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I'm proud to be Canadian, but I'm currently not proud to be a Canadian, at least not domestically. Why? Well: Federal Government 1. There's the ongoing Senate scandal. Senators on suspension are having criminal charges placed against them for, effectively, stealing tax payer money. Many things have happened as a result of this: a. The NDP want to abolish the Senate completely. They feel as if it's a complete waste of time and energy. The Senate is so muddled by party politics that nothing is getting done, so just get rid of it. b. The Liberals kicked out all their Senators from the party. Two things arise from this: i). If you think they're not still Liberals in everything but name, you're silly. ii). If you think Justin didn't see criminal charges coming against Liberal senators and is distancing himself, you're silly. 2. Harper. I don't even know where to begin. He just needs to go. His time is up. Period. 3. Justin. Firstly, he's riding on his father's coattails politically, I think. He came out of nowhere and suddenly he's federal leader? What? How did this happen? The other thing, is he doesn't know the difference between his opinion personally and his opinion as a politician. When asked what country he admired most, he said China. Why? Their dictatorship-like structure allows them to move quickly and get stuff done. Words do not describe. Provincial (Ontario) Government 1. Kathleen Wynne. I don't even know where to begin. Unelected. Scandals. No regard for tax payer money. Just... wow. 2. Andrea, the provincial NDP leader. Proping up Wynne's government. Why?! I'm embarrassed - ashamed - to consider myself an NDP because of this. Municipal (Toronto) Government 1. Leave Rob Ford the fuck alone. He was elected to be the Mayor of Toronto, for which he is doing a fine job. He was not elected to be the Moral Compass of Toronto. If he doesn't want to go to Pride? Fine, no problem. I don't blame him, I don't want to go either. Norm Kelley is a tool, also. --- Our government, on all levels (I image other municipalities and provinces have it just as ad) is so broken it's embarrassing and laughable. Can we hurry up and just have the entire system crash, so we can start over? Pretty please, with a cherry on top.

In two months, my home province of British Columbia will be heading to the polls. I'm looking forward to the campaign, and hopefully in displacing the long-ruling BC Liberal government, which has had a continuous legislative majority since the 2001 elections that obliterated the BC New Democratic Party. Now, politics in British Columbia are different from the rest of Canada, so here are the important players. BC Liberal Party - Their leader and the current Premier is Christy Clark, who became Premier after winning the party leadership after former Premier Gordon Campbell was appointed High Commissioner to London. Premier Clark was, at the time, a radio host and former member of the Legislature, and won the leadership after a protracted leadership campaign. The BC Liberals, contrary to their name, are the main 'conservative', free enterprise party in British Columbia. Their membership reflects a combination of national Liberals and Conservatives, and is the direct successor to the Social Credit Party as the leader of the capitalist, free enterprise coalition in British Columbia. The Liberal Party vote has a floor of around 40% that does not leave the party, no matter what. BC New Democratic Party - Like their federal cousins, the New Democratic Party is the progressive, social democratic party in British Columbia. Our (Full disclaimer/disclosure: I'm a paying member of the BC NDP and have served as a party officer since 2009) leader is John Horgan, who won the leadership in late 2013 after our previous leader surrendered a 25 point lead in the polls. The party and its predecessor the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation have been the main social democratic party in British Columbia since 1933, and has been one of the top two parties in terms of vote share and seat count since the party's inception. With the exception of 2001's massacre, the party can consistently expect around 38% of the vote in any given election. BC Green Party - A progressive leaning Green Party that focuses on sustainable development and environmental protection as their main policies. The Green Party is lead by Andrew Weaver, an environmental scientist from the University of Victoria, and he is currently their only elected member of the Legislature. The party has been experimenting with new policy ideas, including a proposed pilot project for a universal basic income. The BC Green Party was created by dissident New Democrats in the 1990s, angry that the NDP government of the decade opened up part of the Great Bear Rainforest to development. Some recent polling has shown the Green Party surging in support across the province, taking around 20% of the popular vote. BC Conservative Party - The BC Conservatives are a new party, fighting their second election in their newly constituted form. Parties with the name 'BC Conservative' have come and gone, with the party being de-registered as an active party at several points over the last seventy years. The party currently has no leader after the previous leader, Dan Brooks, resigned the leadership for the second time in as many years. The party is not currently included in many election polls. With all of that contexty stuff out of the way, let's get to the interesting bits, the actual campaign! This year's election is being fought over the context of a number of different economic strains on the budget. Last November, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the BC Liberals unconstitutionally destroyed the teachers' contracts and required the government to reduce student-teacher ratios and class composition (the number of students with individualized education plans) back to the 2002 ratios. This necessitated over a billion dollars in new funding to the public education system and the subsequent hiring of over three thousand new teachers (a process that is still ongoing). This is a particularly black mark for Premier Clark, as she was the Minister of Education that initially destroyed those contracts. Adding to the financial strain on the government is the Ministry of Children and Family Development, which has been repeatedly under attack by critics for allowing children in care to die, and without even ensuring adequate care for the children. As a case in point, the most recent investigation covered an 18 year old in care who was placed into a motel as his housing by the Ministry. Additional funding has been promised, which has impacted the budget projections for the government. The Liberals have also been rocked by various ethics controversies, including accusations made against Health Ministry workers that directly