The New Proletariat and the Coming Revolution

While students protested government increases in tuition and cuts to Education in Britain, the youth revolt has spread to the Middle East. The proletariat is no longer just blue collar, white collar or pink collar workers, it includes the mass of unemployed and underemployed educated youth who have embraced the calls to freedom to lead the seismic shift that is occurring around the world and in Egypt and the Middle East in Particular.

"In most Arab countries, a majority of the population is under 30, and unemployment rates are exceptionally high for young workers, who are the most likely to rebel," economist Chris Lafakis of Moody's Analytics said in a report today, as masses gathered in Cairo's Liberation Square and Jordan's King Abdullah sacked the government amid mounting street protests. "In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, almost 90 per cent of unemployed workers are under 30," Mr. Lafakis said. "As evidence of the risk of revolution contagion, Syria's president has already signaled that he will push for more political reforms. The events in Egypt could also spark unrest in Sudan, a politically unstable country where demonstrations are already occurring and citizens have voted to partition the country."

I have been saying for years on this blog that two groups not often considered part of the classic definition of the proletariat, but in fact are, are women and youth.

Now we see with the revolt in Tunisia and now Egypt that unemployment and rising food prices have brought out both women and youth to demonstrate against the dictators who run their countries. In Europe and North America young people face democratic governments but the same crisis of capitalism, where the governments are now demanding austerity measures, cuts to public services, to pay for bailing out the capitalist corporations and banks.

'From sacking lollipop ladies and closing youth clubs to axing college grants and trebling tuition fees, this is a government at war with our young people and therefore at war with our future. It is betraying an entire generation,' said general secretary of the (British) University and College Union, Sally Hunt.

In Canada the youth unemployment rate is double the national average, and it is increasing not decreasing. The annual unemployment rate for youth in Canada is 14%.

And while more women are in the workforce than ever before they are older, not younger women.

Employment among women aged 25 and over increased in January (+55,000), with gains for both the 25 to 54 and 55 and over age groups.Over the past 12 months, however, employment growth for women was concentrated among those aged 55 and over.

In the U.S. it is even higher and adds to further high unemployment stats amongst blacks and Hispanics.

Youth unemployment rates in all categories is an average of 18% in the United States, approaching Egyptian and Tunisian levels, but joblessness among young African-Americans and Hispanics are among the highest in the world. This poses a future political problem for the world’s richest nation.The US Department of Labor report in December 2010 broke out unemployment and participation rates into three categories: White unemployment is 8.5%, or below the national average of 9%; African-American is 15.8% and Hispanic at 13%.

Everyone compared the meltdown of 2008 to the Great Depression, and they were right, however the bail out of the banks and corporations to save capitalism from itself has not resolved the contradiction that this has been again another global jobless recovery. The very soul of the Great Depression was not the collapse of Wall Street but the mass global unemployment crisis of capitalism. That same crisis is with us today despite the bailouts!

Global economic growth is on the rebound but the labor market continues to disappoint with 205 million people unemployed in 2010, according to a UN report. The number is not expected to improve much this year. Labor markets in Europe, Africa and South America are struggling to recover from the crisis that hit them in 2008. Europe's young people under 25 are facing an especially difficult situation. The youth unemployment rate is now at a record level of 21%.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-most-unemployed-countries-2011-2##ixzz1DCVJVEkP

So why have not seen mass protests in North America like those that have occurred in England, Europe and now the Middle East? Because despite mass unemployment, neither the Harper nor Obama governments have brought in austerity programs like the Cameron government has. The austerity measures which have been introduced in Ireland, Greece, Spain, etc. have led to mass protests and have failed to actually resolve the continuing crisis of these Capitalist states.

Once the Harper and Obama governments begin to cut, slash, reduce, freeze, public sector spending then we will see a rage amongst youth that will make the tea party look like well a tea party.

The bail out of capitalism has not solved the crisis of capitalism, it can't. And using the tired old neo-liberal solutions of slashing government spending, which is social capital, will not succeed as the Cameron government has found out.

Furthermore unlike North America, which produces food for export, those importing food are facing a constant inflationary battle. A battle which leads to mass protests.

