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 In the words of a Huffington Post article ,“...the fear of francophones has been replaced by a fear of Muslims.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...

This week I was invited to submit a few paragraphs to a popular local blog, saying what my campaign platform was about.  I appreciate the opportunity! What I wrote about are the areas I hear the most concern about: Jobs, health, the environment, and how to pay for all of these.  The exercise of being concise, yet detailed enough to cover the many important subjects, is a good exercise. If you wish to see what I wrote, the summary can be found at the Go Nanaimo Blog .