Julianna Yau’s blog

I went to show my support at the Progressive Coalition rally today, and it was much better organized than I expected.

There was a strong union presence, and although I could hear the artists in the crowd respond to Jack Layton’s reinforcement of the importance of the cultural industry, I was disappointed that we weren’t as organized or visible as the unions. My friend swears up and down that Sandra Oh walked past us, holding her hand to shield her face from my camera. I didn’t get a good look at her, and didn’t take a picture because I respect people’s desire for privacy—celebrity or not. We did, however, hear Broken Social Scene with Leslie Feist before we had to leave.

I was also shocked that, despite being active on Facebook and Twitter, I only heard about the rally last night from a DoC message. Although, I suppose it’s likely I had messages about it earlier, but deleted them because I’ve been bombarded by political bacn in the past few days. I also haven’t been keeping up with my blog reading, and don’t expect to return to it any time soon.

The Department of Culture notes that a mere 500 people showed up to support the Harper rally, picking up on the Globe’s article with the estimated numbers. The Facebook event shows over 2,600 confirmed guests to the Coalition rally, plus another 2,000+ maybes. Pretty good, considering that most of the RSVPs on Facebook don’t come with 100% comitment.

I woke up this morning to a sense of dread when seeing the tweets waiting for me on my Blackberry. Last night, I had decided to go to bed rather than watching the election results, because I couldn’t do much about it by then anyway. And although that saved me from a night of worry, I spent most of today feeling slightly naueous because the Waterloo Region is now completely represented by the Conservatives. That means I’ll have to work much harder to ensure that the person and party elected to represent me will actually do so. And everyone who knows me knows I have nothing but time between my day job, sculpting, being my own agent, running one of the region’s arts newsletters and my copious amounts of volunteer work in the arts community.

So, in the interest of not seeing the glass as completely empty:

• At least the Conservatives only have a minority government
• At least I’m not the only one who isn’t comforted by the statement that “at least the Conservatives only have a minority government”
• At least the Conservatives’ attempt to slip arts budget cuts under the radar failed miserably and, instead, brought the issue to the forefront as an election issue.
• At least the fear of a majority Conservative government has resulted in a wave of strategic voting from all fronts.
• At least people are becoming more aware of how broken our electoral system is, and continuing to work against it.
• At least we don’t have to put up with quite as much campaigning as our neighbours down south.
• At least I still have art, chocolate and scotch.

This year, I have been more engaged with the political malström than ever before, thanks mainly to the Conservatives’ multiple hits to the arts sector.

And while I have blogged on various issues, met with two of the candidates in my riding (and didn’t hear back from the Green candidate), I am still unswayed from my opinion that there is no party which full represents me. Even at the candidate level, I am completely confident that I can be heard and understood by Cindy Jacobsen and that Andrew Telegdi would know exactly how to navigate through the political system. My unrest lies in my confidence for those two qualities not being with a single candidate.

I doubt I am alone in not being a partisan voter. I have talked to many people about how they plan on voting, and see two types of voters: die-hard supporters of a particular party vs. people who want to vote for the party which they see as the lesser of the evils. It feels like our political and representational system has become so broken that we now have political equivalents of religious tendencies, spanning from the evangelical to the church-goers to the agnostic to the atheists to the non-religious.

What the internet has made possible for this election is the push for strategic voting. Websites like Pair Vote, Anyone But Harper and Vote For Environment are doing what they can to prevent the Conservatives from winning a majority government, because Canada is not a Conservative party. The response to this has been split at every level, with some parties and some candidates supporting anti-Conservative voting, while some are aghast by the very thought of it.

What boggles my mind is why some parties feel that it is okay for them to run ads or have debate responses which are essentially “vote for me because I’m not the other party”, but also discourage us from voting strategically. Or why some of the people I’ve talked to are so religiously supportive of their party of choice that they would actually prefer another party win in their riding and/or win a majority government than “give their vote to any other party”. And while that isn’t an issue in all ridings, there are some where you would be giving your vote to another party by voting for yours.

Is all of this activity going to initiate another push for proprotional representation already in use by over 70 other countries, or for the preferential voting system used by Australia? I hope so. But I’m not holding my breath.

• Harper
• That not everyone who is eligible to vote has acceptable governmental ID to vote. (variations: not being able to afford a passport so they can vote; not being able to afford, or otherwise need, a driver’s license so they can vote; it’s easier to buy cigarettes and alcohol than to vote)
• Election day is scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving.
• Some ridings just had a by-election—will people go out and vote again?
• “I’m voting for x because that’s who I always vote for” (variations: “I’m voting for x because I’ve voted for x since y.”; “I’m voting for x because I’ve voted for x since (2008 – y).”
• “The US election has more of an impact to us.”
• “z is worse than the Conservatives, you know”
• “What about when z was in office and [insert stuff they screwed up]”
• the possibility of the Conservatives getting a majority government with a 30-something percent majority
• that we’ll probably be screwed either way

I met with Andrew Telegdi yesterday, and the meeting was wholly different than the one I had with Cindy Jacobsen.

The meeting felt like a job interview, with Andrew giving me an overview of his exhaustive history as an MP for Kitchener-Waterloo. It was clear that he knows his way around the political world and that his focus & passion is for human rights and immigration issues. This, sadly, leaves me wondering how (if at all) he will be able to represent and speak on behalf of my concerns regarding environmental and cultural issues.

Yes, human rights are extremely important. And, yes, being focused is good. But I am concerned about other issues (whether they’re ones I or others are concerned about) not getting the attention they need.

Time for more thinking about what to do and not to do with my vote.

I’m feeling like I’m all over the place recently (probably because I am).

I heard back from Andrew Telegdi‘s office this week and we’re trying to arrange for a meeting soon. I’ve also contacted Cathy MacLellan for a meeting, but haven’t heard back yet. Along with Cindy Jacobsen (whom I’ve already met), they’re really the only candidates in my riding I’ll be trying to meet. I have no interest in wasting my time with the Conservative party, and I’m too busy to try to meet with the candidates for the other parties (which I doubt have a realistic chance at being elected).

You’ll probably mostly be seeing mini posts like this and bookmarks of other sources for the next week or so. I’m going to be very busy creating new sculptures, coordinating the upcoming events for Globe Studios and jump-starting an exciting new venture.

Other stuff happening:

The Writers Guild of Canada is organizing a pro-arts rally in front of the Canadian Broadcasting Centre at Front & John Street in Toronto on Wednesday, October 8 from 11:30am to 12:30pm. A PDF of the flyer can be found here.

The Department of Culture has also extended their Gone in 30 Seconds video contest deadline to 6pm on Oct 5th.