WAP Welcomes Ms. May to Ottawa

Good morning Elizabeth!

Congratulations on being the first Green MP to hit Ottawa!

Also for being one of the first woman party leader!

We, as women, are thrilled to have you come to Ottawa. One voice that speaks truthfully, with focus and integrity, is all we need to start reversing the awful trend we are now in.

WAP/PAF offers you our support in Ottawa. Just let us know!

Esther Matharu
www.womensallianceparty.ca




Dear Esther,

Thank you so much for your kind, supportive words. On May 2nd, we made history and proved that Canadians wanted change. I am honoured to thank you as Canada’s first elected Green Party Member of Parliament.

There is no way to thank all of the people who made this historic win possible. Across the country, Green Party candidates worked hard in their ridings, canvassing, attending debates, and articulating the Green vision for Canada. In my own riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands, we had a team of 2000 volunteers working on the ground to deliver our message. It has been incredibly inspiring to see people join me, whether at 6AM in the pouring rain to wave at morning commuters, or to go door-to-door canvassing with me, or joining me at the all-candidates debates. Without our team of dedicated volunteers, this win would not have been possible.

With my election, the people of Saanich-Gulf Islands have committed to rejecting the politics of cynicism and fear, and have embraced the politics of hope and cooperation. We need to bring respect back to the House of Commons.

Our work has just begun, and now I am going to need your help to prove that one Green MP with a different approach can remain free from hyper-partisanship and cynicism brought to the House by Canada’s old-line parties.

One MP, free from negative politics can make a difference, and I promise you that I will never shirk from speaking truth to power, nor will I embrace the politics of spin.

Thank you again for your support,

Elizabeth May, O.C.

MP Elect for Saanich-Gulf Islands

Leader

Green Party of Canada

greenparty.ca

1-866-868-3447

Oh Canada, What Have We Done?

Prime minister Stephen Harper – Canada's own George Bush – during a 2008 speech in Ottawa. Photograph: Chris Wattie/REUTERS

Canada's Cold New Dawn

by Heather Mallick

published in The Guardian London

Canada woke up to an election shock this morning. It was a self-inflicted jolt, and all the more painful for that. After three minority governments in seven years – all following inconclusive, forgettable elections that never gave the Conservatives the solid majority they were sweating for – a man of the hard right named Stephen Harper finally has his win.

He triumphed over Michael Ignatieff – known to the British as a fine writer, historian and BBC talking head – who had returned to Canada to lead the Liberals, often described as the country's traditional party of government. Instead, Ignatieff got whacked, and the left-leaning New Democratic party did very well indeed, astonishing even themselves. To put this in British terms, the Liberals (New Labour) were humiliated, the New Democrats (the Liberal Democrats) came in a powerful second and a Canadian version of George W Bush, minus the warmth and intellect, is now prime minister.

What happens now is the full-scale Americanisation of Canada, hinted at over the past seven years by Harper – he fired people who talked too loudly about this – but not acted upon because Canadians have always valued their distinctiveness from the angry country in decline south of the border.

Please read rest of the article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/03/canada-stephen-harper-american-politics

Esther Matharu on Election Blues

I don’t know about you but after the elections, a great tiredness came over me. The idea that we had to continue to fight for such elementary things as votes that count (electoral reform), child-care support (why should something be run as a business when the majority of Canadians see child care as a national human rights issue like the right to health care), and the sheer offensiveness of the guns, jails and wars that the current PM will exact from our purses at the expense of our poor, is staggering. Enough to send anyone to bed with an acute headache!

After a few days of numbness, time to lick our wounds, as eloquently wrote David Julianan Wightman in the X-Ray Magazine (http://xraymagazine.ca/22/) editorial, we pick up the pieces and start thinking of what now?

Post mortems are sometimes fun, but it all adds to the fatigue. I personally am very selective with my post mortems. I’d rather not think about the elections. I’d rather think about nice things, spring, for example.

But it won’t go away. Is there any other angle to this? Happily, we can thank women for most of the good news.

There are more women in the House than ever before – a jump from 20% to 25%. That means every fourth person is a woman, instead of every fifth. Thanks to NDP.