A recent Economist piece gives insight into the pressures felt:

Outside America, food has a bigger share than energy in consumers’ shopping baskets—and thus in inflation too (see chart). In developing countries, rising food prices can be a human as well as an economic disaster. In Asia in early 2008 a spike in the price of rice led to widespread unrest and desperate attempts by governments to secure more supplies. In December in India, for example, food prices rose at an annual rate of 14%, and there has been a run on onions, a dietary staple. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/global-macro-notes-the-deflationists-are-still-in-it-to-win-it-2011-1#ixzz1DCZFkdFo

The crisis is not over, it is spreading, and youth unemployment and rising food prices, are needed for capitalism to function, no different than has been since Marx wrote about it over 150 years ago.

Synonyms

One could be forgiven for thinking that Canada Post will now enter the New Age with Quantum Transformational Holistic Postal Delivery under its new CEO Deepak Chopra. But No it turns out the new CEO of Canada Post is not that Deepak Chopra....

Deepak Chopra heads Canada Post -- no, not that Chopra

In Israel the largest government sponsored P3 oil/gas company is called Delek, pardon me if that does not remind me of the Daleks in Dr. Who....Israel’s gas market has soared to the top of the national agenda in recent weeks on the backs of the Sheshinski Committee recommendations and the dramatic findings related to the Leviathan natural gas field – the largest discovered in the last 10 years worldwide.

Now Leviathan is another synonym with several meanings a whale or sea monster in the Old Testament and the overwhelming power of the State according to Hobbes... Which seems totally apt in this case.

Your New IPad

Today Canada and the rest of the world gets to buy Apples IPad...

iPad launches in Canada, around the world

‎Just remember who made it and why it is so cheap.

Globalization of labour demands a global labour movement.....for those who say unions are out dated......China is a developing capitalist country in case anyone still thinks it is communist......

Suicides at Apple maker spotlight China's migrant workers

They work up to 12 hours a day, six days a week, assembling products that most cannot afford to buy themselves: Apple iPhones, Dell computers and Nokia mobiles.

Experts said deep-rooted problems lie behind the deaths of so many young workers.

Guo Yuhua, a sociology professor at Beijing-based Tsinghua University, said Foxconn represents the status quo of China's profit-driven manufacturing industry, in which companies are trying to offer low salaries to workers to control production costs.

Workers are usually kept in closed industrial parks with no access to social activities and no way to develop social relations, she said.

"This problem is not limited to Foxconn, and it's not only a psychological problem but also a social one," she said.

Guo also said labor-intensive manufacturing companies like Foxconn should make more efforts to enable their employees to have normal social lives.

"There should be communities and the workers should have time to have contact with others," she said.

The monthly salary for a typical Foxconn employee is about 900 yuan ($131), so many workers volunteer to work extra hours to earn more money.

Lu Huilin, an associate professor of sociology at Peking University, said the string of jumps also reflects the poor situation of the second-generation migrant workers.

All the confirmed dead Foxconn workers are between 18 and 24 years old, and most come from the rural and less-developed regions.

Bre-X Redux

The Alberta Government is challenging the Federal government, their fellow Tories, over the proposed National Securities Commission. Like their failed gun registry challenge this is a waste of taxpayers money. The Alberta Sock Market along with its counter part in B.C. were a wild west show of rip offs during the eighties and nineties. While Alberta and Quebec protest a single national securities commission I would remind readers of the success of Alberta's Securities commission in protecting investors from rip offs, one little word; Bre-X.

Cold War Chickens Come Home To Roost

During the cold war the CIA engaged in black ops to destabilize the Caribbean and other areas of Central and Latin America that they determined were their domain under the Monroe Doctrine. Ironically it was exactly these operations that led to the increase in the drug trade, since they were black ops the money used to pay for them was drug money. As it was in their operations in Viet Nam/Laos and Cambodia and later in Afghanistan and Contra Iran affair. And during this same time the American government began its war on drugs, a war that was bound to fail since it was American policy to encourage drug lords to fight the left, a policy begun after WWII in the port of Marseilles.

Here the consequences of the CIA cold war black ops are still being felt in Jamaica and downtown Toronto......

In a move that mirrored similar operations in Panama and other Latin American countries, U.S. intelligence agencies lent support to emerging right-winger Edward Seaga, then-leader of the Jamaican Labour Party. In a 1977 investigative report, Penthouse magazine, citing U.S. intelligence sources, described how the State Department sought to capitalize on the spreading violence between Mr. Coke’s Shower Posse and the garrisoned neighbourhoods that supported Mr. Manley: “Shipments of guns and sophisticated communication equipment begun to be smuggled into the island. In one shipment alone, which was grabbed by Manley’s security forces, there were 500 submachine guns.”

