I was too young to vote during the previous Ontario provincial election in 2007. My 18th birthday was not until December and the election was a couple of months prior to it. So, I had to watch on the sidelines to see who my fellow Ontarians would elect to govern the province. Now that I can vote, I try to evaluate parties based on their campaign platforms before I decide who should be elected. I also prefer to examine how they stood on certain issues, such as abortion. However, clearly my own values and seeing whether the politicians being elected shared my values proved to be inconsequential because the liberal majority government elected did nothing but lead Ontario into becoming poorer than my home province, Prince Edward Island.

How ironic that everybody was pleased that Dalton McGuinty and his liberal party were elected in a second back-to-back majority. It caused the former Conservative leader to be kicked to the curb and gave more seats to the NDP. The majority of Ontarians all thought Ontario was in good hands. Half-way through the party’s leadership, people are now second guessing the choice they made on their ballots and wondering if they really want to wait two more years to get the chance to make him join the former Conservative leader in the graveyard of bad provincial party leaders who should never have been elected in the first place.

The CBC article I have chosen to analyze states that Ontario’s finance minister, Dwight Duncan announced a $24.7billion deficit for the end of this fiscal year. “Declining corporate tax revenues and increasing demand for public services have dragged down the government’s bottom line, Duncan said.” Although I was furious to read this, it came as no surprise. After all, I did just find out a couple of weeks prior to this that McGuinty’s government blew $1billion on useless things like muffins and vacations. So, that is $1billion that the province does not have spent on useless, irrelevant stuff because it was already on a deficit prior to this.

CBC news did well to remain neutral in this article and allowed all of the parties screen time to articulate their response. Naturally, the only ones optimistic about this are the Liberals and their supporters. Everyone else, including people who voted Liberal in 2007, are as furious as me and want them ousted. Progressive Conservative leader, Tim Hudak gave his opinion that “Canada’s worst government is now running Canada’s worst deficit.” Well, it must be the worst because most governments would wait until the last two years of their term before going on spending sprees. This government still has two years to go. Two years!!!!! Can I vote him out of office now?

Unfortunately a full term for a majority government is 4 years. Therefore, McGuinty has two years to clean up his act or send Ontario further into debt and spend billions of more dollars on useless, irrelevant stuff. The only way Ontarians can vote him out of office earlier is if he were to call an election now or resign his post. I doubt the former will happen because he would be voted out of office with his party tagging along for sure. The only way I could see this guy stepping down is if a third scandal is just getting ready to be unwrapped. Then the opposition parties, everybody else in Ontario and the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario would frown upon him and give so many evil eyes that he would just resign and walk away from the provincial legislature and never look at politics again. So, the Christians attending Emmanuel Bible College will just have to wait and see what our “glorious” provincial government will do next.

Action Points:
1.Perhaps governments are behaving so badly because Christians don’t care about politics and then don’t pray for their leaders? Pray that Dalton McGuinty and the liberals make wiser financial choices in the future so that Ontario can have brighter years financially.
2.Start watching the news. CBC has a new political show called Power and Politics which is on CBC News Net (formerly CBC News world)
3.Visit http://4mycanada.ca and see what other what other areas of politics need prayer
4.Watch the At Issue Panel and the Rex Murphy report every Thursday night on The National on CBC. It is the political views panellist and offers impressive insight on what is happening in federal politics.
5.Go to http://www.cbc.ca/politics/ for national and international political information.
6.Pray, pray, pray!!!!!! Prayer is powerful. God can change the way politics is done in Canada and could make our political parties more reliable. So pray for our municipal, provincial, and federal governments so that we can live peaceful and godly lives (Romans).

References
CBC News. (2009, October 22). Ontario deficit $24.7B: Duncan. CBC News-Toronto. Retrieved October 22, 2009, http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/10/22/toronto-fiscal-report-091022.html

Summary of September/October
Canadians inside and outside of politics were worried at the beginning of the fall on whether or not we would be going back to the polls a year after we put our politicians in. This Parliament was elected last year (it was the first time I had ever voted) and it has seen its fair share of political shifting and instability from the previous winter and the coalition crisis.
This fall, the Liberals made the move to refuse to support the minority government anymore and would vote it down at the next and every possible opportunity. Two opportunities have passed and it was the NDP that chose, after all of these months of refusing to go along with Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, to save Canadians from another election. Now, this support by the NDP was solely based on seeing that the changes for Employment Insurance passed in the House of Commons, which was something that the NDP had been seeking for years. Therefore, the NDP support is very unstable and could be revoked if the Conservatives do anything stupid.
This is something the Conservatives might do if the Harper government continues to openly support Harmonized Sales Tax (HST). HST combines GST and PST into one tax and is already being used in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland; British Columbia and Ontario wish to bring it into provincial law as well. This would mean that for everything we buy would include PST and GST. For some things only require GST is required, for other things only PST is required, and for some foods tax is not added on at all; many critics of HST say that it will mean Ontarians pay more money for many things.

