Can We Talk, For a Moment?

Can we just agree that the 1995 Referendum was a complete fraud? Seriously, the whole Option Canada thing; they spent 539 460$ (what, no decimal?) illegaly - ten bucks for every vote past the 50% mark. Yes, it was illegal. Yes, it was corrupt and yes, the No side should feel ashamed.

But the Yes side wasn't lilly-white and completely pure either. That's the problem, both sides did some seriously shady business; the referendum itself was shady! The question was obtuse, unclear and deceitful and the whole thing should have been declared invalid on that basis alone - that is essentially what the Clarity Act did - so revisiting the event twelve years after the fact is relatively futile. In fact, that the statute of limitations on any illegal activities was surpassed seven years ago; the pursuit of the truth is a waste of taxpayer money at this point. Anyone who wishes to employ an independent party to inquire into the truth, using private funding, may do so without any interference, but I refuse to continue wasting money on something we cannot do anything about!

The Yes side, it's been admitted and played down, disqualified No votes and disenfranchised No voters. The No side spent hundreds of thousands in a mad dash to save the situation at the last moment and spent hundreds of millions of dollars after the fact trying to "promote Canada's image" in Québec. The latter offense is still being prosecuted and the former is unprosecutable. The Yes side got away clean because the system was so decentralized that there was no specific person at whose feet the blame could be laid, but it is still clear that criminal and undemocratic practices were employed.

So we write it off; 1980 and 1995 should be written off as wasteful exercises in how not to run a referendum.

We have the Clarity Act now; it's a good law and, assuming it is observed, any referendum held from here on in will be fair and genuinely representative. The only problem this would leave is the inherent problem of democracy, but it's a problem most people are willing to live with.

The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen

André Boisclair's political suicide left a nice little void at the head of this Province's Natural Ruling People, as the RoC liberal pundits put it, a void which the party has yet to officially fill. It looks, however, as though - just as I stated last time I discussed the matter - Pauline Marois will lead the Party into the next election; it may be much sooner than we might think.

Reportedly, madame Marois was consulted - make that gave authorization to the PQ's recent move to oppose the Liberal budget proposal. That gives you an idea how tight the leadership race in that party really is.

The opposition to the budget is interesting. Both the ADQ and the PQ are likely to tow that particular line, but the PQ opposing a tax-cut means two things; they're moving away from the right side of the political spectrum, rather than towards it as was previously thought and their being the first to oppose the motion says that Marois actually trusts she has enough political capital to make a significant gain for the PQ in the election that the defeat of this budget would eventually entail.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about this budget and the reactions to it. Firstly, I like keeping the money I make; it's this crazy thing about being poor, so I applaud any motion to give us a tax-cut, however... Quebec's finances are, er, not in what could be called an idyllic condition and cutting away more revenue doesn't strike me as the best way to help that. The tax-cut could still be achieved if the Quebec government did a bit of, er, pruning.

The primary reason that the ADQ got my vote was their 'cut away at bureaucracy with the big knife' policy and... Well, if that policy were to somehow find it's way onto Jean Charest's desk... Well let's just say that we could more than afford that tax-cut.

But why listen to little old me? It's much more fun to have the OLF and dozens of useless programs to help artists and bolster francophone television ratings.

Pricks.

Human Trafficking in Laval

A Laval couple has been charged with Human Trafficking under the Canadian Criminal Code; I'll refrain from getting into the details, you can get those on any news site around the net, especially any dealing with the Montreal area, but needless to say that this is er... Unsettling news.

There's already people rising to the defence of the couple, saying that the woman in question wasn't mistreated, imprisoned or subjugated; let's hope that this is the case. A deranged illegal immigrant with an axe to grind against her employer is far more pleasant a thought then the alternative. Unfortunately, I doubt this is the case.

What is far more likely is that these people are sick, disturbed and completely fucking inhumane. I will keep an eye this case as it progresses, because it will likely have implications more or less all across the board; if they're convicted, there'll be a call for more vigilance with regards to illegal immigration, there'll be a call for tougher laws with regards to human trafficking and there'll be a media blitz to find out "How could this ever happen here?!"

It will be absolutely frightful but, if these allegations prove true, it won't be half as frightful as the ordeal this Ethiopian woman's been through. Anyone who's spent even a moment perusing this blog will know how much I value individual freedom (yes John, I know), what these people are alleged to have done is so antithetical to my worldview that the very thought of it boils my blood.

What the swine who buy and sell people do to get themselves to sleep at night has got to be fucking effective, it's the only way to explain that they aren't all dead - and the world is worse for it.

Facts of the Supermarket 'Scene'

If you've ever gone to a grocery store and purchased anything, more than once, and you've never worked in one, chances are you've done something so heinously thoughtless that a grocery store employee has harboured fantasies of peeing in the hollowed out eyesocket of your fleshless skull.

I'm sorry if this is disturbing to you, but it's just the truth; the average human being turns into an uncaring savage upon setting foot in a grocery store through some process I've yet to identify.

Significance in Insignificance

On George Stroumbolopoulos' CBC programme, The Hour, I had the peasure of watching an interview between the man himself and a certain Alister McGrath, last night. It really was a genuine pleasure; regardless of his funny ideas (stupid religion...), he is a genuinely intelligent and interesting man with some valid points to make. He did, however, say something that struck me as... Well... Being the opposite of the truth.

The claim that made me raise an eyebrow was the claim that theism somehow improves or increases the appreciation one can have of science and nature; he added that this was because science is not equipped to answer the question "do we matter?"

I am afraid I must disagree with him on both points. Science is not only equipped to answer the question, it already has; if, by some horrible accident, mankind suddenly ceased to exist right this minute, the universe wouldn't change at all. We are so insignificant that the effect wouldn't even be noticeable further out than Jupiter. The reason that this fact increases our appreciation of science and nature is that this very insignificance makes us important.

I've already expounded this briefly in previous posts, but basically it goes like this; if we're the product of some great supreme being who has a plan for us that we cannot circumvent, then for all the meaning that imparts on us - being His chosen people, yadda, yadda, yadda - we're still just matter hurtling along a course it cannot alter. But if we look at the reality of the situation; if we're just the freak consequence of an even more freakish chemical reaction in an isolated corner of the universe, then the fact is that we're something absolutely unique; a new type of matter.

Until now, all matter in the universe has done the same thing; cause & effect, action & reaction, basically just stuff smacking into stuff and making other stuff. Until us, that is. We're matter that sees the other stuff coming and can avoid it. We can think and we can conceive and we can create. We're matter with our own little universe inside. We can appreciate science more through its telling us of our insignificance because we can appreciate science.

It is discouraging to me that so many people simply write us off as meaningless unless we act according to some Grand Plan. There is so much meaning for us to make for ourselves, so much for us to see and learn and acheive that abdicating the right to that glory and majesty, giving it up to some deity - regardless of that deity's existence or non-existence - is absolute folly. We are better than that.

We are so awesome.