But after Mr. Seaga’s nine-year stint as prime minister in the 1980s, the U.S. justice system decided that their ally’s enforcer in Tivoli Gardens had become too powerful, as Mr. Coke’s violent network of drug dealers and gun runners boiled over onto U.S. soil. After the elder Mr. Coke’s capture and mysterious death in 1992, the funeral procession numbered in the tens of thousands. Marching next to his casket was Mr. Seaga, who told reporters that the dead man had been “a protector” of the people.

It was U.S. foreign policy that gave rise to the system that propped up the late Mr. Coke and his now fugitive son, said Mr. Crawford, the political analyst. “It is one of the supreme ironies of life, as far as Jamaica is concerned,” he said.

A Monument to Capitalism

As I wrote on face book after the throne speech:"So the Conservative government is going to build a monument to "the victims of communism" gee just to be fair and balanced they should build one to the "victims of Capitalism" too."

And I note that Rick Salutin in yesterdays Globe and Mail said the same thing.
"One size fits all: My favourite moment in Wednesday's Throne Speech was the promise to erect a monument to the victims of communism. As a monument-liker, that would be fine with me – if it were twinned with a monument to the victims of capitalism, which makes as much sense. Or maybe they could both be united by the need to cut spending, resulting in a single National Victims Monument, come one, come all."

Now I could point out that what the Harpocrites are talking about is Stalinism and its children; Mao and Pol Pot, but for the conservative right wing they go back to the Bolshevik revolution. In fact Jason Kenney the Minister of Immigration has gone as far as defending fascism in Spain because the republicans were socialists, anarchists and communists.

But of course as my regular readers know, the state capitalist regimes in the USSR, China, Cuba etc are not communist nor are they even socialist, they are public ownership under a one party state.

Sort of like Alberta.

And in WWI Alberta was home to concentration camps, called interment camps, for Ukrainians who built Banff and Jasper as forced labourers. During the great Depression internment camps were used for unemployed single men, since there was no welfare or unemployment insurance.

The right wing loves to talk about Stalinism as if it is equivalent to Hitler and the Nazi's. And in fact if push comes to shove, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Fidel and Pol Pot are equated as one in the same, and worse than Hitler or Mussolini or even Franco.

Since fascism is a right wing movement that grows out of calls for law and order, along with appeals to a corporatist state, a form sometimes mistakenly called National Socialism, coined originally by Oswald Spengler, if you look in the conservative closet you will find a shiny pair of jack boots.

The conservative ruling classes during WWII in both England and the US found much admirable in Mussolini and Hitler, especially their self proclaimed war on Bolshevism. Conservative and right wing politicians lobbied for Hitler, promoted isolationism in the US and appeasement in England.

Our own former PM King favoured Hitler, when he wasn't talking to his deceased mother through his dog. He declared that the volunteers who fought in Spain against Franco were acting illegally. He refused entry into Canada to German Jews. And heck he was a Liberal.




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Guergis Going Going Gone?

An interesting group of media pundits like Lorne Gunter, right wing bon vivant for Canwest, the Hill Times, the Globe and Mail and the editorial board of her home town paper are urging the PM to Fire Helena Guergis for her recent temper tantrum.

The Toronto Star also points out she was a failure at the UN meeting on Women despite being the Minister for the Status of Women. She was in fact an apologist for the anti-feminist REAL WOMAN agenda of the Harpocrite government.

Methinks that some folks are worried not only about her flipping out in public and ranting at airport workers, but that perhaps this also has something to do with hubby, the former Edmonton Strathcona MP Rahim Jaffer who was busted for drunk driving and possession of cocaine.

It's not just her recent actions that are an embarrassment to the government but also hubby who has yet to stand trial. When he does, she will be gone.....

Globe and Mail

Rahim Jaffer case heads for plea bargain

Globe and Mail - ‎Feb 23, 2010‎

A dejected Rahim Jaffer gives the thumbs up after falling behind in the Edmonton-Strathcona riding at Tory headquarters on Oct. 14, 2008. ...

Criminal Conservatives

They are tough on crime except when they are guilty of it, then they claim its either no big deal, or a dispute between bureaucrats, or they are redeeming and rehabilitating a former criminal. But if we look at the current crop of criminal Conservatives a pattern emerges; those in power are not just the law they are above the law when it suits them. In the Orwellian world of Stephen Harper up is down, down is up and three strikes does not apply to white collar crime.

