Dion’s no angel

[Re: “Canada’s widening income gap,” Insect, News, Oct. 23] I find it terribly ironic that your insect of the week is a direct result of policies promoted by your angel of the week—Stéphane Dion.

As a member of both Chrétien and Martin’s cabinets, Stéphane Dion was touting deep cuts to public investment (e.g. health care, education etc.) and liberalization of labour markets (remember the FTAA?).

Moreover, during his brief tenure as leader of the Liberals, Stéphane Dion stood numerous times in the house of commons and defended huge corporate tax cuts (with nothing in return to combat social inequality) and instructed his caucus to allow passage of 43 Harper motions (in order to avoid an election, which we got anyway).

To be sure, Stéphane Dion is certainly no insect, but an angel? Come on now, let’s get a hold of ourselves! In fact, Dion has been a stalwart adversary of the Canadian progressive movement.

In the recent federal election, amidst the usual Liberal fear-mongering, Dion was full-on red-baiting: gallivanting all over Canada proclaiming that the NDP were no more than “19th century socialists who don’t understand the economy.”

This is ignoble, to say the least; but also sadly hypocritical: in last week’s press conference, Dion was bellyaching about how Canada didn’t get to know the “real Stéphane” while he himself is guilty of the same disinformation and slander.

>>Craig Sauvé

Voter apathy
is a statement

[Re: “Down with apathy,” Letters, Oct. 23] “Apathy and low voter turn-out plagued this past federal election.” Seriously, Illsley? Give us a break. I am so sick of this condescending, paternalistic bullshit! Are you bitter because the NDP looked stupid again, or are you a Stéphane Dion kind of person?

What 40 per cent of abstention actually means is that this whole god-awful system is corrupt and that fewer and fewer people have any sort of faith in it. Whether people choose to abstain out of principle, because they have more important or meaningful matters to attend to on that particular day, or simply because they are just repulsed by those vile, pretentious, arrogant bastards who run the political circus, it’s their own choice. And it’s a choice that’s at least as valid as actually picking one pathetic clown out of this cringe-inducing lot.

By the way, no soldier has ever died in any war to defend our so-called privilege to vote: they have been sacrificed to defend the privileges and interests of the political class.

Yes, the same dirty bunch of plutocrats who are now sending kids out to kill and be killed in Afghanistan. That (and plundering other people’s resources) is what wars have always been about. You can vote for this charade if you so please, but spare us your moralistic crap when others choose not to! Élections: Piège à cons!

>>Pat C.

Conservative lock-out

[Re: “Election notebook,” News, Oct. 9] Poking into the entrails of election campaigns can be fun sometimes. I recently saw a very catchy election slogan downtown: “Vote ABC—Anything but Conservative.”

And this slogan seems to have worked because the Conservatives didn’t win a single seat in Montreal in the just-concluded federal elections.

>>Manish Patwari

Feminism rides another wave

[Re: “Feminists wave in,” Front, News, Oct. 9] I was an attendee and volunteer at the Waves of Resistance 2008 this past Thanksgiving weekend in which over 500 young Canadian feminists and three international guests participated.

Women between the ages of 14 and 35 took part in a variety of workshops and discussions on women’s issues. It was fantastic to see and meet so many different women from across Canada. Especially in light of the recently re-elected Conservative government, which has attempted to eliminate a woman’s right to choose, decimated the Status of Women and has the lowest percentage of female MP’s of all the parties.

In short, they don’t represent Canadian women and are not good for Canadian women present and future.

We, the participants at Waves, will fight against the current unjust state of our society in order to maintain the rights as well as social changes Canadian women have fought so hard to get.

>>Veronica Crespo

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