Catch 22 Harper Conservatives

Wow, I haven't written about Catch 22 Harper Conservatives since March.

Here are the Campaign Objectives:

Had enough of the Conservatives, their political gamesmanship and abuse of power? We've seen this government side-step Parliament through prorogation, committee boycotts and stonewalling. We've witnessed unprecedented secrecy, limits on media access, brinkmanship, and outright untruths. Without real consequences for these abuses, why should we expect any change from our politicians?

Catch 22 Harper Conservatives is a grassroots campaign to provide real consequences for the Conservatives’ disrespect of voters and Parliament. The objective of the campaign is to organize voters into an electoral force that will:

1) Contribute to the defeat of the Conservative government. We can achieve this by targeting at least 22 vulnerable, sitting Conservative MPs across Canada (at least one MP for each day of prorogation!) To succeed, we are proposing on-the-ground campaigns in selected ridings to hand out pro-democracy literature - before an election is called.

2) Raise awareness about Canada's democratic deficit, including our antiquated first-past-the-post voting system. The Conservatives aren't the first party in Canada to abuse their authority. We need a game-changer to improve accountability, transparency, representation and advance democracy.

Here are the targetted ridings/incumbents:

British Columbia
Kamloops–Thompson–Cariboo, Cathy McLeod
North Vancouver, Andrew Saxton
Surry North, Dona Cadman
Vancouver Island North, John Duncan

Prairies
Saskatoon–Rosetown–Biggar, Kelly Block
Palliser, Roy Boughen
Saint Boniface, Shelley Glover

Ontario
Brant, Phil McColeman
Essex, Jeff Watson
Haldimand–Norfolk, Diane Finley
Huron–Bruce, Benjamin Lobb
Kenora, Greg Rickford
Kitchener–Waterloo, Peter Braid
Kitchener Centre, Stephen Woodworth
London West, Ed Holder
Mississauga–Erindale, Bob Dechert
Oakville, Terence Young
Oshawa, Collin Carrie
Ottawa–Orléans, Royal Galipeau
Ottawa West –Nepan, John Baird

Quebec
Beauport–Limoilou, Sylvie Boucher
Pontiac, Lawrence Cannon
Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean, Denis Lebel

Atlantic Canada
Fredericton, Keith Ashfield
Miramichi, Tilly O'Neill-Gordon
Saint John, Rodney Weston
South Shore–St. Margaret's,Gerald Keddy
West Nova, Greg Kerr
Egmont, Gail Shea

North
Nunavut, Leona Aglukkaq

There are now local groups in the various ridings. Most are small yet, but the most popular one has 13 members.

I've said it before -- the Opposition is fucking useless. We have to do this ourselves.

Is your riding -- or one nearby -- on the list? Maybe you've got friends or relatives in the targetted ridings who need to know about this campaign.

Spread far and wide.

Canada can't take much more of this:

CRUSH Goes Local, now with Paranoid Update

CRUSH, Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper, is gaining momentum. From its Facebook wall:

Remember CRUSHERS, we have 3 ads in play this weekend.
1. The Calgary Herald (Mr. Harper’s riding)
2. The KW Record (hitting two Catch 22 ridings at once, that of Peter Braid and Stephen Woodworth)
3. A locally funded initiative in the Comox Valley Echo News that targets the Catch 22 riding of John Duncan.

Thank you all for making this happen. Work is progressing on future ads.

CRUSH is the totally grassroots campaign to place ads focusing on Stevie's record and 'trustability'. Originally, the plan was to run huge ads nationally. There was munny enough only for a smallish ad in last Saturday's Star.

Going local is a good idea. We all know the state of newspapers. Apparently, local CRUSHers were able to negotiate some good rates. And people read their local papers. CRUSHers hope these ads will get them talking.

The CRUSH site has downloadable PDFs, tips, and, of course, a way to donate. CRUSH hopes to continue to raise munny to funnel to the local groups and when I get my MASSIVE tax refund, I'm going to send them some more.

What's that reference to Catch 22 ridings, you ask?

