Conflicting information about Ms. Brosseau

Starting a few days before the final votes were cast in the recent Canadian election and now continuing past the election has been a media fascination for the then NDP candidate for Berthier--Maskinongé, Ruth Ellen Brosseau. At first it was noted that Ms. Brosseau had spent some portion of the campaign period on vacation in Las Vegas. More recently it has been reported that Ms. Brosseau did not even go to the riding to campaign during the election period.

Maybe the most contentious revelation, at least as far many Francophone residents Ms. Brosseau's district are concerned, is that Ms. Brosseau's French is so rusty and that she is currently being given a crash course in French through the aegis of the NDP and Thomas Mulcair (a prominent Quebec NDP MP).

Given the prominence of this revelation about Ms. Brosseau's level of competence in French I was a little surprised to see that on her parliamentary profile page her "language preference" is French - a language which even her party and father suggest she can't speak particularly well.

Since the disconnect between her parliamentary profile and publicly available information is quite prominent I included a screen shot in case the profile is updated to reflect her language abilities (we wouldn't want to lose this piece of information in the shuffle).

Oh, and I also love that there seems to be only one publicly available picture of this woman, and that it is being used by just about everybody. I wonder if she knew that her candidate profile photo would gain such attention and be so frequently used if she would have used the photo that she used?

A Few Quick Notes 537

-We are presently in the midst of another grey day in Halifax. Fortunately, at least so far today doesn't seem quite as rainy as yesterday was.

-Shortly after I woke up this morning I was sitting at my desk checking my email when I noticed a German shepherd-like dog walk past my window. A few moments later the dog was followed by his two police handlers. Though the dog was sniffing aggressively I got the sense that they didn't find whatever it was they were looking for.

-Apparently 'Steven' Harper is finally coming to Nova Scotia for a rally today. Of course because it is in Windsor instead of Halifax I won't even be able to consider attending, and I have no idea whether or not it will be open to the public or not - or if prospective attendees will have to register in advance and then be screened.

-There is a pretty good sale today at Strange Adventures in Halifax. I bought a copy of Power Grid and an expansion map.

Campaign Literature Update

A few days ago I mentioned that we had not yet received any campaign literature.

It seems that yesterday may have marked a turning point as we received literature from three of the four candidates. Then today I noticed that our lobby has been again filled with literature from the Liberal and Conservative candidates. Perhaps not surprisingly, we have yet to receive any literature/flyers from the Green Party candidate.

Given that we have now received flyers for two days in a row I suspect that we may be in for another batch tomorrow, and then maybe even over the weekend.

What we still haven't received are either calls from pollsters or at-the-door visits from any of the campaigns. I am starting to hope that our recently acquired campaign flyers are a sign canvassing teams are just around the corner, though this is likely a little too optimistic a stance to take.

Campaign literature aside, I really don't have much of a sense of how the race in this riding is likely to turnout. Though this has long been an NDP riding and the current incumbent is NDP the Liberal candidate really seems to be pushing quite hard and may have more signs throughout the district (and we have certainly received more campaign literature from him). On the other hand, that the Green Party and Conservative candidates are unlikely to win does seem pretty clear, at least if numbers of signs is a good indicator of likelihood of winning.

Why haven't we been called?

While I am not intimately familiar with the sampling methods used by Canadian pollsters, I really would have imagined that give the volume of polling currently ongoing and give the fact that we have a listed number that we would have received calls for at least one poll by this point.

This amazes me because there is a lot of polling going on at the moment. My sense is that there are at least 4-5 publicly available national polls that come out every few days or so that typically have sample sizes of between 2000 and 3000 voters. Then there are the local/regional polls that are being conducted on a semi-regular basis. And finally we have the polls that are regularly being conducted by/for the 3/4 main political parties.

Given all of this calling (and the fact that non-responses necessitate more calling) how is is possible that we haven't been called at least once? The absence of calls almost makes it hard to believe that the reported volume of polling is actually taking place.

Don't look too closely, things might not be pretty

A few days ago Twitter was abuzz with complaints about Elections Canada advance polling staff not knowing many of the rules relating to acceptable forms of identification when voting. Sadly, I can't say that I was the least bit surprised that this was the case. Actually, I would have been more surprised if polling station employees had known all of the rules and had applied them properly.

I say this for two related reasons. Firstly, a few years ago my father and brother had the pleasure of working as scrutineers for a friend who was a candidate and were able to witness first hand the many errors made by polling station staff. Secondly, just a few days ago a friend of mine who will be working at a polling station for election described the training he received and the conditions under which he would be work, and lets just say that both are less than ideal.

One thing that my father, brother, and friend pointed out is that polling station employees have to put in brutally long days before they even get around to counting the votes. According to my friend, not only do the same two polling station attendees have to guard/watch the same ballot box from the time polling starts to the time it ends, they also don't get a break and need to shut down their box any time anyone needs to step away from the polling station (like when someone goes to the bathroom).

