Beautiful Cynicism III

Yet there are still those who fail to see a problem with our first-past-the-post system.

$300 million was just spent on a federal election, called by the governing Conservative party in contravention of its own law, passed only last year, calling for fixed election dates.

The Conservatives wanted a majority, and failed; the Liberals wanted to rebuild their party, but instead lost 25% of their seats; the NDP wanted to match or exceed their highest seat count ever, and failed to do so; the Greens just wanted to elect even one MP, and didn’t. The only real winner of this campaign is the Bloc Québécois, a Quebec-only party whose sole purpose is to split up the country.

What a fabulous result to an utterly pointless campaign!

Let’s review the campaign so far!

September 9:
-Stephen Harper was forced to apologise for a sophomoric Tory website ad showing a puffin defecating on Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion.

September 10:
-After threatening to pull out of the leader’s debate if Green Party leader Elizabeth May was allowed to participate, Stephen Harper flip-flopped amid public outrage.

September 11:
-Communications director Ryan Sparrow was suspended for suggesting that criticism of the party by a dead soldier’s father was politically motivated.

September 18:
-Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz was forced to apologise after it was revealed that he made jokes about the recent listeriosis outbreak that has killed at least 18 Canadians.

Inspired by a speech given by a journalist, nine year-old Alaina created the first chapter of her non-profit organisation Little Women 4 Little Women in Afghanistan in January, 2007. After hearing that many Afghan families believe their daughters should be educated exclusively by female teachers, but that there were not enough teachers and no money with which to pay new ones, the group defined their main goal as raising funds to pay teachers’ salaries. In the past year, the group has raised enough money to pay for five new female Afghan schoolteachers – providing education for Afghan girls, jobs for Afghan women… and inspiration and hope for all the rest of us.

“I couldn’t believe there were little girls in Afghanistan that didn’t get treated like me and my friends. I could picture in my head a place where there were kids like me but instead of happiness it was pain… I want to make a difference. I want to do something- even if it’s small, at least I made a difference. I am going to raise $750.00 to pay for 1 year of a teacher’s work to educate girls like me. I am calling myself “little women for little women”. I am going to make a bridge of peace.”

Visit the organisation’s website here.