Here's one of its organizers explaining at Rabble:

The Catch 22 Harper Conservatives strategy is to target winnable ridings with weak Conservative incumbents, recruit volunteers and communicate with voters before the next election is called. The main premise is that an informed electorate will vote in their own interests, and not strictly in the interests of political parties, politicians and lobby groups. The strategy will benefit some opposition candidates from the NDP, Liberals and possibly the Bloc while remaining independent of them.

Here are the 22 targetted ridings. Are you in one? Near one?

Now, while we're on the subject of targetting, the US National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws is going to make sure that those Blue Dog Democrats who so royally screwed the healthcare reform dealie over abortion PAY.

NARAL Pro-Choice America, which endorsed Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-Mich.) primary challenger Wednesday, is eyeing other Democratic incumbents, too.

NARAL joined Planned Parenthood in backing former Charlevoix County Commissioner Connie Saltonstall in her weeks-old primary challenge to Stupak, a pro-life Democrat who inflamed party activists by holding out for abortion language in the recently passed healthcare bill.

But the group isn't done yet. Asked whether other Democrats who joined with Stupak or opposed the bill should be concerned, NARAL political director Elizabeth Shipp said, "Definitely."

I asked if NARAL was eyeing anyone specifically.

"Yes, but none that I'm ready to talk about yet," Shipp said.

I realize we don't have a primary system here, but man, it would be sweet to 'NARAL' these Harper Liberals:

Paul Szabo in Mississauga South

Dan McTeague in Pickering-Scarborough East

John McKay in Scarborough Guildwood.

Hmm, maybe my MASSIVE tax refund will stretch to funding NDP or Green opponents of these guys. Anybody know who might be running in these ridings?

PARANOID UPDATE:

CRUSH ADMIN NOTE: We have had bad news about the Calgary Herald. It appears from member feedback that the ad did not appear despite assurances that it would and, to add insult to injury, we have been charged twice for the ad. We have been attempting to contact the Calgary Herald all day but it will not be possible to speak with anyone in charge of this until Monday-we will keep you posted and rectify the situation as soon as possible.

Catch 22

This is a great idea -- Catch 22 Harper Conservatives.

From the brand-spanky-new website:

Had enough of the Conservatives, their political gamesmanship and abuse of power? We've seen this government side-step Parliament through prorogation, committee boycotts and stonewalling. We've witnessed unprecedented secrecy, limits on media access, brinkmanship, and outright untruths. Without real consequences for these abuses, why should we expect any change from our politicians?

The grassroots organizers have been working on this for a while, analyzing voting records to come up with 22 vulnerable ReformaTory seats.

Go to the site and see if your MP -- or one near you -- is on the list and find out how you can help.

Spread the word.

Ready to Rumble?

If you are one of those 'nobodies' who desperately want an election in Canada, here are some non-party ways to get involved.

One of them is Catch 22 Harper Conservatives campaign.

Our strategy is to focus our efforts in those Conservative-held ridings where voters have the best chance of defeating the incumbent. We are in the process adding additional ridings as it becomes clear where we can best focus our campaign. For details about the criteria we considered in selecting these ridings see "Riding Selection".

Catch 22 has begun to identify opposition-held ridings that are vulnerable to a Conservative take-over. On Feb 28, we added our first defensive campaign - Edmonton-Strathcona. [Linda Duncan, NDP]

Each riding has a group that you can join to discuss the local campaign, and a riding profile with MP information, demographic data, election results, news, maps, links and more! If you are unsure of your riding, you can search by postal code at Elections Canada.

Check the Riding Selection to see if your riding, or one near you, is on the list. In Ontario, I'm gratified to see that four cabinet ministers are targetted: Diane Finley, John Baird, Peter Kent, and Julian Fantino.

Then there's another group that began -- and continues -- as a Facebook group, Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper, aka CRUSH. You might remember them as that 'radical anti-Stephen Harper group'. Membership has been hovering in the 5,900+ range for months, but lately and unaccountably *cough*, zoomed up to more than 6,100. There is also a website now.

And there's another one, launched recently, called Leadnow.

Leadnow brings generations of Canadians together to take action for our future and hold politicians accountable.

