Today’s by-elections, and some links

There are several by-elections happening all over Canada today, including one in Vancouver Quadra. The riding is considered to be very safe Liberal territory, but party leader Stéphane Dion and deputy leader Michael Ignatieff (remember, the ones that the PM is suing) came out here to forestall fears that low turnout could harm elections results. The NDP candidate Rebecca Coad is a UBC student in philosophy; I met her some time ago, and she seemed pretty on the ball. The Green candidate, Dan Grice, is a UBC graduate in classical archaeology, which I think is fantastic. The Georgia Straight endorsed him, reasoning that they could not endorse the NDP candidate because of systemic problems with the NDP, the Conservative candidate didn’t even bother to show up to debates and meetings, and the riding is safe Liberal territory anyway, so people could be safe and vote their conscience to send a message to the Liberals about what issues they’d like to see on the party agenda. I think this is not a bad strategy, provided that it doesn’t skew the elections results, as Dion and the party leadership are obviously afraid of. Of course, if elections were held in accordance with an alternative system such as Single Transferable Vote, as I have argued, people could vote for the Green or NDP candidate to vote their conscience and send a message, and then mark the Liberal candidate as their second choice, thereby voting both ideologically and practically.

Anyway, I’ll have some updates later in the day about the results of the by-elections. Look for the Liberals to make a few pickups, especially in urban areas like Vancouver and Toronto, due to dissatisfaction with the current government. Meanwhile, a few interesting links:

• How do you prove you’re gay when applying for refugee status?
• Religious groups are trying to shut down a Russian television channel because they show programming that is ‘anti-religious, violent as well as promoting homosexuality’, such as South Park.
• The hilarious malapropisms of Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, such as ‘I deny the allegations and the allegators.’