Candidate for Pirate Party, Kelowna-Lake Country

[rekabis]

It seems that I have thrown my hat in the ring. I have become a member of the Pirate Party, and have been seconded as a candidate for the Kelowna-Lake Country riding. Check out the URL for more details of what the Pirate Party stands for, but in a nutshell:

• We stand for patent and copyright reform. Most patents and copyrights are for illogically long time periods, are far too easily approved, and do not have provisions for orphaned patents/copyrights. In particular, we are most severely against software patents and process patents of any kind, as these are, in our opinion, “patents on the obvious, and inevitable”. It is no different than patenting how to lay down a pattern of tiles or cobblestones on the ground!
• We stand for Net Neutrality. Without Net Neutrality, the Internet will become a series of walled gardens, where you will have to pay extra in order to access content not provided by your ISP.
• We also stand for the elimination of caps and restrictions on bandwidth, and the restrictions on competition. Right now a handful of major service providers controls nearly the entire Canadian Internet backbone, and can practically dictate whatever terms they want to any new entrant. We want to level the playing field for all players, regardless of size.

There is a lot more to say, but I have not yet been elected to the position. Once I have been elected to the position, I would greatly appreciate any assistance from volunteers and campaign contributors.

[Nebula]

Where do you stand on healthcare, education, the economy... you know, the things that matter.

[grammafreddy]

*personal attack removed/Jo*

[Captain Awesome]

*off-topic remark removed/Jo*

[rekabis]

Where do you stand on healthcare,

Our healthcare system is working in many respects. For example, having many vendors chase one purchaser (the Canadian government) makes many things much cheaper (drugs, for example). The U.S. system is very expensive because you have comparatively few vendors being chased by many purchasers (individual hospitals).

What I would change, however, is how well people are being paid. Clearly, we are bleeding professionals to the States, where they can make much more than up here. Part of the reason is that healthcare in the States runs much more on a free-market system, where they actually have the ability to pay more. Up here, it is all about the parasitic Unions and their soul-crushing seniority mandates.

Then there are the internal politics and red tape of the healthcare system, which ensures a massive backlog of urgent surgery even when the operating rooms sit empty for a good third of the day. I don’t know enough about why these things happen in order to give a decent reply.

education,

Education needs to be greatly modernized, and focusing more on real-world skills instead of conforming to an educational structure which has remain relatively unchanging for the last 50 years. Highschool was initially structured as a filter - to ensure that only those who conformed to the expectations of society would have the credentials to move up in that society. This no longer applies in our modern world, and as such Education itself must be re-thought; practically from the ground up.

For example, I strongly believe that far too few people are going through life with enough financial education - how many people can tell how much debt that they are carrying, or how long it would take them to pay that debt off? Very few, unfortunately. And yet, we do not have any highschool classes on financial education, where we teach them about debt, how to analyze credit agreements to determine how good (or bad) the interest rates are, and how to determine whether a sale item really is a deal or not. This is the kind of class that I would make mandatory for a highschool diploma.

The same goes for critical thinking. Too many people are unable to critically analyze a statement - such as anything involving Homeopathy or flat-earther offshoots such as creationism - in order to determine its “bullshite quotient”. As such, we have people panicking unnecessarily over cellphone transmissions, high-voltage power lines and wireless internet signals; to say nothing about the widely discredited “link” between inoculations and Autism. I would gladly welcome a series of fundamental courses in highschool that would teach our young students how to properly employ their “bullshite detectors” in the same way that Scientists do - by using the Scientific Method.

And then we have post-secondary education. Which is a really hot-button issue for me. Even though education in Canada is much cheaper than in the States, I have seen many promising people pass over a higher education simply because they cannot afford the tuition - even if they got a student loan. I would gladly see supplementary funding that is directly tied into a student's GPA, and which would go so far (for those with a 4.0 GPA) as to be equivalent to a median-income wage. The better they do in a term, the less they have to worry about where their food and shelter is coming from in the next.

But then we also have a big issue about what kind of an education they are getting. There is a joke about higher education that goes something like this:

They teach Science students to ask, “why does it work?”
They teach Engineering students to ask, “how does it work?”
They teach Business students to ask, “how much does it cost to make it work?”
They teach everyone else to ask, “would you like fries with that?”

