this food bank is amazing. It is a big, cold warehouse, with a large hole in the front room ceiling from water damage. They have one paid staffer, Linda, a tiny, energetic, take-no-guff woman ("I'm the Mother Superior," she said, "and Betty is Mother Hubbard. I wish I could work as hard as she does."). She used to wear suits, but it's cold, and the volunteers dressed for warmth and comfort, so so does she. They all work way more hours than they're supposed to, they can't afford to get the roof fixed, and they're dealing with people who are hungry, broke, desperate, and often not in the best state of mind. That Linda and Betty still care - and it's obvious they do - is miraculous by itself.

I got there early, since my mother knows where everything is in Moncton. Tracy from CTV was already there with her cameraman.

Linda told us about Operation Christmas Child, a program that gives Christmas gifts to children overseas. A lot of the donated gifts can't be shipped, though, because they're perishable or breakable. These are distributed to food banks here instead - shampoo, candy, little toys - and given out with the food.

Then Jim arrived, unfortunately late, since they'd gotten lost. He was wearing a dark blue suit and a green-striped tie. He tried to get straight into the bank tour, starting with a sound-bite about poverty - how the balanced budget was balanced because the Liberals had taken 45 billion dollars of Employment Insurance premiums - and remember, this is a fund people pay their own money into so they can get it when they need it - and cut eligibility and benefits.

I think this felt to Linda like some guy in a suit had barged into her space and was trying to make political coin out of human suffering - it must have been something on the level of that badness because she completely flipped out, on camera. Refused to take us on the tour; lectured Jim for a good stretch of time about inadequate government attention to poverty because it was full of people who'd never been poor. Her speech was so damn amazing I wish I'd given it myself. I'd love to see people like her running the leaders' debates - people who work unnecessarily hard with pitiful resources - with leaky roofs! - because our government is - whether it consciously realizes it or not - engaged in social Darwinism.

After she'd vented a while she did seem to realize Jim was actually a decent guy, and later even teased him about the suit, ruffling his lapels and saying, "I know you have to dress like that." She took us around the food bank and told us about how when she gets eggs - she buys eggs, hot dogs and bologna with the $2 food bank coupons we donate with at the grocery store - she cuts the cartons in thirds and gives out four eggs at a time. "It looks like we have a lot of food," she said, pointing at a dozen large packing boxes, "but those are all just cookies. We take what we can get."

Linda apologized for "shooting my mouth off," and Jim said, "we like people who shoot their mouths off in the Green Party." I said, "I hope that's true!" and pointed to myself, grinning.

I chatted a bit with Betty, and told her, I did know about being poor, that I was disabled myself and scraping by on a pitiful disability stipend... Then we all went back out front, and did a nice picture with Linda, me, Mom and Jim.

Then Jim, David, Mom and I went over to the CTV station. Jim took out a beautiful little Green logo lapel pin, and said, "this is like the Green Party's Order of Canada. David Suzuki has one, and he wears it." He pinned it to my lapel, thanked me for being one of the 308 men and women standing as candidates this election, and said I was his heroine. And I, it's true, I blushed. Aw shucks, Fearless Leader. You'll make a believer of me yet.

(This editorial appears in the December 2005 issue of Mascaret.)

I meant to say one thing: vote. Your vote means cash for the party you support. Now I?m saying two things: I?m the Green Party candidate for Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe in the January 23 election.

The rock bottom cash value of your vote is $1.75 in federal funding, per year, if you vote for a party running a full slate, and it gets 2% of the national vote. If you vote for a party running an incomplete slate (or even just one riding), they must get 5% of the overall vote to qualify.

That said, in June 2005, the Canadian Action Party, the Christian Heritage Party, the Communist Party of Canada, the Green Party, the Marijuana Party, the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada, and the Progressive Canadian Party, all filed to have the 2%/5% cutoff abolished. Their counsel, Professor Peter Rosenthal, said ?it is unconstitutional to withold those funds from these parties merely because they received fewer votes. The payment is per vote anyway; why can?t a party that receives a small number of votes get a small amount of money??

