Skip to main content

Fair Election 2015: Let the Games Begin

It’s the most wonderful time of the year again: election season! Time for the third of the population who actually votes to go and figure out which of this year’s crop of party leaders is the lesser of three evils. The election was called today a mere ELEVEN weeks before we’re actually going to be casting our votes. Yippee….
Each of the major leaders gave a speech when the election was announced. So did Gilles Duceppe and Elizabeth May (May’s in particular was adorable –she really believes she could get a seat). And so everyone’s gearing up, stating their platforms, who they’ll fight for, and so on. The Conservatives and Stephen Harper have the advantage so far in that in addition to showing their Trudeau attack ads every couple minutes on most major Canadian networks, they’ve also recently passed the Fair Elections Act which is stacked pretty highly in their favour. For example Elections Canada is not allowed to encourage young people to vote. Young people who generally may not be inclined towards the Conservative government to begin with. And this already in a country whose voter turnout is pathetic. The Act also allows greater spending in longer elections. Convenient, considering the Conservatives have much more money than any of the other parties and can also afford this elongated campaign more than them. I expect Harper and Pierre Poilievre are enjoying a bottle of Chateau Lafite right now. The empty bottle costing about as much as the Bloq’s entire fund.
Tom Mulcair of the NDP launched the very originally named Campaign for Change with Parliament Hill conveniently in the background for broadcast. He spent a lot of time criticizing the government’s economic and environmental policies and bringing up interesting points as he pitted himself as the alternative. There was no better way to spark an intriguing discussion of a potential NDP government. Or at least there wouldn’t have been, if he had taken a few questions. Come on, even Harper answered a couple this time. You were so close Tom! Justin Trudeau made sure to speak from the Vancouver Pride Parade, an event that Mulcair had cancelled, just to assure us that HE valued pride events. Like Mulcair he did the popular thing of criticizing Harper and setting himself up as the alternative. He says the Liberals have a plan, which is great! I look forward to hearing it at some point. His podium had the slogan “REAL Change” again proving to be very original and a one-up on the NDP.
So we have eleven weeks of this until October 21st. And let’s hope it’s exciting. Or as much as Canadian elections can get without former first ladies, tasteless holocaust references, or a toupee’d but mesmerizing hothead spouting a mental patient’s hilarious ramblings. And if all else fails, I say just stick Harper, Mulcair, and Trudeau in a ring and have them go at it Mortal Kombat style until one emerges the victor and we rally behind them as our leader. In fact I’m not at all sure that’s not already in the Fair Elections Act. Makes about as much sense as anything else in it. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Notes on the Title Cards of The Lord of the Rings

It might be sacrilege for one who both considers The Lord of the Rings  trilogy to be one of the greatest triumphs of cinema and has been an avid lover of the films since adolescence, to declare that the original theatrical cuts of the films are better than the much beloved extended editions. Easily it’s my most controversial opinion regarding these movies. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the extended editions quite a lot, especially as someone who just enjoys spending time in that universe. They flesh it out more, add extra flavour, and in increasing the length by about an hour really emphasize the epic quality of these films. But I find that the original cuts are generally more cleanly paced, more seamlessly edited, and much more accessible to audiences. All the stuff there is to love about The Lord of the Rings  is there in the original versions, the plethora of new and extended scenes merely add to that for fans. And of those, they fall into three camps for me: 1....
Post a Comment
Read more

The Subtle Sensitivity of the Cinema of Wong Kar-wai

When I think of Wong Kar-wai, I think of nighttime and neon lights, I think of the image of lonely people sitting in cafes or bars as the world passes behind them, mere flashes of movement; I think of love and quiet, sombre heartbreak, the sensuality that exists between people but is rarely fully or openly expressed. Mostly I think of the mood of melancholy, yet how this can be beautiful, colourful, inspiring even. A feeling of gloominess at the complexity of messy human relationships, though tinged with an unmitigated joy in the sensation of that feeling. And a warmth, generated by light and colour, that cuts through to the solitude of our very soul. This isn’t a broadly definitive quality of Wong’s body of work -certainly it isn’t so much true of his martial arts films Ashes of Time  and The Grandmaster. But those most affectionate movies on my memory: Chungking Express , Fallen Angels , Happy Together , 2046 , of course  In the Mood for Love , and even My Blueberry Nig...
1 comment
Read more

The Prince of Egypt: The Humanized Exodus

Moses and the story of the Exodus is one of the most influential mythologies of world history. It’s a centrepoint of the Abrahamic religions, and has directly influenced the society, culture, values, and laws of many civilizations. Not to mention, it’s a very powerful story, and one that unsurprisingly continues to resonate incredibly across the globe. In western culture, the story of Moses has been retold dozens of times in various mediums, most recognizably in the last century through film. And these adaptations have ranged from the iconic: Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments;  to the infamous: Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings . But everyone seems to forget the one movie between those two that I’d argue has them both beat. As perhaps the best telling of one of the most influential stories of all time, I feel people don’t talk about The Prince of Egypt  nearly enough. The 1998 animated epic from DreamWorks is a breathtakingly stunning, concise but compelling, ...
1 comment
Read more