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The Midway State perform on the Be Loud election special.

Hannah and Devon hosted an hour-and-a-half live results show, bringing you updates from the polls (no real changes across the board all night, and of course we end up with another Conservative minority - real productive, guys!), chat with local artists and live performances. Watch for interview/music clips on the video player tomorrow but for now, here are some pics.

Shawn Hewitt on arts funding

JB chats with Hannah…

…and performs a ditty that got the crowd moving.

George from Alexisonfire was none too pleased with the results…

Point Blank discussed the issues that affect them…

Mobile took a moment to talk…

…before performing their latest single.

(Photos by sleepy Wendy)

One more guest blog from Liberal National Youth Campaign Director Denise .. watch for her on the live results special tonight starting at 10pm ET.

So here we are trying to make the best of a bad election situation.
Campaigns over holidays are never fun. The badness, however, is mitigated by a few important factors:

- We’re making a difference and actually helping to change the current Conservative reality with which we disagree.
- We had a Thanksgiving potluck with turkey, salad, potatoes, and pie!
- Most went for a late-night work break at a Mexican restaurant hosting a captivating episode of Spanish idol. And tequila idol.
- Climate change is working slowly enough to give opposition the ability to denounce it while giving progressives campaign tans.

All in all, an exciting but disgruntling day.

Election night is only a few days away, and here’s your friendly reminder that we’ll be live with results, thoughts and performances starting at 10pm ET. Hannah and Devon will host, with commentary from Shawn Hewitt and Point Blank among others, as well as live performances from JB, The Midway State and Mobile. Now that’s-a what I call a packed show.

If you want to lug your pie and gravy-filled gullet to the studio to be here live (come on, you’ll have totally digested by then!), call 416-870-MUCH (6824)!

Jack Layton on MOD in 2006

Stephane Dion did it yesterday, and now NDP leader Jack Layton will make an appearance on a special edition of MOD this Thanksgiving Monday @ 5pm ET!

On the eve of the election, Jack will chat with Hannah and Devon about his party’s plans for the country. If you would like to be in the audience, call 416-870-MUCH (6824) to book your spot. If you want to ask a webcam question, email ondemand@muchmusic.com with “Jack Layton” in the subject line.

Last time Jack was in the house, he showed us his biking skills on a stationary bicycle … wonder if there will be any fun stuff this time?

T-Day 5 on countdown to Muchmusic Election Armageddon, AKA Be Loud on Oct 14th!

So yesterday Liberal leader Stephane Dion hit ground zero of hip harmony - MuchOnDemand - for an interview with questions from young people across Canada.

I was fortunate enough to witness this interview, in all its question-ey goodness (though not lucky enough to do so from indoors) and might I say, it was quite the show.

Standing outside being part of the sign crew, watching the interview from the big screens above, really brought me back. I thought of all those afts growing up in Vancouver when I’d tune in desperately wishing I was standing at the corner of Queen and John to watch the happenings. Now that I was finally there in Toronto seeing Much for real, might I say, it’s pretty sweet. I had no idea there was a hot dog stand right at the corner! Where pop hits and Polish sausage collide is a small piece of heaven, let me tell you.

But all that aside, the interview rocked and I was glad to see Dion flex his badass answering muscles uncensored and on the spot. He talked about making post-secondary education affordable for all of us, moving away from combat missions like Afghanistan and forward to peacekeeping and aid missions in regions like Darfur. He talked about building our country’s prosperity by being at the forefront of a green economy.

Other important things that rocked about the interview included:

- Chatting with completely random passersby, who excitedly took pictures of Dion doing his interview. Wild.
- Listening to a good question by The Stills about environmental sustainability and what it means for the Canadian automotive sector.
- Watching the Much video premiere of the new Katy Perry vid. Not sure I’m feeling the whole ending though - is the moral of the story to marry Captain Noncommittal? No offense, but just because you’re back to dudes, Katy, it don’t mean you need to pick a loser.

But, oh right, the interview, which was such a cool thing to be a part of. I’m really proud to see the Liberal leader reaching out to young people and encouraging them to seize the democratic opportunities open to us. Our generation can assert its political sovereignty, we need simply to use the tools rightfully ours.

If you dug what Dion dished on MuchOnDemand and would like to get more involved in the Liberal campaign, or if you’d like to congratulate me on my mad sign-holding skillz, flip me an email at brunsdon@gmail.com.

Peace and love,
Denise
Election Sign Holder (with mad skillz) and National Youth Campaign Director, Liberal Party of Canada

Check out Denise Brunsdon live in action when she appears as a panelist on Be Loud on Oct. 14, our special Election Night results show, October 14 at 10PM ET on MuchMusic.

How We Vote

There have been numerous calls to vote strategically from non-partisan sources working to further the cause of the environment. The popular online petition source, Avaaz.ca, has raised funds to create anti-Harper ads in three ridings where Conservatives could be vulnerable. One of them is my riding in Central Nova. Now Avaaz is launching a more national effort. They have brought together popular Canadian artists to create the song, “You Have a Choice”. This is accompanied by an online pledge to vote to block Harper’s Conservatives. This kind of cross partisan, post-partisan method of campaigning is a symptom of an electoral system that doesn’t work.

Media sources continue to refer to Harper’s numbers as putting him close to “majority territory”, yet he consistently polls around 35%, not even close to the majority of Canadians. In the upcoming election, we are faced with the possibility of a false Harper majority: a majority of seats in the House with a minority of popular support. Of course, there are also strong arguments to be made against first-past-the-post from the Green Party stance. With 660,000 votes in the last election, the Greens did not elect a single MP. It is no wonder that Canadians are losing faith in our political process when the results are so blatantly antidemocratic, reflecting the views of a limited segment of society.

