Ian Gartshore

Let’s be frank: Fear motivates us! No wonder politicians love using it! Currently fear is being used in two different ways by political parties and “neutral third parties.” The Conservatives are masters at scaring people. They are constantly sending fear-invoking propaganda to their supporters. During this (and past) elections their main focus is to invoke fear in the electorate. They got some bang for their buck (for a while) by whipping up hatred against Muslims (the niqab issue), and are now using fear to shore up support from Conservatives moving their vote to other parties. When Canada was becoming a nation very similar tactics were used in 1849 in an attempt to keep Canada racially “pure,” that is, free of francophones. The current technique is the same, only the lingo has changed. In the words of a Huffington Post article ,“...the fear of francophones has been replaced by a fear of Muslims. Instead of rebellion, Stephen Harper talks about terrorism. Instead of...

As the Harper-led (dictated?) Conservatives continue on their path of wrecking the Canada we once knew by destroying both our economy and ecology, our peace-making place on the world stage, ripping up public support for the people of this land while handing the country over to corporations and China, instituting a secret police act that is reminiscent of Nazi Germany, plus far more, the hand-wringing among most informed Canadians is reaching a crescendo in this election year. A concerted effort is now underway to convince all the other political parties to cooperate in order to prevent another Conservative-controlled government. Sadly the egos of all parties but the Greens are preventing this kind of cooperation. So, it is thought, the next best option is to convince the electorate to vote for the party that stands the best chance of defeating the Conservatives. This is called “Strategic Voting.” Problem: it didn’t work the last time. In fact the Conservatives actually won more sea...