Leadnow was founded in 2010 by a group of young people who care about a wide range of issues and wanted to create a new way for people to participate effectively in our democracy.

Our founding objectives are to deepen our democracy, strengthen our communities, advance social justice, extend economic opportunity and protect our planet. We'll build an independent community that works together to help set the political agenda, take effective action on important issues, and shift elections.

We're inspired by a new model of political and movement organizing that uses technology as a tool to help people organize themselves and strengthen their voice. This model was pioneered by organizations like MoveOn (USA), GetUp (Australia), 38 Degrees (UK), and Avaaz (Global), mobilizing over 10 million people around the world. We hope to bring some of the best of these organizing techniques to Canada, while we adapt them to suit Canada's unique character.

Ooooh, 'shift elections'. I like that.

And finally, a video producing entity called Enough Harper, where I snaffled this HarperGraph,'Conservative Priorities', today.



Enough Harper also has a YouTube channel, with two videos, both of which have appeared here. (I saw another vid there this morning -- reason for starting this post -- but it's gone now.)

Anyway, here's one of the earlier ones.



Time to act. Or at least donate. Or support. Or something.

Let's take our Canada back.

Democracy's Future*

If nothing else, the past five years have shown Canadians how badly broken our democracy is. Until and unless we get some radical electoral and democratic change, it's going to be up to citizens to protect what's left of that creaky old institution.

Luckily, we're a resourceful lot. When Harper prorogued Parliament for the second time, we'd had enough. Unfortunately, over 200,000 of us on Facebook and thousands in the streets didn't seem to impress the politicians much.

But that was just the beginning. More non-partisan or multi-partisan grassroots groups sprang up: Catch 22 Harper Conservatives, Unseat Harper, and a more recent group, LeadNow.

Today I went looking for more, specifically for groups aiming at young voters. Found two.

Apathy Is Boring.

Revolutionizing democracy through art & technology.

Apathy is Boring is a national non-partisan project. Our mission is to use art & technology to educate youth about democracy.

Apathy is Boring aims to meet the following Youth in Democracy Goals:

Increase youth voting rates.
Increase youth engagement in their communities.
Build a sustainable dialogue between youth and elected officials.

It has a dandy facts page with definitions and other helpful info.

OurVote is also targetting youth.

OurVote.ca's goal is to mobilize young Canadians to actively engage and participate in the now declared 2011 Elections for the governance of Canada!

Young Canadians have a decisive voice and interest in determining the direction of Canada and necessary leadership that takes into account our needs & concerns!

Why does does getting youth involved matter?

Because voter turn-out is declining and there's that old saw: 'Low voter turn-out favours the conservative parties'.

Hey, look at this (from October last year).

How Parliament would look if only youth voted .

Canada’s youth would elect a Liberal minority government, with a substantial increase in representation for the New Democrats, Bloc Québécois, and Greens, according to projections based on recent polls of Canadians between the ages of 18 and 24. The Conservative Party would be severely reduced, virtually wiped out east of Manitoba.

Want to unseat Stephen Harper? Encourage the kids to vote.

(*Cross-posted at Voices for Democracy, Unseat Harper's blog. Good bloggers there. Check it out.)

The Harper Record

Good morning, DJ! readers.

Here in 1:45 minutes is all you and your wavering friends and colleagues need to know about the Contempt Party of Canada.




Spread farnwide.

Thinking about strategic voting? There's a new website devoted to strategic donations. The selected ridings at Swing 33 are somewhat different from those at Catch 22 Harper Conservatives, but both are worth checking out.

Do Not Vote Strategically

Unless you are prepared to spend a few minutes informing yourself. As Anonymous says here.

I'm sometimes shocked that even some progressives @ PB are talking out of their asses. You want to get rid of Harper, then vote strategic, but at least know what your doing!

Again, here are a couple of websites to get information: Catch 22 Harper Conservatives and Swing 33.

And if your vote really doesn't matter a damn -- as in most places in Alberta -- consider throwing a couple of bucks towards the Pirate Party by voting for them.

Or some other shit-disturbing entity of your choice.