Bruce Carson was convicted on five counts of fraud -- three more than previously known -- and received court-ordered psychiatric treatment before becoming one of Stephen Harper's closest advisers.
And his lawyer tells The Canadian Press that Carson disclosed his entire criminal record during a security check that was required to become a senior staffer in the Prime Minister's Office.
The latest revelations raise new questions about Harper's judgment in hiring Carson as his chief policy analyst and troubleshooter.

Vampire Capitalism

With the crash and resuscitation of finance capitalism and its fordist counterpart (auto and other manufacturers) by the state and with the popularity of vampires in consumer culture I thought I would add some links on vampiric capitalism and the vampire state in light of my 2005 article; Gothic Capitalism, which I would like to point out has been published in Slovinian by anarchist comrades in Serbia.

Marx of course was writing in the era of the popular vampire novels while Dr. Polidori first published a vampire novel, and Sheridan Le Fanu published his vampire short story, it was Dracula, that had a larger popular impact with mass publication of the book and its follow up as a stage play.

Marx identifies capital as dead labour living off the life force of the working class a class it created for its own ends (thus the later zombie motif that has also increased in popularity in mass culture during this captialist crisis, see my Gothic Capitalism for more on this)

The notion of vampire as symbol of capitalist oppression is certainly not original
to Stoker, who was doubtlessly influenced by or at least aware of the works of Karl Marx and other socialists who considered the vampire something of a patron saint to capitalists.
Discussing Marx, critic Andrew Smith says his “rhetorical fulcrum in this respect relies on an imaginative juxtaposition with images drawn from the pre-capitalist world. Hence, it is no coincidence that he keeps coming back to these occult pictures”. Or as Ken Gilder writes in his book Reading the Vampire, “modern capitalism here is by its very nature excessive, driven by‘irresistible force’ to consume and accumulate. Marx draws on the metaphor of the vampire timeand again to describe its processes”.
Critic Steve Shaviro gives us an even more detailed view of Marx’s use of the vampire motif, More generally, vampires and zombies are vital (if that is the right word) to the functioning of capitalist society. Traditional Marxist theory, of course, focuses onvampires. Marx himself famously describes capital as ‘dead labor which, vampirelike,lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks’ .

In the nineteenth century the Gothic Revival also found itself central to
political and cultural debates. In Victorian England, the gothic suburban villa
empowered the middle classes and the building of Houses of Parliament made a
statement about ‘making a nation’ and creating a national identity. John Ruskin
attacked Marx and Engel’s ideology through his writings about the Gothic and
William Morris championed the Arts and crafts movements while attacking the great Gothic Revival perpetuated by practitioners such as George Gilbert Scott as bringing about capitalism.

Karl Marx

Capital Volume One
Chapter Ten: The Working-Day

Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.

Constant capital, the means of production, considered from the standpoint of the creation of surplus-value, only exist to absorb labour, and with every drop of labour a proportional quantity of surplus-labour. While they fail to do this, their mere existence causes a relative loss to the capitalist, for they represent during the time they lie fallow, a useless advance of capital. And this loss becomes positive and absolute as soon as the intermission of their employment necessitates additional outlay at the recommencement of work. The prolongation of the working-day beyond the limits of the natural day, into the night, only acts as a palliative. It quenches only in a slight degree the vampire thirst for the living blood of labour. To appropriate labour during all the 24 hours of the day is, therefore, the inherent tendency of capitalist production.

It must be acknowledged that our labourer comes out of the process of production other than he entered. In the market he stood as owner of the commodity “labour-power” face to face with other owners of commodities, dealer against dealer. The contract by which he sold to the capitalist his labour-power proved, so to say, in black and white that he disposed of himself freely. The bargain concluded, it is discovered that he was no “free agent,” that the time for which he is free to sell his labour-power is the time for which he is forced to sell it, that in fact the vampire will not lose its hold on him “so long as there is a muscle, a nerve, a drop of blood to be exploited.”

The Grundrisse

Capital posits the permanence of value (to a certain degree) by incarnating itself in fleeting commodities and taking on their form, but at the same time changing them just as constantly; alternates between its eternal form in money and its passing form in commodities; permanence is posited as the only thing it can be, a passing passage — process — life. But capital obtains this ability only by constantly sucking in living labour as its soul, vampire-like.

