Chase Ottawa

Month: October 2015

  • Nixon’s Prediction Comes True As Canada Elects Justin Trudeau

    Nixon’s Prediction Comes True As Canada Elects Justin Trudeau

    “Tonight we’ll dispense with the formalities. I’d like to toast the future prime minister of Canada,” Richard Nixon had said in 1972, when Justin Trudeau was four months old. Forty three years later, Nixon’s prediction comes true as Trudeau, the son of former Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, sets out to become the next prime minister of Canada. As victory became apparent Trudeau tweeted, “Ready.”

    Fighting all odds, Trudeau defeated 9-year reign of Tories to bring Liberals to power. It won a stunning majority of 184 seats out of 338 seats in the House of Commons. Harper was restricted to modest 99 seats and once predicted favourite, Tom Mulcair, was sabotaged to 44. The separatist Bloc Quebecois won 10 and the Green Party one.

    Canadians voted for Trudeau’s proposition of a series of deficit budgets over NDP’s and Conservative’s balanced budget theory. That, according to the Trudeau, would help boost the economy which was currently battling recession and low-quality job market.

    The 78-day election campaigning brought out varying favourites in the pre-election polls. However, the latest Ipsos poll predicted Liberals victory. It was the longest and one of the most fascinating elections campaigning that Canada ever witnessed. What emerged triumphant was the Liberals’ brilliant social media campaigning to connect with voters.

    Trudeau took to twitter and facebook to connect with his supporters along with rallying in cities missed by his rivals. A passionate and electric campaigning added to the nostalgic reign of Pierrie Trudeau worked steadily for the Liberals to incapacitate NDP and Tories who relyed on restricted media communication.

    Where NDP, inspite of Tom Mulcair being predicted as a favourite in earlier polls, failed miserably to gain momentum with its poor social media marketing, the Conservatives, fighting nine-year incumbency lethargy and defending its mediocre performance, met disaster in selling its goal for a better Canada. A retired PR specialist, who earlier worked for the Tories commented,” It seems Harper himself does not want to win this election.”

    Liberals winning will mean an additional taxation for wealthy one per Canadians who until now were protected under Harper’s regime. The Liberals have also promised to invest big time in job creation, infrastructure and public transport.

    NDP’s $15 federal minimum wage programme and Harper’s refusal to invest further in the economy, in a bid to maintain a balanced budget, did not seem to go down well with Canadians who sought economy revival.

    Harper’s tenure as a prime minister received sharp criticism after crash in global oil prices last year. Heavily relying on natural resources over creating alternate job opportunities was a criticism that Harper persistently faced during his 9-year ruling. The failure to build Keystone XL pipeline proved to be another liability for the Harper regime.

  • NDP Attacks Tories For Changing Campaign Rules

    In its latest attack on the Tories, the NDP has charged Stephen Harper for changing the campaigning culture in Canada to replicate the US-styled “big money” canvassing.

    The party said, “Stephen Harper’s so-called “Fair Elections Act” changed the election spending rules to stack the deck in favour of US-style, big money campaigns. That’s why he called this election early – to increase the campaign spending limit to nearly $54 million and make this the most expensive election ever.”

    It earlier pointed that the Conservatives had doubled their ad buys in key battleground riding. That amount of airtime allowed the Tories to spread fear and division in communities.

    Notably, NDP’s media campaigning was, for the most part, focused on pleading supporters for donations to the party.

  • With No Numbers To Flaunt, Tories Busy Dodging Women

    With No Numbers To Flaunt, Tories Busy Dodging Women

    In April this year two eminent scientists Judy Illes and Dr Catherine Anderson, resigned from the selection committee of Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame to protest the lack of willingness to recognize the contribution of women to the sciences. Interestingly, no woman has been nominated for induction into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame in the past two year.

    The resignation followed Harper government’s own admission in 2014 Budget report that women continued to remain under-represented in a number of disciplines, including mathematics, computer science, architecture and engineering. Women also participated to a much lower degree than men in apprenticeship programs: in the 2010–11 academic year, only 13 per cent of registrants were women. Further, women continued to be under-represented in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields in Canada, as in other OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries.

    It isn’t surprising to see Tory government refusing to con-center on women’s issues.

    Tory candidate Irvine Carvery gave the debate on Women’s Rights & Gender Equity a deliberate miss. Prime Minister Stephen Harper too eluded women’s debate, organised by a coalition of 175 groups, by pleading lack of time.

    Wouldn’t it pique someone’s curiosity, why should rallying amidst women, who statistically beat men in voter share, intimidate the incumbent government?

    Especially going by 2011 election voting pattern it emerged that women up to age 64 tended to vote more (59.6%)) than men (57.3%) in most jurisdictions. Same was the case in 2008.

    One is led to speculate will Harper be better off in unpretentiously letting discussion about women fade? The dismal numbers say so. With no impressive numbers to flaunt on women’s development and the numbers depicting crime against women startling, Harper running from women’s issues will work to the advantage of Tories.

    The specifics on Tory-led economy devoted to the fairer sex give out a dispirited story.

    2006, the first year of the Tories, was spent wrecking social policies.

    Reportedly, that year Harper declared a cut of $1 billion funding, the principal casualty of which became the department on Status of Women (SWC). This resulted in the closure of around 12 offices. The women’s program of SWC were primarily aiding women’s groups to undertake research and advocacy by encouraging women’s active participation in policy development and systemic change.

    The cut meant that several women’s organizations that once received funding through the women’s program either had their funding cut or eliminated completely. This also affected around 41 women-focussed programmes and organisations.

    In 2006 Harper’s government also ended the Court Challenges Program, a significant source of financial assistance for court cases that advanced equality rights guaranteed under Canada’s Constitution and inadvertently benefited women.

    The National Council on Welfare (NWC) also had its funding eliminated in the 2012 Budget.

    Referring to Kim Pate from the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, the rise in women serving federal sentences is directly related to cuts in social services, social programs, health care, education—all the programs that traditionally help level the playing field for those who are most impacted. By “those”, we often mean, of course, indigenous peoples, women, poor people, and those with mental health issues.

    According to Correctional Service Canada data published in 2011, 27% of women incarcerated were convicted of a drug-related offence.

    On one hand refusing to talk about the 1,181 reported incidents of aboriginal female homicides and inconclusive missing aboriginal females, on the other, decrying the practice of wearing of hijab by Muslim women, has brought to light misplaced priorities of Tories.

    Canada’s stands on 23rd-place on the UN’s Gender Inequality Index ranking. The women in Canadian work force are battling gender inequality, the gap being double the global average.

    With no clear blueprint for women’s development in the coming election, Harper is better off evading women.