This is being put condemned by the NDP recently in Parliament because it will mean that Canadians will have to spend more money- money that many of them do not have and they are against average Canadians having to pay more than they need to. Parliament going to vote on whether or not to aid the other provinces in switching to harmonized sales tax and it will be also be a confidence motion. So is the Conservative going to cooperate with the NDP and rethink HST or will this bring Canadians back to the polls?

Opinion
I think that the threat for an election was more of a bluff by the Liberals than something that they really want. Canadians do not want an election and all the parties are aware of this. Ignatieff’s purpose was to remove the responsibility for supporting from himself and the Liberal party. He was also putting the ball in the NDP’s court because if an election were to occur he would need the support from another party. Last winter the NDP would have gladly given their support. However, times have changed and Jack Layton has clearly realized that he needs to be willing to bend a little in a minority Parliament or else no one will really care for the NDP anymore. One year after Canadians went to the polls is not the time for an election, especially when Canada is coming out of an economic recession and an election would only hurt the nation’s progress. Thankfully, the NDP realizes this and will not bring Canadians to the polls just so they can spend more money and not accomplish very much unless it generates a Conservative majority.

Stephen Harper has some responsibility too. He needs to be wise about how he runs the government, and it is not by trying to deliberately, but indirectly force an election. What will that gain his party, except perhaps another minority government or a minority government where the Conservatives are a part of the opposition? However, if Stephen Harper goes along with the HST then the NDP would most likely refuse to support the government any longer and the Conservative Party may greatly cripple this time because HST is something that no one in the country really wants and they will not vote for a party that wants to support it. Unless of course, Ignatieff keeps barking up the “I will always vote down the government” tree and people just get so sick of the Liberals and their political games. Then, well, Harper may be wise in getting the government to vote them down because the Liberals will be gift-wrapping the majority for them.

Action Points
-Pray for our government. This is something that the Bible calls us to do and it would be wise for us to obey it.
-If there is an election this year, you should find out who in EBC’s riding supports Christian values so that maybe it will be a Christian majority instead of a mixed minority.

-Andrena LeBlanc

If anyone feels this way, please take a suggestion: learn to refresh yourself in the Lord. This may involve getting on your face before God. It might mean taking advantage of the student counseling services (that are free for students, by the way). It might mean taking a personal retreat between you and God. It might mean confiding in a friend and being transparent. Whatever it means, it will involve pressing through and holding onto the truth that God is still for you, he loves you and will not give up on you. I know the refining fires of life are not fun in any respect, but I am certainly glad we have a Saviour who is with us in it all. With Christ there will always be better days ahead, if not in this life then in eternity. Our hope as Christians lives on.

I love this community.

-Tim Chester

The second reason is personally I believe we cheapen it. We cheapen physical contact between each other. Consider two extremes, if one person went around kissing every single person on the lips, when it finally got to your turn, it would mean absolutely nothing. It was just something that person did, and regardless of your opinion of kissing on the lips, the fact would remain that, it was just something that person did, and had about as much meaning as being breathing. Now the reverse is true, if you were hanging around someone who had a history of being very physically conservative, and suddenly he or she gave you a quick peck on the check that small and swift action would and could have more meaning packed into it than an exploding star has energy. And this point is from where I come from, I don’t want hugging to be just something I do. I want to be intentional with all my actions.  I want my actions to mean something when I do them. I know they do things differently in other cultures, but simply put I don’t live in other cultures, I live in this one.

Wesley Hague

I just wanted to tell each of THANK YOU for the help, meals and gifts during the busy moving time. I was SO very surprised at how everyone showed up to help and it all went so smoothly!

We are pretty much settled in and making this home again; and of course the kids are happy to be back in Elmira with their friends.

Thank you as well to the spouses who sat at home while “allowing” their spouse to come help. I do not forget how much you gave as well.

Please know that I appreciate everything and thank Father for you often.

Blessings

Jacqueline

This is a very sad reality.  There is a small loophole, a small exception like a Ford that works; where this word can exist.  There is a very rare case where this word is needed.

The exception is if there was a person that had a multiple personality.  His name was Tommy and he had a friend that no one else could see that he always talked to, named Timmy.  So for an example I am having a conversation with you about Tommy and I am explaining his situation: “Tommy seems to be talking to himselves a lot.”  To say that he was simply talking to himself is not correct for this statement does not describe that the situation that Tommy multiple personality disorder.  This may imply that Tommy was simply talking to himself like any person might do.

There are real people, just like Tommy that need this word to be legitimized. I would get that powerful super-writer Mark Twain to help but someone said he is dead. How inconvenient and inconsiderate of him.

Tim Stanley

Re: Did you know that the word themself is not a legitimate word?

I liked reading Tim(my) Stanley’s piece about his friend Tommy and wish him/them all the best in his/their academic writing career.  He/They make/s a legitimate point about the usefulness of the non-word themself in a unique situation.  Mark Twain and I say, “Go ahead and use the word, Tim, if you really need to, but don’t put it in your papers at EBC!”