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon Chapter 7

But in the course of the nineteenth century the urban usurer replaced the feudal one, the mortgage replaced the feudal obligation, bourgeois capital replaced aristocratic landed property. The peasant's small holding is now only the pretext that allows the capitalist to draw profits, interest, and rent from the soil, while leaving it to the agriculturist himself to see to it how he can extract his wages.

The bourgeois order, which at the beginning of the century set the state to stand guard over the newly emerged small holdings and fertilized them with laurels, has become a vampire that sucks the blood from their hearts and brains and casts them into the alchemist's caldron of capital.

Capitalism originates in Gothic Culture and the fact that it now has reached its historic epoch, it's tendrils now encapsulate the entire globe, unlike any other time in history. Its commidification of our lives is now complete, hence the growth of the mass culture of consumption that is mirrored in the popularity of vampires and zombies as cultural motifs are the visions of ourselves alienated from our humanity, they are the ultimate consumers.

Robert Park, later sociology chair at the University of Chicago, took a more global
perspective on the phenomenon of “vampiric capitalism,” in his journalistic critiques of western exploitation within Africa, both of its peoples and resources (Lyman, 1992). American sociology, after the 1920s, would reject the use of both journalistic and philosophical analyses of evil for a more thoroughly scientific methodology (Greek, 1992). However, the discipline then was left with great difficulties in discussing evil (now referred to as deviance) without transvaluing it as sickness (Menninger, 1973) or as sign of social malaise or anomie (Orru,1987), leaving treatises on the nature of evil to more ethnographically inspired writings such as criminal biographies, novels, plays, and ultimately screenplays.

Popular culture now has labeled the latest capitalist crisis as a problem of both vampire banks and zombie banks. How fitting. America no longer manufactures goods for the world, that capitalist role is now being played out by China. Under Reagan America became a consumer of credit and goods, and thus has a zombie economy.

Zombies reproduce through consumption of the living, which serves as a nearly endless supply of brother and sister Zombies. Consider earth’s current human population explosion as a metaphoric never-ending supply of both brains and new Zombies. As one character in the original Dawn says when warning survivors of the process: "It gets up and kills. The people it kill get up and kill." It’s a never-ending supply of both consumables and consumers (a capitalist dream). But, of course, the perishable items (bread and bullets) in the mall run out. And when they do, survivors need to make very difficult choices. Where’s the next mall? What place do we pillage next? An island, perhaps?

As today and in the Zombie world, sustainability and survival are interchangeable. When the resources for survival run out and the malls have been picked clean, then we will reach for sustainability as a final solution. Or we will eat brains.

Simply put Capitalism, zombie or vampire, sucks!

Check out this fun blog;Vampire Capitalism

Today Is Election Day

Bill C-16

Subject to an earlier dissolution of Parliament, a general election must be held on the third Monday in October in the fourth calendar year following a previous general election, with the first general election to be held on Monday, October 19, 2009.

Well okay it should have been today, except that Harper took us into an election early, violating his own law. Instead in a cynical ploy to grab power the Harpocrites ran an election saying there was no recession, they would not raise taxes nor would they have a budget deficit...my my how things changed after they were elected with another minority government and the economy crashed.

Harper then prorogued the government within two months of that election in order to avoid being ousted by an opposition coalition, while still denying there was a recession.

Today with the threat of another election still in the air one has to ask why the rush last fall if not for the fact that actually the Harpocrites have been ready for an election since they won a minority in 2006. Every day is election day for them. They are not ruling as a government but as a party running a party campaign around the economic issues they denied were a reality last fall.

However if we take the PM at his own word well perhaps we should have had an election today. But that's just a technicality...

Harper says recession is no time for an election -

Harper says recession over only in technical sense

And despite all the political platitudes offered at the time it turns out that Canada's fixed election date did turn out to be an illusion........

