Vote on Monday

If you live in Canada and you're old enough then you need to vote on Monday, May 2nd, 2011. Starting in 1867, voter turn out has always been between 60-80% but in the last election it was a record low of 58.8%. I am not sure why so little of the population turned out to vote, but I really hope more people care about this election. Apparently there has been more than 2 million people vote in advance, so that is awesome.

So, my first message is "VOTE". No matter what party you are voting for, it makes sense to at least pay attention to the direction the country is going in and get involved at least enough to tick a box rather than hiding in the dark. I know it's a big country, but even if you don't think it affects you now, I'm sure sometime in the future taxes, wages, employment, healthcare, the environment and/or Canada's global reputation will matter to you.

You may notice that a lot of ad campaigns by the political parties focus on ripping apart their opponents - almost as much as they do on making promises about how they can do better. Normally I would say that this is a horrible practice and really everyone should just focus on making promises and then actually keeping them. Also, it is hard to say you will do better if you haven't actually been the one in power - you have little proof that you will do better. Now, I say "Normally" because this election I make an exception because I find the history of what has been done by those in power to be absolutely horrible. This election I urge you to please, please, PLEASE vote for anyone BUT the conservatives. That is, DO NOT vote for the conservatives. Stephen Harper has been slowly wrecking the country. There are many examples of it. But first something positive.

I am going to vote NDP, mostly because in my riding that is who will beat the conservative candidate, but as a bonus, NDP is who I usually vote for anyway. In my riding of Surrey North, the NDP candidate is Jasbir Sandhu. He is an all-around good guy who has lived in Surrey for more than 30 years, owns a small business, and has been an instructor at the Justice Institute of BC. I also agree with Jack Layton's stances, especially giving less money to oil companies and more to the environment. I do not own a car but I do have to breath the air. Yes I know oil is used for a lot more, but these are huge companies that don't need help.

Ok, so now onto what is wrong with the current conservative government. First of all, there is a ton of organizations and websites that seem to be against Stephen Harper. Like me, they seem to be more focused on getting him out of power than who replaces him. This is scary and I've never seen anything like the hatred before but looking at all they say and what is in the news, I understand and agree with them. Check out Project Democracy which is specifically gearing to helping Canadian pick the candidate in their riding that is most likely to beat the conservatives. This is to stop votes from being split between the other parties while the conservatives win.

It is not hard to find websites describing all Harper has done. The website below sums most of it up.
Which Canada will You vote for? - This site provides many comic strips about what Stephen Harper has done in power. Each strip can stand alone if you don't have time to read them all. If this were fiction it would seem ridiculous, but it's reality and it's scary.
Comics Evidence - Yes, those are just comics so how can we trust them? Well they also provide a page with a zillion links to the news stories that backup the comics.

On top of all that Harper somehow finds a way to be full of himself. Basically in the end I have a very hard time imagining anyone taking the country in a worse direction.

Life is Sweet

Life has been busy and I have neglected this blog for a couple months, so here is an update.

In the last few months, I worked hard on editing my thesis, successfully defended it and submitted an 8 page paper to a conference on my thesis work. I am done all my school requirements now and will attend the convocation ceremony on June 15th! I'm not interested in doing a PhD, so I'm all done school. I am the main developer of my research group's software though, so they are going to hire me full time to continue working on its development. Thus, my normal life will continue without the thesis stress and with more hours of software development than before. The current deadline is a demo at a conference on May 7th and 8th.

I haven't had much time for fun and games with all the thesis work, but I regularly went to drop-in ultimate and indoor soccer to stay active. Soccer is over now because it was through school but ultimate is just getting busier now that the weather is improving. Today I ran in the Vancouver Sun Run, the largest time 10km run in North America. I finished it with the same time as last year, 52 minutes. Maybe next year I'll have more time for training.

I haven't had that much time for socializing but recently I've spent more time hanging out with other grad students, as well as the usual board game nights with friends and making sushi with my siblings. I also traveled to Edmonton for a week shortly after defending my thesis to visit my friend Toni. The trip was really fun and relaxing even though I was sick the entire time. We played in the snow, went to the museum, watched a lot of movies and played many games. It was great to escape my regular life for a while, although I did do some paper editing while there.