Obama-Biden and Romney-Ryan buttons at U.S. Embassy party

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, November 6, 2012 at 11:06 PM - 0 Comments

The U.S. Embassy held an election party at the Château Laurier. Obama-Biden and Romney-Ryan buttons were given out. Attendees could also have their pic taken with Barack Obama and/or Mitt Romney cutouts.

The Commons: No questions asked

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 6:24 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. From the far southwest corner of the room, Conservative MP Wai Young wondered aloud whether New Democrat MP Rosane Doré Lefebvre had children.

“Do you have children?” she asked, loudly, of Ms. Doré Lefebvre, who stood in her spot in the opposite corner.

“Do you have children?” Ms. Young repeated.

“You don’t have children!” she concluded.

Ms. Doré Lefebvre was, at the time, attempting to challenge the Heritage Minister on his opposition to an exhibit about sex at the local science museum. Apparently Ms. Young objected to Ms. Doré Lefebvre’s criticism. Apparently Ms. Young considered the question of whether or not Ms. Doré Lefebvre was currently raising children to be somehow relevant to this discussion.

Afterwards, Nathan Cullen rose and suggested that perhaps Ms. Young’s comments were inappropriate and an apology thus in order. Eventually, and shortly after first declining to do so, Ms. Young did apologize. The House then moved on to a discussion of when and how a member might properly use the adjectives “stupid” and “ignorant.”

This seemed about right. A fine end to a brutish couple of days—yesterday and today—that capped a few weeks of futility.  Continue…

The Commons: The case of actions v. words

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 6:33 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. “Mr. Speaker, once again, I think the government has been repeatedly clear when it comes to retirement income, such as old age security,” the Prime Minister clarified.

And on that note, his second sentence. ”We have no intention,” he said, “of changing any benefits.”

Clearly. At least so far as those with no short term memory could be concerned. For the rest of those listening, there was what the government had sent up Wai Young to say no more than 90 seconds earlier. ”We will implement any changes fairly,” the dutiful backbencher reassured the House with the last intervention before Question Period, “allowing lots of time for notice and time to adjust.”

So the government has no intention of making changes. But if—for whatever reason—it should be struck with such intent sometime between now and the tabling of this spring’s budget, you are to be assured that those changes will be implemented fairly. Indeed, even with these changes existing only in the theoretical, the government presently lacking even the intent to make them, Ms. Young managed today to congratulate her side for having had the courage to change. “In fact,” she reported, “the National Post gets it with its front page headline today, ‘Tories on the right side of pension reform.’ ”

Continue…

Welcome to the infomercial

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, April 23, 2011 at 10:38 AM - 90 Comments

To the Conservative campaign now, specifically to the Canadian Coptic Centre in Mississauga, where Mr. Harper wished to highlight his promise to establish an Office of Religious Freedom within the Department of Foreign Affairs. Behind him a Canadian flag, all around him, as the official news release describes it, “an enthusiastic and diverse crowd.”

After his announcement, the floor was turned over to questions from reporters. Said reporters were called by name to present their questions. As per usual, reporters travelling with Mr. Harper were permitted a total of four opportunities at the microphone. No supplementaries are officially permitted.

Mr. Harper’s answers were dutifully applauded by the studio audience. And when one of these reporters—the CBC’s Terry Milewski—dared to shout a supplementary question related to a particular Conservative candidate’s recent controversy, the crowd moved to drown him out with cheers. Mr. Milewski persisted, the crowd cheered louder, even chanting Mr. Harper’s surname. A member of Mr. Harper’s staff, standing nearby Mr. Milewski was quite enthusiastic in joining the applause.

Onward now to Comox and Campbell River.

Vancouver South Recount: Welcome back to elected officialdom, Ujjal Dosanjh!

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, November 4, 2008 at 3:26 PM - 67 Comments

According to ITQ’s tireless source on the ground, the recount is over and after a full ballot-by-ballot recall, Ujjal Dosanjh has held onto his seat with a 20 vote margin. Whoo! Go democracy! Does everybody feel a comforting sense of closure now?

The Vancouver Sun has the details.

UPDATE: Yes, she did concede, but ITQ has been told that every vote was, in fact, counted.

UPDATED: Vancouver South Recount: Reports of its completion are greatly exaggerated

By kadyomalley - Monday, November 3, 2008 at 11:26 AM - 31 Comments

There was a brief moment of panicked confusion at the ITQ RecountWatch desk this morning after Commenter (and blogger in her own right) Joanne noticed that Elections Canada had upgraded the status of the Vancouver South recount to “completed”. But if you check the date, it seems that those are the results as initially certified by the judge on October 24, 2008 — the day of the original (and, at the time, ostensibly finalized) “partial” recount of rejected and special ballots (plus a dozen or so handpicked ballot boxes) that sparked the original controversy over whether the Conservative candidate, Wai Young, had, in fact, conceded, and eventually led the judge to reverse his decision and go back to counting the remaining ballots by hand.