It is surprising to see just how useless most Arts degrees are, and how few people outside of the first three degrees above actually manage to make a career from their degrees. WE NEED TO END THAT WASTE.

To that end, I would advocate enhanced support of Science, Engineering and Business degrees, which are the types of degrees which actually help improve a society and contribute directly to its economic bottom line. That is not to say I would outlaw Arts degrees -- far from it. If you really like Philosophy or English Lit or History so much, feel free to take it… just be prepared to finance your own way to that sheepskin.

And finally, we also have the PACE of education. Recent scientific studies have shown that while nearly all early education is good, certain subjects - like Math - need to be introduced only AFTER specific points in a child’s development (the study indicated that stage as being at the grade 6-7 level). On the other hand, once a subject - like Math - is introduced at the correct time, actual learning of that subject can be greatly accelerated from what we currently use. Right now, the same level of Math is taught year in and year out for a good five years or more, until children hit Highschool (at which point they learn precalculus year in and year out). Is it really any wonder that so many children acquire a significant distaste for the subject? By delaying a subject like Math until the grade 6/7 level, we can introduce it to children at a point in their lives when they can soak it up like a sponge. You never know -- a reformed system like this may end up having them learning Calculus by grade 10 - and LOVING IT.

the economy... you know, the things that matter.

The economy is too reliant on the EXPORT of RAW materials. Where do our lumber exports go? To the States, where they are processed into final products. WE SHOULD BE DOING THAT!!! We should be processing the lumber into 2×4’s and plywood sheets before they cross the border, and instead our raw logs are going south of the 49th parallel to be processed there. Same with the oil from our oilsands projects… pumped to refineries that are south of the 49th, after which the processed fuel is trucked back up to Canada to be sold for prices that are much higher than if we were to refine it here.

Even Sun-Rype is in on this… Many of the local fruits it uses are bought up by U.S. companies, who truck it down past the border, and then ship it right back up to Sun-Rype. My family once met this trucker whose whole job was to take fruit from local packing houses, bring it down past the border into Oroville, and then turn around and bring it right back up to the Sun-Rype factory. How efficient is that?

I could have turned this post into a small novel, but that would have taken me long enough for my current session to be logged out.

I hope this helps.

[Nebula]

Will you advocate that the government pay a portion of the cost of survivalist shelters and pitch in to educate teenagers and adults on the proper use of firearms? How about tax rebates on semi-automatic weapons? Installation of choke points to stop the American economic-deprived hoards from invading us?

[steven lloyd]

I hope this helps.

It does. It is obvious your knowledge of union work environments is based on the same old and tired stereotypical rhetoric as is already all too common. Next you complain about people’s lack of critical thinking skills and then go on call an Arts degree useless. Do you even really know what an Arts degree is. what skills are developed in acquiring one, and how many people actually do go one to make careers with one (despite the stereotypical assumptions) ? Have you ever even been to a university ? Maybe an Arts degree would be a good place to start before entering politics. Good luck.

[grammafreddy]

What does the Pirate Party say about what the poverty level should be set at and what will it do for people (especially seniors) who live below that level? How should the poverty level be determined?

[kristina386]

*personal attack removed/Jo*

[kristina386]

*personal attack removed/Jo*

[flamingfingers]

*off-topic comment removed/Jo*

[kristina386]

*off-topic comment removed/Jo*

[kristina386]

*off-topic remark removed/Jo*

[Woodenhead]

I took a look at Jo's stickied post in this sub-forum (about "civility", whatever that is in these forums), then read through this thread, made this post, and left, scratching my head. (I didn't bother reporting because this seems to be the "happy medium" most users like)

(Good luck Rek - nice to see someone putting their money where their mouth is, regardless of if I agree with your views or not.)

[StraitTalk]

I took a look at Jo's stickied post in this sub-forum (about "civility", whatever that is in these forums), then read through this thread, made this post, and left, scratching my head.

(Good luck Rek - nice to see someone putting their money where their mouth is, regardless of if I agree with your views or not.)

No kidding!