StigmergicWeb

From CBC news - Clinton cautions Canada against moving to privatize health care

Its great to hear leaders from other countries praise our health care system in Canada. As a nation, it should be one of the things that we hold up as an example of the best we have achieved. During our most recent pregnancy, my wife and I were fortunate to have timely access to skilled medical professionals when we had need of their services. It works because we think of health care as a public good, and not as an opportunity for profit. Bill Clinton said:

The last thing anyone in Canada should do is let the “health-care finance tail wag the health-care dog,”

I think we need to keep in mind that we could and should say the same thing about education at all levels, from pre-school to post-secondary.

I suppose we don’t need to elect Bill Clinton, since we already have this guy.

If you have been wondering where all the blogging, podcasting candidates are so far in the current federal election in Canada, I direct your attention to Elgin Wyatt, NDP candidate for the Battlefords-Lloydminster constituency. A disclaimer is in order - Elgin is a colleague and friend of mine, and I’m also managing his web site during the campaign.

Regardless, I still think that his campaign represents not only a change in political campaigning in Canada, but maybe an evolution in the relationship between the government and the population at large. Elgin is putting his ideas up front where anyone can see them (including his response to some of notions that I would describe as racist). Comments are open on his blog (filtering for spam of course - online casinos and pharmacies aren’t a major campaign issue), and he is responding to the comments. Wow - we seem to have a genuine dialog going on here. What a refreshing change from the federal party leaders who seem to have had their craniums exorcised of any thoughts that stray from their talking points. ;^) A new development - Elgin is now podcasting. Well, sort of podcasting, but give me a little slack - I’m trying to change the world, and we can’t expect major alterations all at once. Technically speaking, these are radio ads that we are posting up on the web site. Anyone is welcome to subsribe to the podcast, or listen to the audio on the website via the uber-cool audio player plugin for wordpress.

We just might be onto something that could change the relationship between elected officials and the population at large. If you think its a worthwhile idea, you might even consider moving to the Battlefords-Lloydminster constituency before January 23. :^)

I just popped over to take a look at D’Arcy’s blog, and noticed that he has put a graphic and link for the New Democratic Party of Canada on his blog. D’Arcy and I have had some earlier conversations about politics and this election; perhaps these inspired him to put up the graphic. In any case, I’m followed his lead and put a logo and link on the sidebar. We even happen to support the same party - how about that! I’d encourage all Canadian bloggers to do the same and put a logo on your blog to show your political leanings, even if you don’t support the same party I do.

I’ve also put a link to the website for my local candidate, Elgin Wyatt. Elgin just happens to be a teaching colleague of mine, and I’m looking after his website during the campaign. We’re using WordPress (natch) to run the site and manage the content, and adding a few plugins as needed to look after other details. I’m excited to be involved in this because I think that one of the next steps in the evolution of Canadian politics will be the rise of many, many candidates, MPs and MLAs who will be talking directly to their constituents through tools like blogs. I’m surprised, or perhaps disappointed is a better term, that there are so few elected officials in Canada who maintain a blog themselves. I think that the citizens of Canada are longing for someone who will speak directly to them, and who will keep the lines of communication open both ways to establish an authentic conversation. Comments on Elgin’s blog, by the way, are enabled although comments are subject to approval to avoid comment spam. Are there any other candidates or currently elected officials in Canada who are blogging?

Sigh - didn’t we just go through this less than two years ago? I suppose the minority government lasted longer than many were expecting it would.

I’ve just bee taking a look at the web sites for our three major federal parties, and I’ve noticed a few interesting things about how the parties are using computer mediated communication tools in the campaign. I’ll post up some observations and thoughts during the course of the campaign.

To begin, I should state that I am a member in good standing of the New Democratic Party and I have worked in many federal and provincial campaigns. I have designed candidate web sites for campaigns, and did some of the work setting up the web site for the MLA for the Battlefords, the Honourable Len Taylor (and Len is one of the few people I know that is truly deserving of that title). And I’ll probably end up putting together a web site for our federal candidate in the Battlefords-Lloydminster riding. (Hmmm - what to use for a CMS - wordpress, drupal, or just the sheer anarchy of a wiki?)

So - my cursory observations thus far, having looked at the web sites for the Liberals, Conservatives, and NDP:

• Both the Conservatives and the Liberals prominently display the word blog on their web sites. I’m not sure how I feel about this - it feels to me like when a 50 year old high school principal wearing a suit and tie tries to use gangsta rap slang to impress the kids with how cool and hip he is. Look kids, I’ve got a blog. Maybe we can hook up later on MSN to talk about how much we support youth. To make matters worse, the Conservative blog does not have any author identified. Here’s a clue for political campaign managers - a blog without an author is called a press release! At least the Liberals are more honest, and they admit that the blog is written by Paul Martin’s speech writer.

  Throughout the campaign, Scott Feschuk — chief speechwriter to Paul Martin — will be filing reports from the road using his Blackberry, a wireless handheld device that enables political staffers to stay in touch, instantly communicate with the media and develop freakish, superstrong thumbs with which they can crush most European sedans.

  OK - I give them points for having a sense of humour, and for admitting that the blog is by a political lackey, not the leader himself. NDP blogs? I haven’t seen any yet. I hope that we see a real blog from Jack Layton sometime before the campaign is over.
• Podcasts - the Conservatives are podcasting, the Liberals say they are going to be podcasting, and the NDP don’t have any form of audio or video online. C’mon guys, we’re falling behind on this one.
• The NDP have a nice RSS link on the bottom of their page (yay team!), and when I hit my Subscribe with Bloglines bookmarklet on the Conservative site, about 10 different RSS feeds are listed. The Liberals seem to be somewhat RSS-less (its funnier if you say it phonetically)
• I may be wrong, but I think the NDP are using Drupal or a derivative for their site. I think it is deeply cool that we have a party using open source software for a content management system on their website (the software in the last campaign was an absolute usability nightmare).

More observations to come later. Is anyone else out there as happy as I am to have a federal election campaign to watch over the holidays?