Budget Positioning

I would ask my riding associates to please take the time to view the motions being debated next month and tell me what stands out as most important for you. Is there anything you feel vehemently about? What ideas speak loudest to you? Go to www.greenparty.ca click on convention, click on resolutions, read, get back to me. You can comment (anonomously if you choose) on this or any post.This whole exercise will be for naught if Tues.'s budget doesn't pass. The convention would have to be postponed, again, though I'm banking on this not happening twice. The train ticket is non-refundable.....

It will be interesting to see how Michael Ignatieff will stick handle the day and come out not looking weak like an abstaining Liberal while still letting the day pass. Having stepped into the leadership even while awaiting formal endorsement in June, Ignatieff carries with him considerable baggage from his past support for the Iraq war and his acceptance of American exceptionalism. By exceptionalism I refer to that doctrine whereby America does not recognize international law and acts unilaterally. At the same time the conservatives are not going to deliver a budget that he can call his. They are already spending considerable effort and money to promote their pitch through radio ads and early leaking of various parts of Tues's paper.

This is the time for us to prepare for the next election with a steady thoughtful hand. I look forward to the end of Feb. not looking for big changes in direction and policy but simple elaboration and continued clarification of the themes the Green Party of Canada has embraced. There are basic tenants that we firmly stand on as we present our picture for a future Canada.

Steel Wheels vs Wings

One can't arrive at a Green Party Convention in an SUV if one can use a bicycle. The options from Muskoka to Truro for a short jaunt require train or plane.

Curiously, in four calls to Via Rail I've been given four prices. I am expecting in the mail the final ticket- return for $221.00, a fraction of the cost of flying. The trip is supposed to take roughly 32 hrs. The seats recline I trust. Cell service will likely come and go, not sure about wireless. If it's available it will likely cost. Certainly parking at Washago is a lot more convenient for me than dealing with Pearson, and one has to remember to pack a lunch in any case, and water bottle, and flask.

Passenger service by rail in this country is normally second to freight, so it will be interesting to see how much time is spent on sidings. I switch trains twice- Toronto and Montreal both ways. Somewhere in six trains it would be nice to run into that old piece of rolling stock from the 40s called Evangeline a passenger car. I used to see it about every other week crossing the country when I worked on the trans Canada line in the summer of '76. Air Stream Aluminium in style, it strikes a personal note as my great grand father, grand father and father all made trips to that corner of Nova Scotia to lead meetings at a methodist camp called Berwick. That Acadian name migrated to Muskoka for our family over a hundred years ago.

Background for the journey

Why would a boatbuilder care enough to board a train to Pictou NS in a month's from now? A little time reading Attwood's Payback, Richard Wright's What is America?, and Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns.........juxtaposed to 680 news and the Globe and Mail leads me to believe first of all I'm not particularly well-read, that we're not getting the whole picture from the MSM, and that our beloved country is going to spiral downwards in apathy and ignorance if we don't lift our heads out of the sand. Mine at least.

Faced with some divergent truths about ourselves as Canadians and the current trends in politics leaves me thinking one has to pick a path and take it as far as it fits, and wet ones feet in the muddy waters. To wit, peace order and good government doesn't seem to take in fighting a war that isn't ours, listening to a dysfunctional question period in the House of Commons, and hearing blatant untruths about our parliamentary democracy. The truth might not belong solely to any particular camp but enough already, there has to be something one can do.

Pictou as far as I can make out will be primarily about 130 workshops squished into two short days during which important decisions about policy will be settled. Parliamentary Reform, Guaranteed Annual Income, taxation and Carbon Shift issues, International Affairs and internal issues of governance- who wouldn't want to be there. I would invite members from our riding assoc. to point out what interests them, as I'll be representing them in the forums.

Welcome 2009. After a Christmas of good reading, too much newspaper digesting a little thought it's tim for me to spit a little out.

The shop is fine, boats are comming along, winter passing all too quickly. Journey with me on a side track to Nova Scotia for the Green Party Convention starting by train in Washago On.