Elizabeth May will be in Parliament, and she has already indicated that the moment they start ‘bickering’ to use a now infamous word use by a contemptuous person, she simply walk out. What a powerful message! I hope that every woman in the House will follow her out. I hope they will all go and have a cup of tea and discuss how best to run our country. I hope they will talk about issues and not parties, about families and not money, about peace and not war.

How about we envision what we would like to see happening in the next years?

Certainly the ridicule that Canada has heaped on its head - an unpopular leader backed by less than 40% of the electorate is now sitting in a place of practically unbridled power because of the weakness of our constitution - is something we would like very much to see reversed. To quote the late Eugene Forsey’s excellent ‘How Canadians Govern Themselves’ (7^th edition): The constitution still contains not one syllable on prime ministerial qualifications, the method of election or removal, or the prime minister’s powers (except for the calling of constitutional conferences).

So who writes up and/or protects the Constitution? The Supreme Court. It is this body that interprets the written Constitution and defines the limits of federal and provincial powers. Who appoints the nine judges who sit on the Supreme Court? The Governor General on the advice of the national cabinet. Ah yes. But who appoints the Governor General, or for that matter the national cabinet members? Her Majesty the Queen, accepts the advice of the Prime Minister on who should be the Governor General and he/she chooses the cabinet . There you have it, full circle. The PM appoints the cabinet members, the Governor General and the Supreme Court judges, who are the only ones who can interpret the constitution and define the powers (of the PM!).

Maybe I am wrong, and please correct me, but I think something is very wrong with our constitution which gives so much power to one person. One only hopes that in our current leader we will have a benevolent dictator who will rule us with benevolence.

But back to the future. The Women’s Alliance Party says stop spilling soup over who split the votes and how, and get down to having a major constitutional reform. Call out the lawyers, the pundits and the wise women and men. Now is time to put democracy back on the agenda and see what needs to be done to protect it. Obviously it needs safeguarding

Women's Alliance Welcomes People's Political Power Party

Esther writes to the newly-formed People's Political Power Party of Canada.

April 28, 2011

It is good that Canada has a new political party that stands for peace and harmony. All parties who believe in the same values need to get together and refuse to be divided by partisianship politics. Divide and rule? Old trick! Focus on one Leader? Destroys team work and unity. Together we can say, NO!

Esther

Women’s Alliance Party

Dear Esther,

Thank you for writing to us.

When absolute peace and harmony exist within a nation, boundaries, limitations, separation and division can no longer exist. This can only become a reality when its people work together as a family, side by side as brother and sister with the same vision at heart and in mind: in working together for the betterment of the nation as a whole - not for the select few. The foundation of such is absolute honesty, respect and true love for all.

We have seen proof that Canada can become such a nation of peace and harmony. In a time of disaster, such as the floods we are seeing in Canada now, we see people coming together of all races, classes, faiths; rich or poor, working side by side to help one another, from impending disaster. They truly work together as one for a greater cause other than themselves. We see this happen also in a time of war, but why not in a time of peace? It is not a dream.

A true Leader is one who serves. Like a good mother or father they truly learn to serve the ones they are entrusted to, by love. Too many so-called 'leaders' of today think they are so intelligent and know everything, with plans and agendas to overtake a nation and its people, not learning to listen to wisdom and be honest. They believe they are more important than others, seeking only to benefit a select few by domination, pride and so-called 'intelligence'. But they aren't 'wise men' - they are too blind to recognize the real treasure or gold of a nation are its people.

By working together, a nation (like Canada) can move forward and plan the future, for the betterment of all, through the gifts of each and every person. These Leaders must learn to humble themselves, to be honest, to respect and more importantly to serve by love in recognizing wisdom. Only through wisdom can one truly learn serve, to recognize how important it is not to just 'do your duty' but to truly love others from the heart. With this, trust and loyalty of a nation is earned, because people will recognize you truly care.

The PPP Team

What People are Saying about the Election

Anna Di Carlo: “A Harper Government has absolutely no intention of sharing power with anyone. The age of reasonable accommodations is over. Today, the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands is accompanied by the concentration of political power in fewer and fewer hands. This is why Parliament doesn't "work." It is paralyzed because the party in power refuses to "reasonably accommodate" any interests save the dominant monopoly interests.”