led to the suicide of an accused graduate student who was later found to be innocent of the accusations. Finally, the government has been frustrated in its attempts to create a liquefied natural gas industry in the province, and failed to halt federal approval for the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion leading to the Pacific Ocean. In the government's favour is the fact that the NDP hasn't won an election since 1996, and has only won three times in all of its history in British Columbia. The Liberals have much more money to spend on the campaign, and most of their incumbents are running again. Many of them also remember that at this time before the last election, they were trailing by 25%, so being in a tied election right now is a far more comfortable position for them than they faced the last time they faced the electorate. The NDP, traditionally supported by the labour unions, is facing an internal revolt as private sector construction unions are beginning to endorse the anti-union Liberals, thanks to the Liberals support for massive construction projects that would lead to more union jobs in the province. This has sapped the organizational strength from the New Democrats going into the election, at a time where they could potentially be capitalizing on Liberal failures. The New Democrats also face renewed strength in the BC Green Party which shares an electoral base, especially on Vancouver Island where nearly a third of the NDP caucus is elected. My home district is a bellweather riding that normally votes with the overall provincial winner, though in 2013 we backed the NDP thanks to superb organizing and volunteer efforts. I'll be interested to see whether the parties can break out of their traditional bases. The Liberals have strength in rural and suburban British Columbia, but face difficulties in some of the inner suburbs and the main cities, as well as Vancouver Island. To win, the NDP has to start performing in rural British Columbia and sweeping the suburbs along with its traditional progressive coalition. For the Greens, winning more than just the leader's seat will be seen as a successful campaign, though some Green insiders are hoping to supplant the NDP as the main opposition party to the Liberals. That's a lot to take in about the BC Politics scene, so let's all take a quick break before I start talking about my favourite subject - my political career. In 2018, the municipal elections will be happening (In Canada, different levels of governments have elections in separate years from each other). I'm planning on contesting the local school board elections in my hometown. The place I live is one of the few communities in British Columbia with organized municipal political parties, and my relationship with the dominant party would be considered strained at best. They have accepted me again as a paying member of the party, but in the past years I've attempted to defend my seat on the executive and was defeated for opposing the party stance on affordable housing. Since that's an issue of Council and not the school board, I'm hoping that it will not be used as a weapon against me in any potential nomination contest. For those who don't know, I'm currently a private school teacher teaching in Downtown Vancouver. Now that I've been on the teacher side of the field, I see the importance of strong leadership in education, and I'm hoping that my past experiences in policy formation and execution will help me as a potential school board trustee. Beyond the negative publicity of attacking my own party, the members who turn out for nomination races do otherwise have a favourable opinion of me, particularly those who have served with me in the leadership. There's also residual support in the LGBTQ community in the city due to my organizing and lobbying in favour of a local anti-discrimination school board policy that was enacted in 2011. Passing the policy over vocal objection both on and off the school board garnered lots of positive media coverage, but after seven years those views are unlikely to have remained with the electorate. Which is fine, I'm not running to defend the policy or even to expand it. While I'm proud of the work I did to create the policy and defend it in the election of 2011, I'm not focusing on it as a campaign platform. My focus is to be on expanding access to trades training programs and advanced placement programs. The province, in partnership with the local school boards, offers a program known as ACE-IT, which provides students with practical experience and their first year trades training in a trade of their choice. The program is entirely funded by the district, and helps reduce the time needed to become a journeyman tradesperson. However, there's a lack of knowledge about these programs being available, and each school only offers a few of the programs, creating a patchwork where students in some parts of the city do not have access to the ACE-IT program at all. Expansion of the College Board's Advance Placement Capstone program is another goal of mine. It's currently being run as a pilot program in two of the eight secondary schools in the district, and I'd like to expand that program to all students in order to provide that additional benefit to students pursuing post-secondary educations. Of recent issue is the idea of the district being a 'sanctuary district'. While I'm supportive in principle, I'm interested to see what happens with the new policy and how the district staff interact with federal immigration authorities over the next year. This is service for me. I believe in giving back to the community and the schools that helped shape me, and while I have no quarrel with any of the school board trustees currently on the board, I feel that many of them have served their community for long enough, and that new voices are needed to replace those individuals seeking their eleventh term on the school board. Changing educational technology and new pedagogical practices necessitates the need for new voices at the board of education to ensure that the students of my city are best served, especially with the rollout of new provincial curriculum guidelines and additional provincial funding to uphold the Supreme Court ruling. As a new teacher who's recently obtained my teaching certificate, I feel that I would be an articulate voice for the new generation of educators that is not being heard at the board level right now. Whew. That's all of it. I'll write another one of these soon, but I'd love to hear what people think about the BC Political scene, or any advice for a campaign I may or may not end up running. For the record, this won't be the first campaign I've run or worked on. I've been a past campaign manager, past candidate and past paid staffer for a few campaigns, so I already know what kind of costs are going to be involved. See you later blog buddies!