Bill C-16 on Fixed Date Elections November 06, 2006 Third Reading in the House of Commons House of Commons, Ottawa Monday, November 6, 2006 Check Against Delivery Introduction Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to begin debate in third reading on Bill C-16 – An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act – which would provide for fixed date elections. First of all, I would like to note that the Bill was carefully reviewed by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. A range of expert witnesses has appeared before the Committee and much discussion has taken place. The Committee heard from the Chief Electoral Officer, representatives of political parties, academic experts, as well as me. While I have been informed that there were lively debates on key issues, I am pleased to note that Bill C-16 carried in Committee without amendment. Moreover, while there were some minor differences on some of the details of the Bill, I was struck by the fact that all parties represented in the House of Commons support the fundamental rationale of the Bill. I believe that all parties share the view that elections belong, fundamentally, to citizens. They belong, Mr. Speaker, to the people. All parties agreed with the principle that the timing of elections should not be left to the prime minister but should be set in advance so that all Canadians will know when the next election will occur. Mr. Speaker, today I will begin with a description of the current process for calling general elections and I will discuss some of the difficulties associated with it. This will be followed by a discussion of the many advantages associated with fixed date elections. Finally, Mr. Speaker, I will be very pleased to present the specifics of Bill C-16. Current Process Today, it is the prerogative of the Prime Minister, whose government has not lost the confidence of the House of Commons, to determine what he or she regards as a propitious time for an election to renew the government’s mandate. The Prime Minister then requests dissolution of the House from the Governor General and, if the Governor General agrees, he or she proclaims the date of the election. What we have, Mr. Speaker, is a situation where the Prime Minister is able to choose the date of the general election, not based on what is in the best interest of the country, but what is in the interest of his or her party. Bill C-16 will address this problem and will produce a number of other benefits. Advantages of Fixed Date Elections Mr. Speaker, before going into the details of the bill, allow me to discuss the key advantages of fixed date elections. Fixed date elections will provide for greater fairness in election campaigns, greater transparency and predictability, improved governance, higher voter turnout rates, and will help in attracting the best qualified candidates to public life. Fairness First of all, allow me to discuss the issue of fairness. Fixed date elections will help to level the playing field for those seeking election in a general election. With fixed date elections, the timing of general elections will be known to all. Since the date of the next election will be known to all political parties, each party will have an equal opportunity to make preparations for upcoming election campaigns. Instead of the governing party having the advantage of determining when the next election will take place – an advantage they may have over the other parties for several months – all parties will be on an equal footing. And it’s only fair that each party will have equal time to prepare for the next election and know when it will be. Transparency and Predictability Another key advantage of fixed date elections is transparency. Rather than decisions about election dates being made behind closed doors, general election dates will be set in advance as prescribed by this bill. Once this bill is passed, the date of each election will be known by all Canadians. Predictability is also a key advantage of fixed date elections. Canadians and political parties alike will be able to rely on our democratic election system working in an open and predictable fashion for all general elections. Plans can be made on a reliable basis to prepare for, and respond to, fixed date elections. Improved Governance Mr. Speaker, fixed date elections will allow for improved governance. For example, fixed date elections will provide for improved administration of the electoral machinery by Elections Canada. The Chief Electoral Officer, in majority situations, will know with certainty when the next election will occur and will be able to plan accordingly. This will almost certainly involve greater efficiency at Elections Canada and will, therefore, very likely save money for taxpayers. Political parties will also likely save money as they will not have to remain on an ‘election footing’ for extended periods of time. Moreover, fixed date elections will allow for better parliamentary planning. For example, members of parliamentary committees will be able to set out their agendas well in advance, which will make the work of committees, and Parliament as a whole, more efficient. Higher Voter Turnout Rates Yet another reason for adopting fixed date elections is that this measure will likely improve voter turnout because elections will be held in October, except when a government loses the confidence of the House. The weather is generally favourable in most parts of the country. Fewer people are transient. So, for example, most students will not be in transition between home and school at that time and will be able to vote. Moreover, seniors will not be deterred from voting as they might be in colder months. And, of course, citizens will be able to plan in advance to participate in the electoral process, arranging for advanced voting if they plan to be away. An additional benefit is that pre-election campaigns to ‘get out the vote’ will be able to be well prepared, as the organizers will be aware of exactly when the next general election will take place. Candidates Finally, I want to mention an advantage that will have resonance to many of those in this chamber. It is a difficulty with the current system that I have witnessed personally (and something I have mentioned in interviews when Bill C-16 was first introduced). Fixed date elections will help to attract many of the best qualified Canadians into public life because it will be easier to plan their own schedules to enable them to stand for election. For many of our most talented Canadians, unfixed election dates make it difficult to plan to enter