National Leader MLPC, Etobicoke North

Elizabeth May: “This is definitely going to be a much more aggressive and unrestrained government.”

Green Party leader and newly elected first Green party MP in Canada

Bronwen Bruch: “The Conservative party increased their vote percentage by less than two points, but this allowed them to win 24 more seats than in 2008, when they were already over-represented. Stephen Harper calls this a ‘decisive endorsement’, but we call it a rip-off.”

President of Fair Vote Canada (FVC)

Esther Matharu: “It is time for us to stop fighting ‘against’ the current government and concentrate on defining a new, united and progressive Canada, a Canada that works ‘for’ the people. A new paradigm is needed. Citizens can act as a force outside the government to change it. The people can and must speak.”

Current leader of the Women’s Alliance Party

Osama bin Laden 1959 - 2011

Esther writes:

To whom does it profit and Why we should mourn the killing of Osama son of Laden

We were told a while back that Osama was dead when, in 2001, we were informed of his demise. Now, the old card is brought out of a loaded pack from the hands of known cheaters and liars and we are told he is dead, all over again.

As the West cheers, the skeptics ask for a body, but there is none to show.

Question: What does that mean to us, citizens of the world, those of us who love peace and have been appalled by the rising militarism in our ‘civilized’ countries? Why are we disgusted by the spectacle of this ten year+ ‘most wanted man’ by the US, living in hiding in Pakistan, where he was supposedly identified and subsequently downed, shot in the face (no one will recognize him), identified by his wife and DNA (so they say), his body shrouded, prayed over and dumped in the seas in a manner that no one can ever find it again, eaten by fish and sharks, ostensibly to stop people from praying over his grave?

Answer: We should be disturbed by the news of his death, not just because of the manner in which it was carried out; not just because of the time these people chose to ‘destroy’ Osama; not just because of the barbaric depictions with which his assassination is being celebrated; not just because the same day we mourn the assassination of Khadafy’s son, a 29-year-old father of three innocent children, all killed supposedly by a cowardly drone attack. All these too, but also add to that the injection of fear that we must now live with. Fear that this is the beginning of the end, which looks so much like a provocation by the US-led NATO to take the war from an entire region to the world. Fear, also, that that rogue nation among rogue nations, Israel, will launch its pre-meditated attack on Iran, and that this act in itself will be effectively ‘blamed’ on the hoped for violent ‘reaction’ of the Muslim world towards the provocative manner and timing of bin Laden’s murder.

Are we to forget that the so-called weapons of mass destruction allegedly to be found in Iraq were the excuse for an illegal invasion of a sovereign country, not much worse than any other dictatorship in the region, for example the US ally, Saudi Arabia? Are we to forget how it took only two years for the people in the US and Canada to be misinformed and psychologically prepared for such an event? Are we to forget the excuse of the illegal invasion of Afghanistan as the ‘hiding’ of Osama bin Laden by the ‘evil’ Taliban? Are we to forget the current NATO led attack on Libya? And what will it be for the other dictatorship countries in the region?

Naturally we are to forget all that. Make the world ‘feel’ a little more unsafe, ‘look’ like might is right, 'sound' like we, the peace-loving West are in the ‘right’, and we have a world of orchestrated chaos which is become the play ground of the weapons industry, the political elites of the industrial nations, the cold-war mentality that has never really gone away, and the rising outrage of the neo-slaves and hungry masses that need to be controlled (by what? by whom?)

There you have it, a closed vicious circle of a potential world war. We mourn because we see the stage set for a perpetual conflict. We mourn because we can say with some truth that Homo sapiens, this predatorial king of the jungle, will never learn from the lessons of the past, but will happily condemn all future generations to pay for their mistakes.

Women would never have done that, never have led us into so many wars, never have chosen the gun over the word, never have allowed us to spend so much on weapons and so little on care. That’s why we need more women in politics. That's why we need Comm-Unity.

And this is why the Women’s Alliance Party.

For a similar perspective, please see this article by John Bart Gerald.

http://nightslantern.ca/2011bulletin.htm#may2

Women's Alliance on the Hill with Steelworkers Local 1005

See more photos here:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=189818634397244&set=a.189816714397436.45324.100001073254865&type=1&theater