I am really in shock of the current events of today in Ottawa in our Nations Capital and on Monday in Montreal. I guess I always knew that this one day may have come, but still, it doesn't lessen the deep sense regret that our lives will be changing going forward. I will try to sum up the events of the past 3 days, based on the latest news reports and the just finished speech from our Prime Minister Steven Harper. On Monday, two Canadian Armed Forces members, one in uniform, one not, were hit by a speeding car which changed its direction to run them over. One soldier died later of his injuries. The driver of the car was caught and shot dead by the Police. This person has been described as being a radicalized member of ISIS a year ago. He had his passport seized by the government when he tried to leave the country to go to Turkey and then onto Syria to join ISIS. Today, this morning, a normal morning in our Nations capital of Ottawa. A gunman jumped out of a car and shot a soldier, Corporal Nathan Cirillo, 24, who was doing ceremonial duty at the National War Memorial, the tomb of the unknown Soldier. He was unarmed. He was shot in the back. The gunman then went into the Parliament Buildings and started opening fire in the Hall of Honour underneath the Peace Tower. He continued to fire his weapon and made his way to where the Prime Minister was meeting with his caucus. The shooter was confronted by the Sargent of Arms, a ceremonial position for the security of Parliament. A former RCMP officer, he shot the gunman dead. Thank god for him being armed. Just recently it has been learned the gunman's name is Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, 25, from Quebec. He has a lengthy criminal history for drug and some assault charges. He too has recently had his passport seized by the Government for going overseas to fight with ISIS too. The fact that all of this has happened on Canadian soil is something that we have never seen before. I am always amazed how places like Great Britain and the US and other countries have kept a stiff upper lip (a British saying) as they deal with this. Now, I guess it is time that Canada will be doing the same. How this will change us? I'm not sure. I really hope that things that Canadians hold as values don't change. We are generally a peaceful nation that doesn't really have gun issues except with gangs that is everywhere. We believe we are safe in our homes, at work and at play. I imagine you are asking why these people were free when they had their passports seized? As the police said, you can't arrest and lock someone up and take away their freedom for their thoughts. I generally agree with this, but I imagine this will change too. The RCMP have said that there is 90 Canadians across the country that are 'persons of interest'. I know that these people may be looking at increased scrutiny from law enforcement since these two incidents have happened this week. Another thought of mine was, would we have been better off to have just let them leave and go join ISIS? Immediately I knew this was the wrong. As I personally grieve for the two soldiers lost, I know that we have to take care of the ISIS threats within our own borders rather than let them join the groups in Syria and Iraq. There, they could be part of killing thousands. No life is expendable. Some say it shouldn't be a surprise. Al Qaeda and as recently as a month ago and ISIS has declared Canada as one of their targets. The US, Britain, France and Australia are the others named. I guess when you don't have any experience with dealing with this, just how are you supposed to react? Now, why I put this in my blog, I'm going to get a bit political. Canada has basically 4 national parties. The right of centre Conservatives who are currently in power, the centre Liberals, the left of centre (some refer to socialist) New Democrats, the official opposition, and the far left Green Party. Parliament recently debated sending Canadian fighters to Kuwait to participate with the alliance to do bombing runs against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. With a Conservative majority the motion was passed and yesterday the planes and support staff left for the Persian Gulf. All opposition members voted against it. What irritated me beyond belief was the speeches made by the the Liberals in Parliament and outside. They recently elected Justin Trudeau as their leader, the son of the former long term Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau. I will not share my opinion of his father, as this could go on for weeks. Justin had the gall and audacity to not only insult our Military in this country but said Canada could do more good by providing food and aid to the people in the Mid East fighting ISIS. He insulted everyone's intellect by saying that no Canadian military action was necessary in the Mid East. I will give the New Democrats credit, they voted against the mission based on ideological reasons, but did not insult or demean our Military or anyone. Well I wonder what the Liberal Party's messiah is doing now? Was he in Parliament today putting his body behind his words? Was he trying to go out and buy lunch for the gunman and talk to him to show him the error of his ways? I think we all know the answer to that. Probably was under a desk screaming for someone to protect him, (my opinion). I grieve for the family and friends of these two dead soldiers. I grieve for the change in what we maybe knew would happen, but actually has. If anything, this blog has helped me put my thoughts down in order. One last thing. I work with a Muslim lady at work. We have discussed how the MAJORITY of Muslims in Calgary and Canada speak out and actually help the police and such with identifying the radicals that are hiding within their community. She personally has told me that if one of her family members were to go down the wrong path, she would ensure they were held accountable but would still have the unconditional love a mother would have. She was nearly in tears today as the news came out. I have to agree with her. Not only does she grieve for Canada, but because of what, 90 people, millions will be judged going forward. Not only is this a horrible day for me, but for the 99% of Muslims that will have absolutely nothing to do with ISIS or other radical Islamic groups. Please do not turn this blog into a racist, hate filled commentary on Muslims in general. You will do yourself nothing but exposing the flaws of your logic....in my opinion.

