Bi-Partisan Canada?

Living in Canada I have routinely heard the United States Government Criticized for a wide spectrum of things.  One thing I hear often from my fellow Canadians, and even some Americans is the fact that they are only bi-partisan with neither party being that different than the other.  What comes to mind is a Simpson’s episode where two aliens have captured the bodies of both running mates for president; upon discovering this Homer yells out “We can vote for a third party!!”  One of the aliens steps up to the podium and says “Yes but you would be throwing your vote away.”  In utter defeat everyone becomes quiet and Homer says in despair “awww he’s right.”  Thus they willing elect a President who enslaves them and rules with an iron fist.  It is intended to be a commentary on how the American people really have no choice and Democratic or Republican are electing an evil party. 

       In Canada we in theory have it better, with our multitude of parties to vote for.  However after attending recent local debates and watching the federal election debate it just seems like we have less effective form of their government.  Especially with regards to the debate I recently viewed at Langara, no party particularly stood for anything above the other parties with the exception of the Conservative Party.  Of course the green party didn’t really have much to say about social issues, but that’s beside the point.  Every party’s speech was directed at debunking the Conservative candidate, as well as all the questions asked by the audience.  There was nothing that came up that the Green, NDP or Liberal party disagreed on, other than they each thought they should be elected.  I realize that each party does have their differences, sometimes even vast, but they don’t seem to be anything that couldn’t be worked around any less effectively than they do now battling it out in the House of Commons.  The English debate between the Federal Candidates just seemed to prove the anti conservative movement even more, while making most of the other party leaders look like and angry mob.  What has basically happened is we have two sides against each other: the pro Conservative and the anti Conservative. The pro Conservatives are in the minority at around 35% of the popular vote.  The only problem is the anti Conservatives seem to have divided themselves up amongst 3 smaller groups, and thus cannot win even a minority government with any one of the parties.  So this division of the anti Conservative side has actually disenfranchised 65% of the people in our country who wish for our policies to be parallel to those of George W. Bush. 

       Should we merge into one?  Would that be even worse by limiting the specifics of various groups of people’s voices?  Its hard to say for sure, as it is more a matter of opinion, but I for one have seen enough Anything But Conservative posters to think not.

 

Medecins Sans Frontieres

This past weekend (Oct. 5th - 7th) there was a large exhibit out side of the Vancouver Public Library.  I originally found out about it while coincidentally trying to take out a movie from the Library and saw them setting up several large white tents inside of a temporary fence.  Reading the signs I realized it was and event for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) a humanitarian organization formed in France.  The event was set up to increase awareness of their organization, what they do, and the tragedy they experience all over the world everyday.  The organization (MSF) sounded familiar but I really knew nothing about what they actually did so I found this display incredibly informative and eye opening.

The display its self was designed to be a mock refugee camp, where someone like my self could enter one end, let by a volunteer for MSF and get an explanatory tour of the various aspects of living in a refugee camp.  Our tour guide was a man named Patrick, a water engineer from Montreal who had just been on a mission in an African region.  One of the first things he explained to us is that while they refer to it as a refugee camp the people MSF deals with are not actually refugees as are classified by the UN.  A refugee is someone displaced out of his/her country by war or other reasons and is in turn recognized and aided by the UN; MSF works with internally displaced peoples, which are people uprooted from their home by war or other reasons who remain in their country of origin.   The UN does not recognize people in this situation.  By current estimates there are currently 42 million people displaced within their own country, all lacking basic needs such as food, medicine and education.  MSF seeks to provide for these people when their local government is unable, and the UN does not have the resources or ability due to bureaucratic barriers.

As we are just starting to learn from our mistakes and ignorance of the recent path (eg Rwanda, Cambodia etc) there are new tragedies occurring everyday, violations of human rights on a massive scale.  In several places like Sudan, Darfur, and Columbia, governments do not have the political will or resources to look after their own people so MSF takes this responsibility.   It is incredible the difference in living styles from our homes to theirs, I think one way in which this is really demonstrated is Patrick told of how each family in the camp was allocated 10-20 liters of water per day.  Then he asked us how much water we thought we each consumed in a day, the general answer in our group was 30 to 50 liters.  So it came as quite a shock when he told us the average person in the western world can use from 250 to 300 liters per day.  Water how ever is one of several problems the people organizing and living in these camps face everyday; other struggles include all the health risks, food, fire wood, tensions between inside and out the camps, medicine and the various diseases which can spread so easily in a crowed unclean environment to name a few.  Among all of this however I think one of my biggest shocks came from finding out how the organization is funded, almost entirely from private donation.

One of the reasons MSF can be so quick to respond and aid peoples is that they receive limited funding from government bodies.  For instance in 2005 MSF worldwide received just 13.9% of its income from Government and institutions.  This enables them to move with greater freedom not hindered by inter-government friction between donor and receiving bodies.  Speaking with people at the event and reading their fiscal summary it is clear that there current ration of private funding to government funding is of deep importance to them and something they will continue to strive for.

All in all, this event was very effective at educating and raising awareness.  This is the kind of organization needed more often in order to engage the general public; it is becoming increasingly difficult to pry people from their everyday lives and see what is going on in the world around them.  Hands on experience and intense visuals like the kind seen at “A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City” are powerful tools against apathy, though I hope if you were not able to make it to this event you can still realize the close interconnectedness we share with all human beings, and that some of those people are not fairing nearly as well as we in the west are. 

Check out their web site at www.doctorswithoutborders.org

See what you can do to contribute.

 

 

No need to stand for, stand against.

Yesterday I was riding my bike home and I saw a poster that in big letters said "ABC" as I rode closer I realized it was in fact an acronym standing for Anything But Conservative.  I thought this was an interesting voting strategy, and certainly a sign of desperation on the writers part.  It shows true frustration when people will give up standing for something, only to stand against something as long as others will join them.  I don't disagree either, with the Conservative party taking us more the way of the Americans as far as being involved with armed conflict, and environmental issues; as the Conservatives seem to be the only party not making a plan to reach the Kyoto protocol and want to "reduce this into a simple conversation about carbon tax" says Mark Winfield a political scientist and professor at York University.  As well as Stephen Harper is the only Federal Candidate yet to release and on the record statement of what his party would do to tackle global, domestic and Aboriginal poverty, according to Gerry Barr chair of Make Poverty History.

So in light of that I have a hard time disagreeing with the sign, I miss the Canada I used to hear about, the one that helped peace keeping missions, and contributed to aiding developing nations and protected its citizens.  The Conservative party doesn't seem to be in support of anything related to these, although they may have done other positive things, do they represent what we as Canadians stand for?  And if not then who does represent what it means to be Canadian?  

(Canada in recent years has dropped its contribution considerably in UN peacekeeping missions, ranked roughly 53rd in the world with only 168 troops this year.  Also Canada is 15th on the list of aid donors when looking at % of GNI donated, giving only .28 percent of its gross national income.  Also we pay taxes but we still have to pay health care every month! What's up with that?)