You might ask why Mark Twain can write ungrammatical sentence fragments and get away with it and you can’t.  That’s because he’s Mark Twain, and you’re not!

Carol Blake

This is a very sad reality.  There is a small loophole, a small exception like a Ford that works; where this word can exist.  There is a very rare case where this word is needed. 

The exception is if there was a person that had a multiple personality.  His name was Tommy and he had a friend that no one else could see that he always talked to, named Timmy.  So for an example I am having a conversation with you about Tommy and I am explaining his situation: “Tommy seems to be talking to himselves a lot.”  To say that he was simply talking to himself is not correct for this statement does not describe that the situation that Tommy multiple personality disorder.  This may imply that Tommy was simply talking to himself like any person might do. 

There are real people, just like Tommy that need this word to be legitimized. I would get that powerful super-writer Mark Twain to help but someone said he is dead. How inconvenient and inconsiderate of him.

Tim Stanley

     On October 14^th, Canadians will vote, the winner will be announced, and the next day we’ll continue to complaining about the government, as if it is second nature or a basic human right. But there’s a problem that seems to be making its way throughout our generation in recent years. We just don’t care. The fate of our nation is being decided by an increasingly smaller percentage of the population (approx 64% of eligible voters went to the polls in the 2006 election) while the remaining percentage sit idly by and just wait for the campaign signs to disappear so the street can look pretty again. The argument is that one vote doesn’t matter. Before you come to that conclusion, consider the following. Are you willing to sit back while a government that does not care for student issues is elected? Are you willing to let in a leader that does not see the need to get involved in the areas of the world that can truly use our help?Are you willing to allow other demographics to represent your voice? I’m not saying that one party is better than the other – do your research and decide that for yourselfI heard a statement recently that went along the lines of “If you don’t vote, then don’t complain.” I like it. It tells me that if I do not take the initiative to try and effect change in our government, then my voice is taken out of the picture and the government has no reason to listen to me. Some may say that one vote will not make a difference. It is only one vote, but it is your voice in this nation, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned so far in life it’s that when given the opportunity to speak, take it, because there may not be another chance. For more information on the election, visit www.elections.ca 

Three ways to vote:

In person on October 14^th

At advanced polls – Oct 3^rd, 4^th, 6^th.

By Special Ballot – Very useful for students who will not be able to make it home for advanced polls or Election Day.

On April 5, 2008 a group from the EBC community went on an outing to the Ayr Curling Club. I write now in response to said event. I hate Curling. Ever since becoming aquainted with it I knew that I would always hate curling. There’s just this horrible vibe about the whole thing that makes me want to vomit. The screaming and yelling in boomish enraged tones frighten me to an unknowable degree. I know I have to brace myself whenever I go anywhere near curling for a rough time, one that’s going to make me feel so fatigued. Curling is mentally trying to an intense degree. I mean, curling is just so dumb-never let’s you get a word in edgewise. The nerve of the whole business! Curling has bad hair, an annoying laugh. He makes fun of me all the time. He thinks he’s so great. Sometimes curling just makes me want to scream. And that’s what I think about curling. **
In terms of the sport, I enjoyed our time Gracing, and I look forward to going out to Grace once again next year. It’s a great time for the community to get together and participate in a challenging, but not too discouraging sport that allows for good fellowship in the midst of a great time.***

**Curling here, is meant to symbolize Tim Grace.
***Gracing is here meant to symbolize Curling
(This article is written at the allowance and encouragement of Tim Grace)

Musical Travesty

My music teacher was intimidating. She was straight out of the 70’s, but had the clothing of the 80’s, and the attitude of the 90’s. So, she ended up being an intergenerational music teacher that could relate to anyone. Or so it would seem. In grade 9, I remember her calling people goats, and I figured it was an insult. I hoped I would never hear this derogatory term that would liken me to a four legged creature that was is best known for it’s hair, milk, cheese, and ability to stand on really pointy mountains without falling off. The years went by and I continued to hear people being called goats. There was one girl in my grade who kept singing “Goats go to heaven, and sheep go to hell” repeatedly, despite the fact that we told her they were the wrong lyrics, she continued to share her vocal “talents” with us.

One day, it happened. I was called a goat. My world was turned upside down and I felt somewhat like a shaggy milk-producing farm animal. By the end of OAC (grade 13) I realized something. The term Goat was being used as a term of endearment. This changed everything. We knew she appreciated us by her use of the term because she always said it with a smile.

In our final year, we got her a plaque that said “To our number one goat”. Goats aren’t necessarily evil. And only once you realize that you are a goat in someone’s eyes, can you live your life to fulfillment.

Chalk Tells the Truth

The term Barbeque originated from the way that the French used to skewer goats over the fire. They put the skewer from the beard (barb) to the tail (que), thus resulting in the present day English term, barbeque.

This was learned from a supply teacher in French class who drew a surprisingly realistic goat on the board to demonstrate. I went to erase it later in the class for something else and my classmates yelled at me for removing the work of art from the board. I guess where there are goats, there is no forgiveness.*

* This statement is not theologically correct.