So if you support a small party, but are demoralized about voting, vote! Make sure that when the case is resolved, your party gets more money. Give a token of future support.

I wrote that much, then started thinking, who?ll I vote for? Then I thought about how broken our government is, and got angry at our uninspiring leaders. I?m not speaking against the Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe candidates; we?re all facing a big picture problem. Our democracy is broken.

In 1993, the Tories got 16% of the vote - and 2 seats. The Reform Party got 19% of the vote and 52 seats. For the Liberals: 41% of the vote, and an ?overwhelming majority? of 177 seats.

Now that the right is more or less back together, we?re seeing similar math: 30-40% Liberal, 30-35% Conservative, 15-20% NDP, then the Bloc, Greens, Independents, and so forth. All we did in 1993 was shove the problem ahead half a generation or so, during which time, Canadian politics stagnated.

(Though, the stagnation?s older: what Tory wouldn?t trade Stephen Harper for last generation?s Brian Mulroney; respectively Layton for last generation?s Broadbent or Martin for last generation?s Trudeau?)

Winner-take-all keeps getting weirder, voter turnout lower, and candidates less forceful. It feels like only two types of Canadians will engage such a bad system: those who can manipulate it and those who want to fix it.

I?m the latter. I?m not from New Brunswick, but have off-and-on spent around a third of my life here, with my closest family. I was born in British Columbia, and have also lived in Ottawa, Silicon Valley and Oregon. I came back to Canada because I like Canada more. I?ve crossed it coast to coast repeatedly by rail and plane, and once even in a Volkswagen minibus.

I?ve also seen unbelievable waste while working in the heart of Canadian government, at HRDC. And I?ve seen incredible stretching of tiny budgets at Status of Women Canada; a near-heroic department crippled by our government?s transparent indifference to women?s equality.

Then, after many years? warning, my health finally collapsed. With a fat folder of doctor reports, I learned how the government works from the outside. I waited years for appointments which the government would cancel without notice, and was assessed by consultants who had no health qualifications. Though I had dozens of sheets from elite medical specialists detailing my disabilities, and a fistful of prescriptions, the system I encountered is so cruel and inhumane that it requires the sickest Canadians to fight until we drop. My elected representatives either couldn?t help or made it worse.

Canada is rich. We can afford good health care, a clean environment, peacekeepers, and to feed and shelter all our citizens. But I?ve seen firsthand how we get stupidly lousy value for our money. During the Y2K upgrades, staff were given complete old computer systems. (While the computers might have been buggy, the monitors and keyboards were not.) All the programmers in one department were given expensive new computers ?in case? they had to work from home on snow days. A friend brought home six sets of high-end speakers because they were being thrown in the trash. I literally tripped over a $15,000 server that sat in the hallway for months while staff bickered about whether it was precisely what was ordered - but nobody wanted to turn it on to check.

Every March, every department blows whatever?s left of its budget on anything they can think of: new phones, new chairs, new brochures. It?s all standard in Ottawa; I could give a hundred similar examples happening while my prescription debts piled up. (Catastrophic drug coverage? Hah!) Nor is it new; during the Mulroney era, another friend?s father, a high-ranking civil servant, used to spend every morning on the phone to family in Asia and every afternoon at the gym.

The more I reflected as I wrote this editorial, the more I realized I wanted to vote for someone who believed in good government because they knew bad government literally destroys lives and that has got to stop. So I decided instead of just sitting here editorializing, that I would run for Parliament myself, as the Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe Green Party candidate. I want a better Canada. Whomever we send to Ottawa had better understand what they?re up against; I learned it by force.

Vote on January 23. Especially if you think your candidate won?t win. If we are really headed for another minority, the dollars your vote brings might make the difference next time. But maybe if we quit playing with strategic voting, and cast our ballots for the government we truly want, we?ll be pleasantly surprised. If we can?t do worse, why not go for better?