Very nicely done. I like that it humanizes them. Convicts are, after all, people. And societal forces very often conspire to create petty criminals, even a criminal class. This has been true for a long time, but is becoming much more apparent as, on the one hand, more people are exonerated by DNA evidence, and on the other, more are needed to fill the maw of for-profit prisons.
Mallory O'Meara, from “The Lady from the Black Lagoon”.
Interesting points I hadn’t considered.
Little Library Found Architecture
Little Library Found Architecture
For those who don’t know, at the end of Second World War the victorious Allies governments imposed Mixed Member Proportional Representation on West Germany.
They did this specifically to prevent the rise of another Hitler. Although these powerful government leaders clearly understood this, they chose not to follow the same path for their own nations. Presumably they believed such limitation on their own power wasn’t necessary. Just as Canada’s current Prime Minister doesn’t feel his power needs limitation.
Here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter if there is a good Prime Minister or a bad one. It doesn’t matter if there’s a bad government in place or not.
What matters in a representative democracy is that voters secure representation in Parliament. All Canadians need representation, period. Just as Canadians need the Charter, in times of good or bad. Like the Charter, representation provides citizens with security.
Had Harry Truman implemented such a change on the USA, the likelihood of a Trump presidency would be nil.
Had Prime Minister William Lyon MacKenzie King implemented some form of Proportional Representation in Canada, Canadians would not see be seeing a rise in dog whistle politics. My brother wrote about this phenomenon before either of us knew the term.
Here’s the thing: fear and dog whistle politics are a powerful tools used over and over again in winner-take-all systems because they work. One of the things so dreadfully wrong with winner-take-all politics is that the governments we elect are so unaccountable to voters, it isn’t a question of whether they will keep all their promises, it is a question of which promises they will keep. And, incredibly, we accept that. We have been conditioned to understand they won’t. No doubt this is a major reason the young and the idealistic don’t engage in politics: they see it for a sham, and choose to invest their energies elasewhere.
MP Iqra Khalid’s Private Member’s Motion is not the first to reference House of Commons e-petition (e-411).
The Canadian MSM is now reminding us that all the MPs in Parliament — including those Conservative Leadership Candidates seeking to ride a wave of prejudice to 100% power in Parliament — voted in support of Mr. Mulcair’s October Petition. This was long before 6 Quebec Muslims were murdered at prayer.
Mr. Speaker, following discussions with all parties in the House, I hope you will find consent for the following motion. I move:
That the House join the 69,742 Canadian supporters of House of Commons e-petition (e-411) in condemning all forms of Islamophobia.
— The Honourable Thomas Mulcair, Hansard, House of Commons, October 26th, 2016
So what has happened? Do these Conservative Leadership Candidates feel a majority of their constituents approve of gunning down Muslims at prayer?
I don’t believe that for a minute. But our winner-take-all political system allows for the distribution of a disproportional amount of power. Ms. Leitch doesn’t need a majority of Conservative Party Members to support Islamaphobia in order to win her party’s leadership crown, or even a majority of voters to become the Prime Minister of Canada. So long as we continue to use this First Past the Post Electoral System, the right dog whistle can win a 39% (or less) majority.
It doesn’t matter if we have a few women or minority MPs in the House of Commons. We are staring in the face of the polarization inherent in FPTP. The example before starkly contrasts what happens when a powerful old white male MP puts forward a Motion condemning Islamaphobia with what happens when a young ethnic woman MP does. And it is a not pretty picture. But it happens. And it will keep on happening so long as we retain an electoral system that rewards dog whistle politicians with more than their fair share of power.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. In spite of his totally specious arguments to the contrary, Prime Minister Trudeau’s disavowal of his electoral reform promise not only paves the way for institutional racism, it fuels Islamaphobia. If Ms. Khalid (and other Liberal MPs) want to change this dreadful FPTP side effect, it is time they told their leader he must restore the Electoral Reform process and get the legislation through Parliament by October. Because if Canada wants to be a healthy multicultural democracy, we must have Proportional Representation.
At this time of writing, Petition e-616 is up to 120,651 signatures. If everyone who has already signed it can convince 2 Canadians to sign it our chance of having Proportional Representation implemented by 2019 will be greatly improved.
Petition e-616 can be found at
https://petitions.parl.gc.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-616
This petition to the Canadian Government website has broken all records and continues to grow. As of writing it is up to:
You can help make every vote count by signing the petition.
And after you’ve signed it (and sent the email confirmation) you can help even more by encouraging your friends and family and co-workers and your kid’s teachers and your dentist and doctor and letter carrier and fellow religionists (including your minister, rabbi, imam or priest) … because *any* Canadian can and should sign this petition too.
If enough Canadians sign e-616, our Government might yet deliver on this oh so important promise.
Because when all Canadians are represented in Parliament, it will make our government much more accountable than it is today because no single party — no single party leader will have the power to impose an agenda against the public good. We know Proportional Representation most often produces stable government capable of long term planning. We also know Proportional Representation leads to co-operation between parties, not polarization like we have now. First Past The Post elected Donald Trump in the USA, and FPTP could just as easily give us a Canadian version too.