According to ITQ’s source on the ground in Vancouver, the hand count will resume today, as scheduled. The numbers that currently appear on the Elections Canada site were, indeed, certified by a judge, but have not yet been validated, which, as far as ITQ understands the process, will not occur until everyone in Vancouver South is satisfied with the results of the recount.

(Incidentally, we’ve been told  – unofficially, of course – that there has been almost no movement in the numbers since the recount got back underway on Friday – by the end of the day, the margin had changed by just one vote– in Ujjal Dosanjh’s favour, no less. Oh, if only we were in British Columbia to chronicle the hijinx in realtime, although I bet the judge wouldn’t look kindly on a liveblogger in his counting room.)

For the full Vancouver South Recount backstory – well, the ITQ version thereof, anyway  – start here.

UPDATE: According to the Vancouver Sun, with more than 80% of the boxes counted, the margin has shrunk to 21 (from 22). They’re hoping to finish up tomorrow.

UPDATED: Vancouver South Recount: It's back on, y'all – although it's still not clear whether every vote will be counted.

By kadyomalley - Thursday, October 30, 2008 at 2:35 PM - 84 Comments

That’s what I heard from someone who was supposed to attend today’s hearing, at least — you know, the one in which Wai Young and a Conservative Party lawyer were going to appeal the decision to suspend the count last week. Apparently, the judge took the initiative to restart the count before the lawyers had even had the chance to make their arguments, so it’s back to the ballot-by-ballot examination tomorrow.

Will every vote be counted this time around? I guess that will depend on whether the margin is still as narrow after spending a few hours going through more of the unopened boxes of ballots; while a judicial recount cannot be terminated by any party, it can be sped up considerably if both candidates agree to suspend the hand count in favour of using the poll statements. Hopefully there will be at least one local media outlet allowed inside the counting room when the process resumes on Friday — given the mass confusion that has surrounded this story since it broke last week and the high level of public interest in the case, it’s hard to see how the judge could refuse permission to a reporter seeking to make sure that all the facts come out. (If ITQ was a few thousand miles closer, she’d be breaking land speed records to file a request with the court.)

Anyway, I’ll update this post with any new information that comes out.

UPDATE: From the comments, a link to a Vancouver Sun story on the recountroversy, which provides the most plausible explanation yet for what may have an honest mistake by the judge, based on an apparent misunderstanding of the Conservative candidate’s wishes:

Hira said the Conservatives appeared to concede during the recount process last Friday that Dosanhj was the winner, so Dohm signed a certificate, declaring Dosanjh the winner, which was sent to Ottawa.

But the Conservative candidate, Wai Young, later expressed she wanted a further recount.

Vancouver South recount: Don’t shoot the (electoral) messenger, y’all.

By kadyomalley - Monday, October 27, 2008 at 1:08 PM - 170 Comments

Okay, first off, I don’t blame people for raising a ruckus over the revelation that the judge who performed the recount in Vancouver South last week didn’t bother to open all the ballot boxes, instead choosing to re-check a random sampling of the 42,076 votes that were cast on election day – particularly when the margin between Liberal incumbent Ujjal Dosanjh and Conservative challenger Wai Young  dropped to just 22 votes. At the same time, however, it seems as though someone should probably point out that, contrary to the carefully coddled conspiracy theories so cherished by some denizens of the blogosphere, Elections Canada had nothing to do with the decision to conduct a partial recount, which was made by the presiding judge – in this case, British Columbia Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm – in accordance with the guidelines set out by the Canada Elections Act, and also detailed here. Not even the Chief Electoral Officer himself has the power to appeal or overturn the result, which is considered final.

If this is sufficiently disturbing as to threaten a mass loss of faith in our electoral system, the solution would be to amend the current Act to remove any allowance for judicial discretion in determining how to proceed after a recount is ordered. Of course, given the sheer volume of ballots that would have to be re-recorded, however, that might also mean raising the threshold for an automatic recount – which is currently triggered by any margin closer than 1/1000th of total votes cast – or, alternately, relax the requirement that the judge examine every ballot personally, and instead designate clerks or court officers – or other agreed-upon third parties – as proxies. There are, in other words, any number of ways to improve the existing recount process, now that we’ve become aware of a possible inconsistency – perceived or otherwise — not one of which requires the now familiar demonizing of Elections Canada as a catspaw for the Liberal Party.