Congratulations to our new Prime Minister-designate!

Then PM Trudeau, and his sons – 1981
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Whew, glad that one is over! Look out world, Canada is back! We'll be at the 2015 Summits:
UN Environmental Summit COP 21, Paris; Asia-Pacific Summit (APEC),  Commonwealth Meeting, Malta; G20 Summit, Turkey.

Mr. Trudeau will be sworn in Nov. 4th. A vicious campaign from some, and I'm glad it is over. I have had to 'unfriend' two male acquaintances on Facebook, due to their vitriolic, and vicious hate campaigns against our former PM Harper. It was above and beyond sane. Let's be positive and move into the future.

One journalist of long experience mentioned that a friend in Europe sent him a message, "Welcome back, Canada!"

I have a story about our new PM!

I was a mom of a two-year-old, had just moved to Nepean with my first husband. Caitlin was in day care, which she loved. I would take the bus to uOttawa for my B.Ed. studies. I was a student teacher in 1981. We didn't have any money. Our family had been moved to Ottawa, by Canada Post, for a promotion, I'd just finished
my B.A. in ECE at Ryerson. ECE work in day care didn't pay well. Mortgage rates were 20+% and our mortgage was coming due. My mother-in-law paid for my tuition.

Trudeau sons,  & PM 1979

 I was doing a practicum placement, a stint at the MacSkimming Outdoor Science school. I loved it. We would have to be downtown on OCTranspo for 6:30 a.m., then a school bus would take us student teachers out to the school, east of Ottawa. We were banding birds, doing bird and forest studies, and lots of other activities. I'd be up till midnight preparing lesson plans.

We had heard that Justin Trudeau, son of the current Prime Minister, would be there at MacSkimming. It was, of course, business as usual, however. I had a group of kids, including Jus
tin and their parent volunteers, in the forest. We were doing a tree study: first learning the various trees in the forest, and then doing a scientific study of those we found as we walked 100m in one direction. I set them into smaller groups and sent them off into the forest. Little did I realize that the 'parents' I was sending out were RCMP officers (a man and woman, as I recall) who were charged with guarding the PM's son, Justin. I was so young!

Trudeau press conference 

Justin Trudeau's First News Conference as Prime Minister-Designate

Following his election win the previous day, Liberal Party of Canada Leader Justin Trudeau gives a…

YOUTU.BE/_LFMHBPJDAI

Election 2015 and modern technology

I've been having fun tracking our local favourite candidate, @JohnFenik, as well as our favourite: our son-in-law, @JeanLucCooke!

It's great hearing and seeing the debates! This election is interesting, this debate was live-streamed. In addition, they took questions through Twitter!



Then, the irony!

It's fun seeing the candidates getting involved in the community.  Jean-Luc has lived and worked here for over ten years. 

Canadian election –advance polls opened Friday

Can you read these signs driving by at 80 km/hour, if you are doing the speed limit. Most do not drive this slowly!
 

I thought they were foolish. Just sayin'! Put up by the local incumbent's team. But, yes, Friday was the first day of advance polls. This is what we usually do. Thing is - the signs went up days before Friday! They had to, since it takes time, and people to put all these up. I wonder what they cost and how much we paid for it?
This is how they drive on highway #7.

We have voted

Piece of cake, except for the 17 km we had to drive to get to the advance polling station! The signage was terrible. Well, terrible for its absence. We drove right past!
It took about 15 minutes. You must show ID, and sign your life away.  Friends complained, in the city, that at their advance polling stations it took an hour. On the news it said that it took more than an hour.

 I am anxious to get on with the danged election. Some of the snippets are amusing, however.
The debates have been telling, what with the incumbent party not attending many debates.
Our son-in-law is doing very well at various debates. He's having a blast. He posted his Youtube video of one debate. He closed Wang's binder on him!

Jean-Luc has done his research, he knows the party platform and planks very well. At the one debate where his Conservative rival was in attendance, Wang kept reading party rhetoric and statistics from the binder. He is an engineer, an entrepreneur, and the Green Party Small Business Critic. He had a debate at the engineers society.

Dotterels abound

 I had an argument with our snow blower/tractor repairman. He was insisting that a woman going into a bank wearing a face covering, or walking in the street would be arrested anyway. I was shocked. What is he talking about? This is a 73-year-old man who was an Ottawa manager for 30 years. I suggested he best leave, with a grin on my face, as I didn't want to discuss it anymore! It's an interesting riding, ours. Red necks and anti-government sentiment abounds.

What is also amusing is that I gave him our old tractor for parts, rather than selling it.
Welcome to Lanark County.

Dual Citizenship

This is an issue in Canada. For those who were born elsewhere, and come to Canada, they can have dual citizenship. It all depends upon where you were born, and where your parents were born. There are complex rules, above the heads of some. Honestly.

