Hubert Chathi

Hubert Chathi: Supreme Court of Canada makes a sensible #patent ruling

Hubert Chathi: I'm not happy that Obama won. I'm relieved that Romney didn't. #politics

Hubert Chathi: Dalhousie offers restorative justice option for students

Hubert Chathi: Congratulations to @catherinefife.com for bringing the #NDP to #Waterloo

Hubert Chathi: @westjet.com is adding "premium economy" seats with more leg room, which means less leg room for the rest of us :(

Hubert Chathi: Lenovo CEO distributes $3M of his bonus to junior-level employees

Hubert Chathi: Man who protested TSA by stripping is acquitted of indecent exposure #security

Hubert Chathi: ironic headline of the day: "Calgary 911 service affected by small downtown fire"

Hubert Chathi: Schneier's take on Hawley's essay #security

Hubert Chathi: Kip Hawley is not an idiot? #security

Hubert Chathi: "We've done some checking, and we've found that we need better researchers." #elxn41 #politics

Hubert Chathi: wouldn't call complaints in 45 (and counting) out of 308 ridings "isolated" #politics #elxn41

Hubert Chathi: is glad that our ministers understand the bills that they table. #privacy

Hubert Chathi: R.I.P. Jack Layton http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/08/22/layton-obituary.html

Hubert Chathi: what does it say when the government is ready to stop the Air Canada strike, but not the Canada Post strike? http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/06/14/air-canada-strike.html

Hubert Chathi: World's biggest #refugee camp is full http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/06/10/refugee-camp-kenya.html #socialjustice

I voted last night (we even brought Ivan along, although he slept through the whole voting process), which means that I'm allowed to complain about the results. So complain, I will.

A Conservative majority? Really? Canada, what were you thinking?!?! The Conservatives have shown contempt for parliament, shut down the house twice to avoid dealing with issues, broke their own election law (if not the letter of the law, at least the spirit of it), among other things, and you give them a majority? (Granted, over 60% of Canadians who cared enough to vote voted against the Conservatives.)

The winners

Stephen Harper and the Conservatives: Harper got the majority he wanted, and proved to Canada that he is the Teflon man. His FUD campaign worked, and he spooked people with the coalition boogey man. He somehow managed to convince people that he had something to do with Canada's economic recovery. He now has free reign for four years.

Elizabeth May and the Green Party: won in her riding, so we finally have a Green Party MP. It will be interesting to see what she does in Parliament. Maybe the Broadcasting consortium will have a harder time ignoring her next time.

The NDP: Official Opposition status, and the best election result they've ever had.

The Liberals: Michael Ignatief was probably the worst thing to happen to the Liberals for a long time. With the loss, Ignatief has resigned. Liberal Party of Canada, please pick someone good to lead you this time.

The losers

The Green Party: even though they finally have a seat, they dropped in the popular vote, but then, that's to be expected in a tight race, with first-past-the-post: the less-popular parties lose support as everyone votes for the lesser of two evils.

Michael Ignatief and the Liberals: the first time they ended up in third place. Nothing they attacked the Conservatives on would stick, and they were unable to make an issue out of anything. Ignatief even lost his own seat.

Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc: at one point, they were the official opposition, and now they don't even have official party status. Duceppe lost his own seat as well. Is this the beginning of the end for the Bloc? Or did Québec just get charmed by the NDP this time? If he wasn't a separatist, Duceppe would have probably made the best Prime Minister out of all the party leaders.

Canada: the Conservatives pulled off some stupid things when they were held in check by a minority. What will happen now that they don't have to care about what anyone else says?

Electoral reform

Electoral reform is dead for the next four years. The NDP will push for it, but the Conservatives will ignore them. They've benefited a lot from the current system. Why would they change it?

Although Proportional Representation gets the most attention, I think that there is one major flaw with most PR systems: it gives independents a harder time. I would prefer a system in which voters rank candidates by preference. Condorcet would be my preference. STV/IRV would be my second pick. Even Approval voting would be an improvement. Note that these systems are not necessarily mutually exclusive with Proportional Representation. But I think that the calls for PR would be lessened if we used one of the above systems.

Shenanigans

Someone has been telling people that their polling station has moved. Nobody knows who is behind it, yet, but it's quite a serious offence, and I hope that whoever it is gets found out.

Hubert Chathi: Awesome http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/02/22/body-scanners-airport.html #security #privacy

Hubert Chathi: Canada lags in caring for poorest children: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/12/03/unicef-children-report003.html #socialjustice

Hubert Chathi: airline #security season again: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/11/16/body-scanner-backlash-air-travel.html and http://www.newser.com/story/105351/tsa-pats-down-3-year-old.html