susan gregory and today with canada day happening tomorrow and a federal election expected for the fall of man almost certain to happen in the fall we have another state of the nation show today but this time it's going to be through the limbs of a project that is going to be happening during the election campaign and to tell us more about bout we have here in the studio she is actually crowdfunding a billboard that's going to go up next to the highway in that news with the wording harper or canada you can't have both us a bit about your background what got you started with the idea of a billboard who my i have been following a lot in in the activist sense of the way and then i started to see so many things going wrong and falling apart and democracy wise and i thought i need to study this i need to get into finding out what exactly democracy is supposed to look like so i took a cour e and then i took another one on international human rights and i'm going what i'm seeing here in our country in our government use all wrong they've got it all backwards i'm going now i know how it should look i demand they get back to it because this is what our country was founded on is is democracy and democracy was created so that we can get away from authoritarian regimes and stuff like that and there are other countries in the world like sierra leone who are fighting for their democratic rights and they're looking to us to be the example and my friends go like if you're having problems with democracy wh and i'm going well when you study it we're actually in a democratic recession and so what we can do is we can come together to pull ourselves out of it and we can see  what makes a strong democracy is citizen participation that is the basis of it where people get to know the issues and they come together to make decisions see the government is supposed to serve us we elect agents for the people not leaders as they do in dictator countries so anyway after all of this and and trying to letters to the governor general and get rid of this guy and and then the commonwealth ministerial action group also them they  are were a member of the commonwealth and they have a voice to their similar to the un only it's so i sent letters to them and see harper now you know before we don't have a country anymore and  that was accepted but then i thought you know what i could feel the life force of my country being sucked from my soul and all the sudden the message came it's harper or canada i can't have both and i thought oh my gosh how my going to get this message out because i'm picking it up from this like everybody in this country is saying the same thing to themselves i'm going where ok the first thought the came to my mind was a billboard oh here we go pretty girl har er canada you can't have both and would be like i catch ing and then i sent it off to coast outdoor advertising he said you really don't need the image they say the words are powerful enough that anyone who sees it you know is going to get that message so that's where i got the quote and the pricing and everything in location is from them ok so this will be on highway billboards determine right now whether you are representing a different political party or is this just your own idea well i i totally wish they would support it because this billboard is doing half of the work for the other party is because part of their problem is is harper and finding a way to you to show the rest of the country  that he is the wrong person for the position of prime minister is half of their job you know and this billboard is doing half of the work for them and i thought you know this funding they get tens of thousands of dollars and going and this is a real modest little twenty six hundred dollars a campaign that's going to do all the work for them so even anonymously they should be supporting it they should be using some are funding and support this there's only fifteen hundred dollars left needed i've already raised eleven hundred ok so your crowd funding that has maybe we you could give us the coordinates for that so that listeners can find out a bit more about how they can contribute well there is a website that i have set up harper or canada dot ca and i have i can accept donations through pay pal and also i'm using a crowd under site called fundraiser and so the links are there there's also stores online stores to buy like t shirts like this one yes don't you love it she has just for our listeners who can't see through the radio she has on a harper or canada you can't have both t shirt so those look very nice i think you've commented on your website that people notice that you're out and about oh yes oh yes i walk down the street and people will go you know that we walking by and go oh i pick canada and then they go and they just kind of the kind of bounce away and it's like and everybody that i pass they smile it's like it's like i run into kindred spirits you know in people all the time and it's like and all of a sudden people are just more friendly more than normal you know because i don't like to see people when i'm on my walks and in the stores and talk to them but they're even more friendly and they come up and and other people have had the same experience wearing them that it brings people out in able to talk in a real mature and i don't know it's just a respectful way to each other because we can see where each other coming from yeah wearing and i had this one made locally i finally found someone and i have one for you legal perhaps we could say for someone other than representative of a political party to actually campaign during a federal election and there is i understand third party provision so what's that all about i'm going to pass that question because it's a really good one and people do ask it to bill mccallum because he's very knowledgeable on those things and he's advisor anyway i'm not ok ok as it stands right now under elections canada you have to register as a third party advertiser once the writ has dropped elections will give you all that information and it's pretty easy to find the section on it is rather obscure and complicated what it does is is you are basically allowed to spend whatever money you wish to criticize the government or to support the government outside of the election period this is there a relatively new change to the legislation what we do find is that it is helpful for anybody who does wish to to participate as a third party advertiser if they are going to advertise your new election register before hand just get send in a letter of your intent because this elsewhere across canada people who would put up like a sheet of plywood so i sign on their yard or on for and us and stuff like this stuff does have to be registered now prior to this it did not have to be it's very simple to do you can do it online you're not looking at fees fines penalties or whatever but canadians are allowed to participate in the election there is a limitation it's about at work so there's a complex formula that's based on on a flat rate of about four thousand a writing or one hundred fifty thousand across the country however you have to do a calculation and as it stands right now the limitation per writing will be about forty one hundred dollars assuming the rich is drop when we expect it to be which would be thirty seven for a thirty seven day election period yes i think there's some worry actually amongst the non conservative parties you might say that the conservatives have a number of or at least one third party you're right and i don't know what the story is on that exactly but there's a bit of worry that they can end run around the actually very