on november 13 we’ll be having province-wide municipal elections in ontario. being a resident of mississauga this ostensibly deserves my attention.
a quick google search for: mississauga municipal elections results in little more than the official mississauga.ca Vote 2006 microsite … except for a handy guide to maintaining pro-life voting consistency a few results down, as useless as that is.
…not very much to build on.
getting a list of the candidates in my ward was easy, but apart from peter ferreira, the incumbent in the race, none of the other candidates has any web presence. the same goes for all the other wards as well. virtually ZERO web presence.
alright, so maybe municipal politics doesn’t need to exist online, it is after all of mainly local consequence, a grassroots thing spreading through the community by word of mouth and the local media (more on that later). ya fucking right! the very idea that the local affairs of a city as big as mississauga can live OFF the web is completely detached, especially when an organization such as the fcm can have the influence it does on federal decisions and without which a guy like jack layton wouldn’t be where he is now.
anyway, off to the trustworthy local media:
well, our only local ‘media’ source, the mississauga news – an envelope of flyers in print form and a similarly barren eyesore in electronic form (despite having won the newspaper website of the year award from suburban newspapers of america, an american trade association that has very little to do with news and very much to do with ad-driven revenue) – has actually reported on a few candidates in the lead up to the election.
the newsworthy items are:
1. carolyn parrish – tales of potential bribery in ward 6
2. adnan hashmi – also mentioned in the above article. this ward 10 candidate actually was charged with bribery
3. eve adams – strong-arming residents to put her signs on their lawns.
too bad all of this coverage has everything to do with why we SHOULDN’T vote.
so where do i get information on the councillors in my ward?
how can a democracy function like this? especially on a level where decisions affect citizens locally … things like schools, strip malls, public transportation, the environment, local police, in the case of mississauga, more strip malls.
somehow, our collective decision to focus on gay marriage, or terrorism, or haiti is leaving local policies and politicians unchecked … how long can we keep ourselves divorced from what happens in our neighbourhoods?
i haven’t been alive long enough to really know this, but i’m pretty sure that for some time now a deceitful mediated narrative has gradually been replacing genuinely reasoned skepticism, dilligence and deference.
internationally, we’re fucking great at espousing the virtues of freedom and democracy – collectively sermonizing and enforcing what we aren’t, while increasingly deviating from what we should be. what we aren’t is a properly functioning democracy and what we are becoming is a rhetoric machine, a menace to future generations who will hopefully look back on this period with condemnation instead of continuing a legacy of active ignorance.
the bus was scheduled to arrive in the tunnel at 9.41pm. i waited downstairs where a blinking sign alerts commuters of the bus’ arrival. one blink of the sign later and i made my way to the stairs. two blinks later i was at the top. coinciding with the final step of my ascent was the bus’ ass departing the tunnel. 3 blinks and it was gone! an overwhelming sense of confusion carried me to that edge where i again saw the bus’ ass leave the subway station with the arrogant glow of the 20W LED sign tattooed on the small of its back laughing in my face. the bus had driven right through the station. in a split second my brain calculated the odds of me running that bus down and i made a choice. “GO!”. i’m really really fast, so i took off. i caught it at the next stop no more than 200 yards away. the doors opened, someone climbed on and i arrived almost exactly as the doors were closing. they closed. i pounded on the door. the bitch drove off. i waited in the rain for the next bus.