To our Canadian friends... A Mari usque ad Mare, eh?

What’s the project? A Trilogy of Bears: Falling For A Bear, Summer Camp and the as yet un-finished and un-posted Tiger Winter. The three novellas will be collected together in the same book as they all take place within the same universe and share some of the same characters. More information about the stories can be found below. What is crowdsourcing? In simple terms, crowdsourcing is promising to invest in a product or service, in this, a book, before it is actually complete. In this case, investing in A Trilogy of Bears will guarantee you a copy of the books with exclusive content, and potentially lots of other exclusive content depending on how much you invest. Is it safe? Yes: if the total amount of money needed for the project is not reached, no money changes hands at all and we all go back to the beginning. If the full amount of money is reached (yes please) then the money comes to me and I produce the goods. Hopefully by now you all know me (and my editing team) enough to trust us to deliver as promised. Because we will. The books for the U.S. will be shipped by Kitt, the books for the UK and mainland Europe will be shipped directly from me. What in the idea behind this project crowdsourcing? Although all the stories will be available on GA indefinitely, there’s nothing quite like owning your own copy of something. A book you can read on the train without peering at your phone and can take to bed and the bath. The money raised through the crowdsourcing project is needed for a couple of purposes. Firstly to pay the artists for cover and in-book artwork, secondly to give some genuine credit to the editors who spend literally hundreds of hours making my look all clean and polished, and thirdly to give me the time to write and finish the work as well as I would like too. Books sold through Amazon and similar give absolutely fractional percentages to authors, and though Lulu.com revenues are better, it’s still basically publishing and giving your books away for nothing. Thirdly the crowdsourced version of the book will have exclusive content! (more below) Hey, what’s all this exclusive content you’re on about? Exclusive content is just that, things that will only be available to those who invest in the book through crowdsourcing. These include but are not limited to: artwork, character reference sheets of the main pairings, formally told ‘myths and legends’ style versions of the four Shifter Creation Myths, hardback copies, and personal on-request character scenes and sketches. Sounds fun? We think so too. About the books: Falling For A Bear: Hoyt Ford likes clean cut skinny boys with good hair, which are hard to find when you have gone to live with your older brother and his wife in the middle of nowhere. So when his senses tell him he's falling for the big butch lumberjack who lives on the other side of the river, he tries to run from the feeling, and straight into the furry arms of Mato, an actual black bear he meets in the woods. Summer Camp: Paddy is a bear. Literally. He's twenty and he's got a job at a summer camp in the semi-wilderness for kids and school groups. There he meets Troy, and instinct kicks in to tell the pair that well done, they have found their soul mates. But the pair of young men know practically nothing about each other, and instead of being able to screw like wild animals in the woods they need to spend the next four months surrounded by humans, children, and job responsibilities. Tiger Winter: Emmett Garrick changes a lot about his life when he decides to grow up and move across the city to share a house with a Chinese Panda: he has to buy furniture, do the washing up, and gets himself a cute boyfriend named Zeke. But when his housemate’s cousin comes to stay, Emmett realises that he got a lot more in this friend than he bargained for. Hopefully you now feel able to cast a vote. Please let me know what you think, and also what sort of exclusive content stretch goals you would like to see when the project opens up. Our timeline is to hopefully have a book in your hands sometime in February/March.