Tag: politics

Blogs are Advertising in BC?

Darren Barefoot reports that Elections BC has decided that blogs are simply campaign advertising:

“Under the Election Act, it will fall within the definition of election advertising, and we would ask them to register,” says Jennifer Miller, of Elections B.C.

Miller says the volume of sites is overwhelming, and doesn’t rule out asking for a change to the Election Act. “If we feel certain parts of the act can be amended to make it more effective and efficient, we will definitely make that recommendation,” she says.

I tend to agree with Darren – “Where does editorial become advertorial?” I think the decision to require blogs to be registered as advertising is unwise. Who’s to say that a newspaper editorial is not actually advertising in disguise? I hope this doesn’t set any sort of precedent.

Read: Darren Barefoot

Back to the polls?

Did you watch Prime Minister Paul Martin’s national address on prime-time television last Thursday night? No? Don’t feel bad, you’re probably in the majority. Martin thought that going on national television would be a good way to try and save himself and the Liberals some face in the wake of adscam (the last time a Prime Minister went on national television was in 1995, when Quebec was about to secede). While it’s probably too soon to tell if his address had any real impact, the Conservatives are clearly ahead in the opinion polls, with 35% to the Liberal’s 30%.

Which begs the question, are we going back to the polls? Clearly with the Conservatives enjoying a comfortable advantage, it’s not unreasonable they would rather have an election now than later. On the other hand, Canada is a very Liberal country:

The Liberal Party is often described as Canada’s natural party of government, having been in power for the past 12 years, and for 55 of the past 70.

Mr Martin has one aspect of public opinion in his favour: voters agree with him that the full Gomery report should come out before an election is called.

I think it comes to down to whether or not we want Quebec to separate. A strong election for the Conservatives would probably also mean a strong election for the Bloc Québécois, and perhaps, the start of new separation talk. I think that is probably something most Canadians would want to avoid. If history is any indication, it seems likely that the Liberals will be given another chance, if not by winning the next election, by clearly winning the following election.

Maybe the question isn’t “are we going back to the polls”, but rather, will adscam do anything? If this scandal doesn’t make Canadians vote non-Liberal, what will?

Read: Economist.com

Canadian Politics Interesting Again?

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems as though Canadian politics have become interesting again – at least as far as the media is concerned. Most of the interest has to do with Adscam, like the American blogger who bypassed a Canadian gag order meant to keep the details of the proceedings out of the public eye:

A Canadian commission that’s investigating charges of high-level wrongdoing in the nation’s Liberal Party has ordered news organizations not to reveal details from the proceedings, which are open to the public. But Ed Morrissey, a conservative Web logger in Minneapolis, has been gleefully violating the ban by posting detailed reports of the verboten “Adscam” testimony. His usual average of 30,000 page views a day skyrocketed during the weekend to more than 400,000…

Another blogger, this one Canadian, has also dedicated a post to the issue. Tim Bray says “the Martin government is toast“, though he doesn’t have too much to say about the opposition either, calling it “weak and divided.” Indeed, searching Technorati for ‘canada liberals‘ returns about 9500 results, but what’s most interesting is how recent they are. Here’s a few highlights:

So what do you think? Are the political parties in Canada making things interesting again, or are there just more Canadian bloggers writing about it giving the perception that it’s more interesting?