So then after already putting in a 12 or 13 hour work day these same polling station workers finally get down to counting the votes and filling out the associated forms. According to my father and brother the polling station attendants they worked with weren't particularly good at filling out these forms and sometimes didn't do it accurately. And why would they be familiar with these forms - many of them haven't filled in these forms before and those who have wouldn't have done it since the preceding election (which, in this case, was now three years ago). Of course, there are also issues relating adding and counting that could crop up under close scrutiny (so one hopes that there are scrupulous scrutineers).

Oh, and did you know how much training polling station employees have? According to my friend he received 3 hours of training. That's right, just a single three hour training session. He also suggested it wasn't a particularly effective 3 hour training session. I should note that one of the things my friend said he did learn was that in cases where the records would indicate that someone has voted but the voter claims they have not the polling station attendant is supposed to allow them to vote.

So of course given the limited training provided and that polling station employees are not overly familiar with the proper procedures and protocol and then when you throw fatigue into the mix does it surprise anyone that there are polling station employees making mistakes?

I guess I find it funny that so much time and effort has gone into policing campaign expenditures and donations yet relatively little effort seems to have been placed on ensuring that the actual voting process/vote counting process is not amenable to error or manipulation. And such issues will be come all the more important in cases where there are close races when a handful of votes actually makes a difference one way or the other.

Advance polling numbers from Election Canada

Elections Canada just released preliminary numbers on this past weekend's advance polling. It seems that close to 500 000 more people than in 2008 voted during the advance polling period (and this count doesn't include the number of special ballots that have been cast) bringing the total advance polling votes to just over 2 million.

Given that the advance polling period took place on a holiday weekend I am not sure how much of this 34.5% bump in turnout is really indicative of an overall increase in turnout, though I guess I would be a little surprised if we saw as low a rate of turnout as we saw in 2008.

The eventual overall turnout aside, I think that these advance polling numbers certainly don't pose a serious threat to the argument that holding the primary polling day on a non-working day might improve turnout/participation.

Oh, if 2008 is used as an indicator of turnout, the advance polling numbers might mean that upwards of 1/7 of the total number of votes have already been cast. I guess now I am curious to know if any polls have been conducted to figure out how these 2 million voters voted.

I should also note that I am quite pleased with Elections Canada for releasing these numbers so quickly.

Campaign Literature

We are now exactly one week from the end of this campaign period and our apartment has still not received a single piece of campaign literature or a visit from any of the local campaigns. How can this be? Are none of the parties interested in our votes/feedback?

I have also noticed that I have only seen any of this district's candidates at the various leaders' events that I have attended this campaign period. That being said, these events have provided me with opportunities to see all candidates from the major parties with the exception of the Conservative - an individual that I still haven't laid eyes on.

On a related note, just recently I realized that I don't think that Harper and the Conservatives have yet had a major campaign rally in Halifax or Nova Scotia. I have to imagine that the last week of the campaign won't be when they decided to dial up their efforts in Halifax.

Anyway, all of this to say that I don't think that it would be fair to say that Halifax has really been a battleground area this time around. I guess depending on how well the NDP do in this election this area may be a little bit more of a key area in the next election.

A Few Quick Notes 536

-Today turned out to be a pretty nice day. I guess it was fitting for Earth Day.

-Today,for the first time in quite a while, I took an afternoon nap - it was great.

-I made some chili for dinner tonight.

-As Easter is fast approaching I will soon need to start work on my Easter bread baking project. As things stand right now I will likely be taking care of most of this baking tomorrow afternoon or evening.

-Today was an advance polling day in the current Canadian election. Based on polling station reports from Neil and Rebecca and comments I have seen on Twitter I get the sense that these events were well attended. Actually, I am curious if we will ever see exactly how many people voted this way and if the numbers were higher than in past years when the advance polling day happened on a not-holiday.

-Actually, the more I think about it the more I think that voting day should be a holiday/non-work day. Such a change might also provide Canada Post of being a little more useful in terms of collecting special ballots on the final day of the election.

Internet coverage of election night

It seems that just recently some members of the media, including former member of Moxy Fruvous and current CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi, have just recently figured out that tweeting about elections results before all of the polls have closed is prohibited by the Canada Elections Act.

The most important section of this act seems to be s. 329, which would appear to pretty clearly prohibit such behaviour.

329. No person shall transmit the result or purported result of the vote in an electoral district to the public in another electoral district before the close of all of the polling stations in that other electoral district.

I guess what I find a little strange about this coming up now, especially coming from CBC employees, is that television and radio broadcasts produced by their employer have had staged broadcast coverage for years precisely because of this clause.  Did they fail to notice this fact during their coverage of the last election?