Bill C-24 gave the government the right to take away citizenship of dual citizens who commit a terrorist act. People are fiercely opposed to this. As with many of their new omnibus laws, no one has asked the questions, 'What if..."
Brad Butt,  Conservative candidate, suggests NDP leader Mulcair could lose ...
his citizenship should he be convicted of a terrorist act. Most of us were shocked he would use this well-respected man as an example.

On the radio, I heard one phone-in where a woman was complaining about Mr. Mulcair. She was in favour of this legislation. She said it would be Mulcair's own fault, since he was born in France, should he be convicted of terrorism and sent back to France. The blessed radio host did his best to argue differently. It didn't work. She insisted he was born in France. When she was contradicted, twice, she said, "Let's just move on."
In fact, he obtained dual citizenship through his French-born wife, after an incident at the Paris airport.

Canadian election October 2015

In case you didn't know, the Canadian federal election, despite theoretically being on a fixed schedule (Oct. 19th, 2015), was officially begun last Sunday. This is a long, 77-day (11-week) run.

Don't spend you war chest money on attack ads, spend them telling us what you are for, and for helping those who struggle. All I heard at the NDP rally Friday was "I loathe those attack ads!"

In the US they are still working on Republican nominations. I don't understand how they can have 17 running, and this gets TV coverage!

We had our own debate Thursday night, with all four party leaders.  This was a powerful moment. They threw statistics about, The National reporters discussed the mistakes in their stats. People Tweeted errors in there claims.

To those running the PMO

Only a few days in and I'm fatigued with attack ads. Don't tell me what you are against, tell me what you are for. Make your stump speeches worthwhile.

• Tell me the difference you will make. 
• Tell me how you can improve my life, my children's lives, my grandchildren's lives. 
• Tell me how you will help those unable to: the sick, those unable to access home care, healthcare or the drugs they require (read How Are Drug Prices Set?). They are Canadians, too!
• Tell me how you will improve transportation, infrastructure, to help those who eke out a meagre existence as the working poor, and those who are unable to work.
• Tell me how you will work with Correctional Services Canada, (I volunteered in one miserable place), which offers a variety of correctional programs or the  Collaborative Justice Program.

  

  Our son-in-law, Jean-Luc Cooke!

• Tell me how you will work with judges, lawyers and the legal system, in an era where crimes are down and institutions are crowded. [Harper has fought the law makers of the land: 
  Harper fumed privately about Supreme Court activism: book]
• Tell me how you will include the land, sea and air, and the critters who inhabit it, in the governance of this country. 
• Tell me how important it is to get off unsustainable, yea, harmful energy sources. 
• Tell me how important people are (farmers, retail workers) not just the oil industry, the very rich who own them, and pipelines.
• Tell me how you will reach out to those in the provincial, regional, and municipal governments, as responsibilities have been downloaded to those with small budgets, and ensure that all Canadian, not just the 'middle class' who support your campaigns, get their hand up. 
• Tell me how you will use your silver spoon –not to help big businesses and the pharmaceuticals (such as Alexion), who continue to suck up my hard-earned tax dollars, while the Candian government is donating millions to countries whose governments steal said support. 

To the media

Canada election 2015: Where the leaders are Tuesday
I'm sick enough of the awful attack ads. I don't care where, how, and what the politickers are doing, or where they ate, or what they had for breakfast. I'm mostly sick of journalists earning a living, complaining of being on the road reporting these things, while eating three meals a day.

Disclaimer: this is my son-in-law, proudly running for the Green Party in Nepean, Ottawa!

Nepean Needs Better Candidates National headwinds are blowing and they will affect the race in Nepean. And yet, I find myself dumbstruck by the candidate choices in my home riding. Let me count the ways ... UNPUBLISHEDOTTAWA.COM and in another riding: Crooked nomination meetings and rumours of fixed nominations: Former aide to Pierre Poilievre nominated as the Tory ... Jun 29, 2015 - Former aide to Pierre Poilievre nominated as the Tory candidate in Nepean ... He currently runs the Daido Academy, a Barrhaven organization ... Battleground Nepean: The Andy Wang Thang | Frank ... Jul 6, 2015 - Battleground Nepean: The Andy Wang Thang ... of voter tampering, this time in last week's Tory nomination race in the new riding of Nepean. High-profile Conservatives consider run in Nepean, but ... Feb 23, 2015 - Andy Wang, right, former Parliamentary assistant to Employment and Social ... Conservatives are considering running for the party's nomination, but some ... For eg Skippy had an election budget of $107k in 2011, yet only managed ... electoral fraud, bribing senators, fixed nominations(they all do that one), ...