It has been said that no government will replace the system that put them in power. But Jack Layton says that his party favours proportional representation. I think he would be hard-pressed to turn down an opportunity to go after it. The Green Party of course advocates proportional representation. We even include it in our top priorities for the first year of our hypothetical government. While the Liberal Party has never warmed to the idea of replacing First-past-the-post, Stephane Dion said on national radio this month that he would be interested in trying Preferential Ballot elections. In this system, voters would be able to mark their choices in order on the ballot and second and third choices would be taken into account somehow in the vote tally. This system would give a more accurate result of voter intentions than first-past-the-post, as would many forms of Proportional Representation.

If the opposition parties can unite on a single issue to challenge the hypothetical Harper government, this may be it. While Liberals and NDP have petty partisan differences on most issues, including the steps necessary to combat climate change, cooperation and respectful dialogue could lead to a lot of progress. If a Conservative government is elected, I’d like to talk about what we can do to form a coalition. I’d like for the other party leaders to coalesce around some common principles. One of these would be healthy democracy. The first action a Green coalition could take would be to work toward electoral reform so Canadians will never again have to choose between voting with their mind and voting with their heart.

For More Information:

Elizabeth May
Green Party

(Photo from Elizabeth May’s website)

Crisscrossing this country, you begin to get a grasp of just how large and diverse it really is. From Vancouver to St. John’s, to Montreal to Iqaluit to Calgary, the geography and its peoples are so varied and diverse; one might wonder how such a country could ever agree on a government.

Despite all their differences in age, race, religion and location, Canadians all want basically the same things: a good job, a clean environment, better access to education and healthcare, and a good place to live for themselves and their families.

In order to deliver world class services, we need to ensure that government spending is kept under control, and it is this careful balance between fiscal responsibility and social justice which has set the Liberal Party apart from the other political parties.

Harper’s Conservatives have no plan for helping struggling students. The only policy the Conservative government put forth was a tax credit worth less than $10 per month for textbooks.

We will create a 20-year education endowment fund worth $25 billion. This fund will provide 200,000 bursaries of up to $3,500 per year to students in financial need and 100,000 access bursaries of up to $4,000 per year to members of groups such as Aboriginal Canadians and persons with disabilities. A new Liberal government will provide more grants - a lot more grants.

I am all too often referred to as the underdog and my opponents always underestimate me. I know that come Election Day Canadians will vote for a fairer, richer, greener Canada by voting Liberal.

-Stephane Dion

For More Information:

This Is Dion
Liberal Party Website

(Photo from Liberal Party Flickr Feed)

I’m spending this election blogging and helping my local NDP candidates. This is an important election because we are at an economic crossroads, and the stakes are higher than they have been since, well… since I started following politics anyways.

I’ve been a New Democrat all my life. Scratch that. Let’s be honest. I was raised in Alberta by a New Democrat mom and a Conservative father. They battled it out over my political soul for years.
The battle raged so fiercely that I thought for a while that I should just go be a Liberal to spite them. But I looked into some of the stuff the Liberal government (Chretien/Martin years) was doing, and it turned me right off. This all left me so terribly confused that I shut out politics for a couple years.

Then I moved to BC and tried to go to school. My tuition skyrocketed and I was forced to go into massive debt just to barely scrape by. All because of a combination of federal Liberal governments cutting funding to the provinces, and a provincial Liberal government who removed the freeze on tuition. I learned the hard way that even if you ignore politics, it doesn’t ignore you back.

At the same time, Jack Layton emerged to lead the NDP and pulled me back to my New Democratic roots (mom wins).

I’m still behind Jack today because he not only makes me care about politics, he gets me excited about the things we could do with this country. Excuse the gloom and doom, but we are heading into an economic sh@%storm and Jack is the only leader that I trust to make sure that everybody gets through it okay. Jack has ideas, like cancelling corporate tax cuts and investing in new green jobs, that seem like they will keep us safe from the looming American recession and actually solve our economic woes.

Erin Sikora is the Labour Director of the New Democrat Youth of Canada (NDYC) and one of the administrators of the New Democrats Online @ newdemocratsonline.ca. You can also visit her blog @ dipperchick.blogspot.com.

[Ed. note: For more information on Election 2008 and the other parties visit muchmusic.com/beloud].

The Most Important Election in Canadian History…

Running a campaign while being a full time student poses certain challenges - the lack of sleep, less time to work on essays, not enough hours in the day to knock on doors… did I mention the lack of sleep?

So, why did I decide to run? Because this is the most important election in Canadian history. On October 14th, young Canadians across the country will be called upon to choose between the politics of the past and the policies of the future - between a future of economic uncertainty, environmental scarcity, and social exclusion or a prosperous and inclusive society rooted in environmental sustainability.

It is easy to lose faith in the political process. However, the prescription for political corruption is more participation not less! We each play an important part in the changes that must occur - whether by voting for the first time, or the first in many years; by volunteering with a local organization or organizing the communities we live.

In fact, young voters have the most to both lose and gain in this election because it is the youth of this country that will inherit the problems of the present. We must stand up for our future and demand the kind of politics and policies that are needed to address the crises we face as a nation and as a planet.

That is why I am running and why I know you will vote on October 14th.

For more information on Grace Yogaretnam visit graceyogaretnam.ca.

[Ed. note: For more information on Election 2008 and the other parties visit muchmusic.com/beloud].