That being said, I think it is pretty clear that this section of the law was written without the understanding that it would restrict millions of people from engaging in everyday social media behaviour. Furthermore, given that it is almost impossible to expect 100% compliance with this law might it not make a little more sense to find a way of modifying the law so that loopholes/non-compliance don't negatively impact those who do comply with the prohibition?

Hitting the big time (again) with my hot vids

Moments ago I received a request from CPAC to re-post my video of the recent Green Party rally with Elizabeth May. Not surprisingly, I agreed to allow them to re-post the video. Hopefully in the near future I will be able to post a link to the new home of this video.



[Embedded video]

Amazingly, particularly given the (low) quality of most of my YouTube videos, this isn't the first time I have had interest in my videos from deep cable channels. As some of you may recall, a few years ago I licensed some of my YouTube vides of the Montreal hockey riots to the reality TV show Most Shocking.



[Embedded video]

Every time things like this happen I feel a little more legit and a little more like a citizen journalist. Of course every time I post about going to the grocery store and buying butter or doing my laundry I feel a little bit less like a citizen reporter and more like a person just filling space to make Montifax look like an active blog.

This 'vote mob' thing has gone a little too far

A few weeks ago some University of Guelph students engaged in pseudo-protest/public action that they called a vote mob. As far as I can tell their action involved them standing across from a Harper/Conservative event and indicating that they, as youth, planned on voting in this election.

Since this time the 'idea' has spread across the country and other university groups have tried to engage in similar behaviours. A few days ago CBC reported on 'similar' activities that had taken place throughout the Maritimes. Then just today I saw that MUNSU has posted a video of their attempted 'vote mob.'

Since first hearing about the concept I have been a little unclear about exactly what these actions were hoping to achieve. Now, as the idea travels further and further from the originators, the connection to a goal related to voting seems increasingly unclear. For instance, what is the MUNSU thing supposed to do? If anything I suspect that a video that shows a 'vote mob' of about 30 (if that) in an otherwise empty university campus might actually confirm that youth really aren't that engaged in voting. One would think that if students were engaged in voting and the whole 'vote mob' idea Atlantic Canada's largest university could pull enough attendees to at least fill a regular classroom.

So as much as flash mobs social networking based protesting are all the rage right now I think that the Canadian university student community might actually be better off if they just forgot about the whole 'vote mob' thing for the time being, or at least until they can figure what it means or how to actually get mass participation (and this participation problem may be tied to the first problem). As it stands right now, I can't help but feel a little embarrassed for the members of these vote mobs.

Democracy in Action

As I believe I recently mentioned, on Friday I got around to casting my special ballot.

As you can see, it was a pretty special moment.



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I just hope it makes it to Ottawa in time to be counted.

Campaign Event Recap 3

As I mentioned a few minutes ago, Jeannette, Neil, and I (along with our friend Andrew) decided to head to the Halifax farmer's market to try and see Jack Layton.

Almost as soon as we arrived on the premises of the market we observed signs that suggested we may have missed the big event. Most notably, reporters and people with NDP lanyards were streaming out of the building. Once we made it inside we did manage to spot the remnants of the event, including some of the partially packed equipment and local candidate/MP Megan Leslie.

I just realized that I didn't see anyone handing out literature. I don't think that I even so any evidence that any one had been handing out literature. And mention of the event seems to be absent from most of the relevant NDP Twitter feeds. I guess they were going for stealth this morning? It is unclear to me why they would try to sneak in and out of downtown Halifax, an NDP district, without letting anyone (aside from the media) know in advance.

As close as we came to actually seeing Jack Layton was walking by his campaign bus as we entered the farmer's market.

By the time we left the market the bus had pulled out and was nowhere to be seen.

Campaign Events 3

Word on the tweet is that Jack Layton is at the local farmer's market at the moment. We are thinking about heading over so that we can complete the set - Opposition Leaders who aren't Gilles Duceppe.

I am no longer with Ballot

Earlier this evening I finally got around to placing my completed special ballot in the mail. Hopefully it will arrive in Ottawa in the next few days.

I am glad that my special ballot wasn't caught up in the same kind of stink that some special at the University of Guelph were earlier today. Later in the day Elections Canada confirmed that the votes that had been cast through the contested process will stand and that similar practices will be discontinued for the duration of the election.

I am now with Ballot

Just in times for the debates my special ballot arrived. Who knows, maybe I will cast it immediately after the debate.

How classy.

How underwhelming?

And I have to provide my old writing utensil.

A Few Quick Notes 532

-As predicted, today was definitely a less than ideal day. While today was not rainy from beginning to end, it was overcast all day.

-It seems that both Jeannette and I had our headphones break on us recently. These developments necessitated a trip to a store where we each purchased replacement sets. The only upside seems to be that we both have slightly newer headphones (and in my case a set that seem to fit a little better).