public life because they simply don’t know when the next election is going to be held. I think fixed date elections can only help in attracting the most qualified individuals to public life. Details of the Bill Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn to the details of the bill. 1. Responsible Government Legislation providing for fixed date elections must be structured to meet certain constitutional realities of responsible government. They include: • the requirement that the government have the confidence of the House of Commons; • respecting the Governor General’s constitutional power to dissolve Parliament. The bill before us was drafted carefully to ensure that these constitutional requirements continue to be respected. So, the bill does not in any way change the requirement that the government must maintain the confidence of the House. Moreover, all of the conventions regarding loss of confidence remain intact. In particular, the Prime Minister’s prerogative to advise the Governor General on the dissolution of Parliament is retained, to allow him or her to advise dissolution in the event of a loss of confidence. Moreover, the bill states explicitly that the powers of the Governor General remain unchanged, including the power to dissolve Parliament at the Governor General’s discretion. 2. Modeled After Provincial Legislation As set out in the government’s platform, this bill is modeled after existing provincial fixed date elections legislation. The legislation is very similar to the approach used by British Columbia, Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador. Mr. Speaker, it should be noted that the legislation in all of these provinces is working – and working well. British Columbia recently had its first fixed date election (May 17, 2005) and Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador will soon have their first fixed date elections (October 4, 2007 and October 9, 2007 respectively). In British Columbia, there was certainly no evidence of what some critics have called a “lame duck government”. 3. Mechanics The government’s bill provides that the date for the next general election is Monday, October 19, 2009. Of course, this will be the date only if the government is able to retain the confidence of the House until that time. So, for example, if the government were to be defeated tomorrow, a general election would be held according to normal practice. However, the subsequent election would be scheduled for the third Monday in October, in the fourth calendar year after that election. And that is the normal model that would be established by this bill. General elections will occur on the third Monday of October in the fourth calendar year following the previous general election. We chose the date very carefully and one of my parliamentary colleagues will provide a full explanation of our choice during the course of this debate. However, in brief, we chose the third Monday in October because it was the date that was likely to maximize voter turnout and to be least likely to conflict with cultural or religious holidays – or with elections in other jurisdictions. 4. Conflicts This raises an additional feature of the bill that I want to bring to your attention – a feature that provides for an alternate election date in the event of a conflict with a date of religious or cultural significance or an election in another jurisdiction. In the current system, the date of the general election is chosen by the government, so it is rare that a polling day is chosen that comes into conflict with a date of cultural or religious significance or with elections in other jurisdictions. However, with the introduction of legislation providing for fixed date elections, there is some possibility that, in the future, the stipulated election date will occasionally be the same as a day of cultural or religious significance or an election in another jurisdiction. The Ontario fixed date elections legislation provides that, if there is a conflict with a day of cultural or religious significance, the Chief Elections Officer may recommend an alternate polling day to the Lieutenant Governor in Council, up to seven days following the day that would otherwise be polling day. Using a variation of the Ontario legislation providing for fixed date elections, our bill empowers the Chief Electoral Officer to recommend an alternate polling day to the Governor in Council should he or she find that the polling day is not suitable for that purpose. The alternate day would be either the Tuesday or the Monday following the Monday that would otherwise be polling day. Allowing alternate polling days to be held on the following Tuesday or Monday is consistent with the current practice of holding elections on a Monday or a Tuesday. Illusory in Nature? Mr. Speaker, some Opposition members had concerns that this bill is illusory in that the Prime Minister can call an election at any point up until the fixed date for the election. However, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has to retain his prerogative to advise dissolution to allow for situations when the government loses the confidence of the House. This is a fundamental principle of our system of responsible government. Moreover, if the bill were to indicate that the Prime Minister could only advise dissolution in the event of a loss of confidence, it would have to define ‘confidence’ and the dissolution of the House of Commons would be justiciable in the courts – something that we certainly do not want. Conclusion Mr. Speaker, this bill providing for fixed date elections is long overdue in Canada. In June, Ipsos-Reid released the results of a poll which showed that 78% of Canadians support the government’s plans to provide for fixed date elections. You may know that the third week in October is already Citizenship Week in this country where we celebrate what it means to be Canadian citizens. Of course, fundamental to being a Canadian citizen is our civic responsibilities, including our duty to vote. It is fitting, then, that general election dates will be set for the third Monday in October. This legislation will provide greater fairness, increased transparency and predictability, improved policy planning, increased voter turnout, and will help to attract the best qualified Canadians to public life. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the House will join with me in supporting it and I look forward to the Bill’s speedy passage in the Senate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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