Mulcair shows strong polling numbers

Polls are sometimes useful and nearly always confusing. The latest approval ratings of the three federal leaders are also interesting indeed. 

Obviously more Canadians disapprove of the PM than approve of him. According to four EKOS Research polls conducted in the past two months, Mr Harper's approval rating is only 39 percent, while his disapproval rating is 54 percent.

Trudeau the Younger faces the confusing situation of having an approval rating of 46 percent and a disapproval of 41 percent.

Mr Mulcair boasts the best approval ratings overall: an approval rating of 50 percent and a disapproval rating of only 37 percent. 

The ratings take on a different picture when analysed by region. Especially pleasing to Mulcair supporters is his standing in BC and Ontario, and of course in Quebec.

In BC, Mr Mulcair has an approval rating of 51 percent compared to 35 percent disapproval. Strong numbers to be sure.

Average approval ratings of Stephen Harper (blue), Thomas Mulcair (orange), and Justin Trudeau (red) 

over four polls by EKOS Research, January and February 2015.

Of course polling results can be spun in all kinds of ways. For those of us on the progressive side of the political spectrum, these latest numbers give credence to the idea that, especially in BC, the party to support in order to defeat the Conservatives, is the NDP. Strategic voting will make a difference in some ridings but no one should assume by these polling numbers that the only real alternative to the Conservative government is the Liberal Party.

Beyond voting against the PM and the Conservative Party, is the more important need to vote for something. Again for progressives, the Liberal Party is really Conservative Light as they demonstrate by supporting Bill C-51 and the Keystone XL Pipeline, to name two recent issues of concern to Canadians. It was the Liberal Party that began the first major cuts to the CBC, and ignored our nation's commitment to the Kyoto Accord, to name another two. History speaks volumes.

This election can be about significant change in our country, or it can be about doing the same old thing yet again. We all know what we will get with Mr Harper and the Conservatives. Should we place our trust in the Liberal Party, its unproven leader, and a campaign bankrolled by corporations? Can we trust Trudeau the Younger when he welcomes the likes of Eve Adams into its ranks?

Only the NDP offers an alternative to the corporate agenda of both the Liberals and the Conservatives. Change will happen, and only if we vote for change.

Copyright 2015 by Jim Murray

Canada's dirty water images

The photo looks somehow familiar, yet feels misplaced. It's false, yet we've seen this picture before.

WaterAid Canada released the photos for their launch in Canada a few months ago. Doctored photos to make a political statement.  These are the same people who, along with a group of other agencies, bring us World Toilet Day.

Every 60 seconds a child under the age of five, dies because of dirty water. That means over 500,000 children die every year because of unsafe drinking water.

There is a global crisis in one of the basic necessities of life. Ten percent of the world's population has no choice but to drink dirty water. Over thirty percent of the planet's citizens have nowhere safe to go to the toilet, which really translates into terror for millions of women and girls.




The photos of Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and Ottawa are false; we don't have to go down to the river to fill cans with water for our cooking and washing. Canada has some of the safest drinking water in the world. Yet, it's increasingly difficult to find public water fountains. Anywhere.

Not only should we assist other countries with this most basic of human rights, we should guarantee public access to water in our schools and cinemas, in our arenas and playgrounds. We can begin by working to ban the sale of bottled water from public parks and schools. Water is a right for all of us. It must not be yet another profit channel for corporations and governments.

Photos by:

WaterAid, Candace Feit, Nuyani Quarmyne/Panos

Aubry Wade, Layton Thompson, Anna Kari, GMB Akash/Panos

Davebloggs007 via Flickr, Gaelen via Flickr

Spring ~ the last day of February ~ and Billy Collins

It is the last day of February, and the city of Vancouver is blooming. The warmth of the sun, the freshness of the air, gave me pause to think about poems of springtime, especially an early spring, a surprise of sorts, even to those of us on the left coast of Canada.







The poem is Today by Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the United States, and it says, in one sentence, all that needs to be said about a day so fine.







If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths 

and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking







a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage











so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting










into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

Photos by Jim Murray and taken on February 28th 

in VanDusen Gardens, Vancouver. 

Copyright 2015.