Out of the fray

“Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, Canada’s next prime minister, pledged to work with all parties in the next Parliament after Canadians elected a Tory minority government Monday, ending a 12-year reign of Liberal rule.”

So I’ll be headed back to Canada with another new prime minister in power. When I was home almost two years ago, Martin had just been elected. Now I’ll return to a conservative government, lead by a politician I know little about. Even though I didn’t vote because of my non-resident status, I am still interested in the outcome of the election. Canada is still my home. I hated missing the election coverage yesterday. It’s always exciting and interesting to watch the polls slowly come in. This time I had to settle for reading about it online the next day. the next day

Too bad I was asleep because it would have been interesting to try and get updated results from the Internet. A BC Supreme Court placed a news ban on Canadian media on the election results. During the last election news outlets were allowed to post the results starting as soon as the polls closed in each region. The Canadian Elections Act states that a province is not allowed to publish results in a region where the polls are still open. In 2000, some guy in BC actually published the Atlantic results while the BC results were still open. He did it on purpose to break the ban and he was fined $1000. The BC Supreme Court overruled this ruling a few times since but now we’re back where we were in 2004.

The media (or anyone for that matter who operates a Canadian website out of Canada) were not allowed to publish results Nationally until 10 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Since I was asleep, I don’t know if anyone else broke the ban. This blog is operated by google which is an american company but I am a Canadian maintaining the site. I have no doubt that people did break the ban. If I were awake and if I were in Canada maybe I would have done it but this isn’t a political blog.

Here is a rough list of the promises made by Harper:

*clean up government with a federal accountability act
*reduce taxes, starting with a GST cut
*crack down on crime
*establish guaranteed wait times
*provide child care money directly to parents

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