Right now the Liberal Government is rallying around Private Member’s Motion 103 because they hope it will makes them look like progressive multicultural heroes. If the Conservative Party chooses an O’Leary or a Leitch as its leader, the Liberal Party hopes to ride a wave of lesser-evilism into a second majority term. (Clever Canadians should recall how well such a plan worked out for Hillary Clinton. Clever Conservatives won’t choose a leader the Liberals can use as a boogeyman.)
But here’s the thing: M-103 wouldn’t even be an issue if every vote counted. If the Liberal Government is truly committed to a healthy multicultural democracy it would be writing the promised electoral reform legislation as we speak. If they are truly worried a referendum would prove too divisive or open to manipulation, the ERRE Committee’s referendum might be deferred to after 3 elections… by which time Canadians will understand Proportional Representation well enough to make an informed choice.
But when a majority of Canadians aren’t represented in Parliament, it isn’t, really.
Canadians need to be able to elect the government we want by electing MPs that can actually represent us. When the Liberal Government was elected with a majority, I hoped the fact the party was divided between Alternative Vote and Proportional Representation we would get a fair process. Even knowing Justin Trudeau was an Alternative Vote supporter as far back as the Liberal Leadership race. And for a while it really looked like we were. Mr. Trudeau and senior Liberals assured us he would let the process go through. My Liberal friends were positive that Proportional Representation couldn’t possibly fail with a fair process, because the evidence of over a century clearly supports Proportional Representation as the fairest way to achieve representative democracy. And 14 Canadian Commissions, Assemblies & Reports recommended PR (with 0 recommending keeping First Past the post or adopting Mr. Trudeau’s favourite Alternative Vote (alias Preferential/Instant Runoff).
But so many people kept asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about Proportional Representation he decided to pull the plug on it. So much for a fair process. So much for real change. And nobody is angrier about this unfair outcome than my Liberal friends.
The easiest way to encourage your friends and family is to share on social media.
Note: #CDNpoli is possibly the most important hashtag because it reaches people interested in Canadian Politics whether or not they are informed about electoral reform.
This is the twenty-ninth article in the Whoa!Canada: Proportional Representation Series
• Proportional Representation for Canadaand don’t forget to check out the PR4Canada Resources page!
I’ve been working on a video for my PubSlush pitch for my next novel, which has led me off on a tangent or two…
This is the cover art I’ve made for what I believe to be the only Public Domain book by Rex Stout (the creator of Nero Wolfe).
My own cover art for “Under The Andes” by Rex Stout ~ CC0 (Public Domain)
One of the things I’ve been doing for the video is rounding up covers of books I read in my youth. In today’s world of copyright insanity I’m being extra careful never to infringe copyright. This means I can only use works in the Public Domain or explicitly licensed to share.
The problem is that very often it’s simply not possible to even know whether it the cover art is in the Public Domain — even if it is the cover of a Public Domain book. After all, just because a book is in the Public Domain it’s no guarantee the cover art is. Especially if all you have is an image found online without the publication date– as most are.
And especially for books like this one, because it has been republished many times precisely because it is in the Public Domain. That’s why I’ve been making a few of my own covers. If you’re interested, more of the covers I’ve made myself can be found on Flickr in my Public Domain album.
I have to say I am pretty pleased with my mountain… having never actually been anywhere near a real mountain ( neither Blue Mountain or Hamilton Mountain count… they nat be big but they are really just hills, like the ones in Hollywood).
So I began with my own photograph…. but my “mountain” wasn’t photographed in the Andes, but near Tobermory.
Before and After: “Under the Andes” cover art
Originally I planned to use a few of the Edgar Rice Burroughs covers,since they are Public Domain for Canada, and even the early books are PD in the United States. After all, I grew up reading my Dad’s ERB paperbacks, (all twenty-whatever Tarzan books, Mars, Venus and Pellucidar etc… formulaic or not).
But it seems the current holder of the remaining Burroughs copyrights is ruthlessly asserting Intellectual Property Infringement against any reuses, legal or not.
This is one of the major reasons I believe copyright is actually harmful for most creators. It makes no difference if you are in the right if you haven’t the funds to go to court to defend against any big company with deep pockets, even if its challenge is specious. (They call that “copyright chill.”) Since I really don’t want my video yanked from YouTube, I dropped the idea of using the ERB covers because it is not worth the hassle. Besides, I don’t really want to promote the books if the company that would profit behaves so reprehensibly.
As mentioned, the original photograph and the cover design for “Under The Andes” pictured here originate with me, but since this is cover art for a Public Domain Book, I’ve given it a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication.
Copyright Note:
Even though an American author like Mr. Stout only died relatively recently, back in the day if he didn’t renew the copyright on a book, it would go into the Public Domain… as this one did.
That is not true for Canada (or any of the commonwealth countries which were signatory to the Berne Copyright treaty) because copyright all rights reserved was (and is) the default for any creative works, so they didn’t need to be registered. For this reason, some of my contemporary culture originating south of the border is in the Public Domain. However with the insane copyright extensions that seem to be the norm, that’s not true for the next generations… their contemporary culture will be locked up in copyright until after they are dead… and if things keep on as they are, maybe forever.
