dimanche 27 septembre 2009

Oh dear, what can I do?

On November 1st all the near 2 000 Québec municipalities go to the polls to choose their administrators for the next 4 years.  We used to have independant candidates for most seats, including the mayor's.  Nowadays, most everywhere, we have party backed slates.
Our city of Longueuil has two municipal parties.  The one in place presently has been running the town for the last 27 years.  It has been tainted with quite a few seemingly conflicts of interests although all inquiries have concluded that even if some indiscretions had taken place no actual misdeeds had happen since all the officials involved, even if their companies or legal practice had profited by municipal actions, had their belongings  in blind trusts and they had no say in the goings on.  Still it makes me uneasy.
The other party is run by a former Bloc Québécois MP in Ottawa.  Now the Bloc was set up to help bring about Québec's sovereignty and be a watchdog in Ottawa.  It is now clear that soveriegnty is a most elusive goal and that the Bloc' deputation has achieved nothing but keeping Québec fron the decision making process in Ottawa irrespective of who governs.  Thus it has become irrelevant and remaining there is incoherent.  The lady resigned recently for family reasons (?) but soon emerged as a municipal pârty leader and mayoral candidate.  Can she be trusted to be a coherent mayor?  Is she part of a soveriegnist movement to take control of our city halls?  Several Bloc and PQ MPs or MPPs are running all over.
If the incumbent party is of dubious morals, if the rival one has, or could have, a hidden agenda, what then are the voters supposed to do?

8 commentaires:

  1. Ah, politicians everywhere carry big baggage.

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  2. Big baggaga to go nowhere, unfortunately.

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  3. Some scattered thoughts. 2000 Québec municipalities seems quite a big number: Quebec is huge! Sometimes here when people don't like *any* party they don't vote. I never liked the non voting option though. This lady seems the most ambiguous and dangerous. The other option could be better.

    Mi sembra di aver capito che si tratta di un momento delicato per il Canada e per il Quebec. Tutto il mondo è paese (same things happen everywhere). Ma qui è peggio. Pire.

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  4. Québec is three times the size of France, 15 times that of the UK. The population (7 000 000) is mostly along the St-Laurent river but reaches all the way to Hudson Straight in the Artic. There used to be a lot more before Mme Harel then Municipal Affairs Minister and the PQ government forced many to merge in order to create more populous entities and cut costs. More populous happened but cutting costs did not. The more sparsely populated new entities are so vast that some require over an hour to cross. The largest, Radisson, along James Bay, is the size of Belgium.

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  5. Three times the size of France and only 7,000,000! Lots of space then. I envy you guys, we are overcrowded here.

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  6. Well it does generate other problems: isolation, hard to reach and provide services and so forth. Some remote villages can be reached only by boat, when there is no ice, or by plane. On the North Shore, I have a friend who travels by plane berween his 3 offices because no roads connect them.
    Overcrowding is a problem, the reverse is no less a problem.

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  7. Yes, of course, but it is natural to desire what one doesn't have. Plus less population must necessarily mean less pollution, hence greater health, I suppose.

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  8. I may be a bit late commenting on your post, MoR. However even if less pollution in isolated areas, the lack of services does not make for greater health and the life expectation in those is several years lower. Also they more exposed to catching viruses from visitors since their immune system is less solicited hence produces less antibodies. Nothing is perfect.

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