-I made a satisfying, vegetable-heavy batch of chicken noodle soup for dinner tonight. Now that the leftover noodles have expanded it seems that we have more than we did after dinner.

-Though I haven't completely given up following online election coverage, I have had to dial back the time I spend following the up to the minute developments on Twitter. I just can't afford to spend 5 hours a day watching tweets flow in.

-Developments that I did manage to spend a few minutes following today related to the Auditor General. The first development of the day was a Canadian Press story releasing details in a leaked draft version of a report that makes it look as though the government may have broken the law when it came to spending related to the recent G8/G20 preparations. The second development, which hit a few hours later, had to do with Conservative MPs using an old quote from the Auditor General out of context to make it look as though she was saying something complementary about the Conservative government though she had actually been talking about the previous Liberal government. All in all, it doesn't sound as though it was a particularly good day for the Conservative party.

-Yesterday I should have mentioned that Jeannette helped out with our haircuts. Jeannette helped buff out noticeable lines that we had each given other.

A Few Quick Notes 531

-We had the pleasure of having another beautiful day today. It seems that the first part of this week isn't supposed to be quite as nice as this weekend was.

-I am now 5 for 33 for this year's RUTRTW contest. Maybe not surprisingly, all of the 5 prizes have been been free coffees.

-This weekend I was again able to take advantage of the fact that our building has not yet increased the laundry prices as promised. I am quite happy that the promised price increase has not yet been implemented, though this impending doom of the price change is a little nerve-wracking.

-A few days ago it became clear that one of the two local grocery stores has stopped carrying pate. This seems a strange development as they had been carrying a number of varieties until a few weeks ago and because the other store is continuing to carry a number of varieties. What I can't figure out is why this change would have happened at this particular moment in time.

-A few days ago I saw a CBC story about a local sexual assault that had a pretty distrubing line.

The woman told police she recognized him as the same stranger who had touched her three times previously in similar incidents.

How is it that similar attacks have happened to the same woman three times?

-Gilles Duceppe seems to have requested a time change for the French language debate from Thursday to Wednesday because of a scheduling conflict - with a NHL hockey game.

Though I get the sense that at least a few of the other parties aren't opposed to such a change, I haven't heard if the change will actually be approved.

Update: Neil just informed me that the debate has in fact been changed and will now be taking place on Wednesday.

-Neil and I traded haircuts this afternoon.

Campaign Event Recap 2 (update)

First off, sadly, it seems that that my Elizabeth May rally video is attracting quite as many viewers in its early hours as my Ignatieff video of a week ago did.

Secondly, while at the rally I noticed quite a number of media types, including Global, CTV, CBC, and Canadian Press cameramen (and they were all men) and several additional reporters. I should be clear that I did see at least one CBC reporter and at least one CBC cameraman. Given these sightings I was a little surprised to see that the story about the rally that CBC has on their website is from the Canadian Press. If they are just going to re-post content from the Canadian press I don't quite understand why they would even send reporters to such an event. This practice seems a little wasteful to me (particularly when my sense is that the Canadian Press had only one guy there instead of two).

I guess that's it for now.

Campaign Event Recap 2

As I mentioned earlier today, Neil and I were thinking about going to the Green Party's Halifax 'Rally for Democracy' to see what Elizabeth May had to say. As planned, we did manage to make it to the event.

Much to my surprise, the event was actually quite well attended. On stage May suggested that it may have been the largest election event to have yet taken place in Halifax this campaign. While this may be true, I think that the Liberal event last weekend may have given this event a run for its money.

Almost as soon as we arrived at the event we spotted May. She appeared to be giving an interview to a TV-based media outlet. This interview seemed to go on for quite some time, much longer than I might have expected.

While this aforementioned interview was ongoing a banjo player was entertaining the masses.

This guy played for quite a while. It was really a nice touch. Actually, shortly after listening to the music for a while I realized that something like this was missing from the Liberal rally, and they really should had someone providing a little bit of pre-rally entertainment to keep the crowd up-beat and motivated for the talks to come. Though a small, gesture, having this performance was really great.

Eventually, a few speakers came to the stage to talk about the Green Party and issues that they have been facing. I think the third speaker was the candidate in our Halifax riding, Michael Dewar. Dewar gave a full-bodied address and was quite a bit more animated that the other speakers.

After speaking for a few minutes Dewar introduced May, who, as promised, spoke primarily about issues relating to Canadian democracy and the upcoming televised debates instead of traditional Green Party topics (though a few references to such issues did slip in).



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I was particularly pleased to hear a few of her comments about the role the media has been playing in this election and that they have been complicit in facilitating some of the questionable practices of parties when it comes to having overly controlled campaign events. Sadly, as she noted, this isn't an issue that is likely to get much play in the national media.

Anyway, though the rally wasn't quite over, we decided to leave shortly after May finished speaking.