institute a tax tactic well it's a charitable it's register is a registered charity yet it isn't heavily involved in what we see all the articles criticizing ok we see that setting the status of schools right taxpayers federation is another when these organizations are able to do this our friends and neighbors yourself we don't have that kind of money we don't have those kind of organizations this is a grassroots type of operation and it doesn't really apply let's just go back to something that i would just like to interject here because i'm not sure how many people are really aware of this political parties themselves do have very strict rules there's kind of an understanding i think that corporations can donate millions of dollars to political parties at the federal level in canada that is true is that there is actually no i checked election the start ca this morning and i didn't see the restraints in that used to say anyway that only individuals can contribute to political parties this is all from about two thousand and four when john creates actually that was one of the last things he did when he was in office was put in these new rules but there is now supposedly only individuals can donate to political parties and there are very strict limits it's now fifteen hundred dollars it's one thousand five hundred for a party nationally another fifteen hundred i think you can donate maybe to a writing association or to some other or of a political party and you can donate fifteen hundred to a candidate in the election but that's only during the election so those are the limits and if you for example go to a two hundred dollar a plate fund raising dinner for a political party you only get a tax receipt for the amount that's over and above the value of the dinner itself and their parties have tended to be very careful about that because they cannot internally funding is very strictly regulated what i support is what they can spend during the rick period now does when the election is announced we have an interesting situation with these lovely preset elections where basically parties can spend whatever they want and tell the richest rock so basically what we have seeing this harper pac was set up by independent people and pac of course but leading up to that date organizations as long as they get they don't get a charitable status there there are there are regulations on what corporations specifically can span and what other organizations but these are set up  to basically allows major funneling and we're talking not just millions we're talking tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars spent into these infomercials that we see to guide us to the right choice safe choice that we have a system it has evolved now money does buy elections and can buy elections what we have to do is try and counter this when the option of getting out the vote more people did not vote in the last election and voted for any single party that is the single biggest problem we have in this country that the parties themselves have to address this and we as canadians after process  just two comments have been on what you were talking about with all this money going into infomercials and that sort of things that a lot of that is taxpayers money to who isn't a yes i understand you want to comment never going to know but this is the this is a campaign that will bring the message to the people that the a billboard can the bill miller campaign harper or canada is the only question canadians have to ask themselves because once you choose canada you will stand for that because canada is it will support you it sustains us harper never will sustain us or support us our country does that for us and we are connected to it so we stand for that and no matter what person is up in parliament we will still stand for our country we will choose what's best for it so what does canada mean to the three of you maybe let's start with jordan because you haven't spoken yet this morning what you know if we're choosing here what what is it that we're choosing when we choose canada from your point of view  during bill spoke to this in a way i think our experience the last ten years or so with our present prime minister has been that the vision we all hold of canada has been lost to us and we need recapture that i think diana said a couple of times so for me is the real issue is about leadership of our country i think mr harper said it very directly to us a number of years ago when he said if i finally get a majority this country is going to change and you're going to see a real change that you probably weren't expecting none of us understood that at the time what that meant and now we're getting to see the results of that so i think the real issue is around leadership of our country when we were just talking a moment ago about financing things like big money infomercials that sort of thing the present government allowed to do that because it's money that they say is being spent in the best interests of canadians because they are the government so the government's just promoting things that they think they want to be leader take leadership in the government and spend our canadian taxpayers to do that that sounds fair on board handle mentioned again that's really not serving us as individuals it's serving the big money interests that really are behind the of the party that has been in power for a period of time now when we talk about tax payers funding some of these things that maybe i would like to actually refer our listeners to the tyee when there was an article yesterday about the photo op that harper had at b c i t and how that was orchestrated and apparently that was paid for by us the taxpayers but it was really something to promote harper and his agenda  but there are lots of interesting little details in there about how the whole thing was set up was i think what they've been doing for a period of time now in fact all of the ministers are sent out by their prime minister's office whenever they have a news item to put out there they're sent around the country all at taxpayers expense to come into these photo ops and these press releases and we pay for all of that to get out with they would say is the canadian government policy around whatever it is in that case it was about education marketing people into b c i t and that level of education so they can support well sans kinds of jobs in the future apparently with and i think that's what's missing people have a misconception that our government was designed to have a whole bunch of checks and balances and rolls actually on another show i would love to get into the details basically it was set up as a or else you're kicked out of the party and you can't you will not be renominated again this is a new invention this is this is then within my lifetime we start looking at the lack of manners the lack of civility in the house this is the top down system that we see we see the harper conservatives in interviews talking on issues that they never answer questions they come back with their talking points they avoid issues they have their set pieces and almost all of it seems to revolve on attacking others for having the call to criticize this is not democracy democrac exchange of information this is about i may not like what what what you have to say i mean not agree with it i think it's fundamentally wrong but i'm still entitled to speak my mind and so are you as long as we do it in a civil and respectful manner this is not our parliament this is not this party the conservative party this is not mr harper the best example the most recent example and he gives me one almost every day i think we watch we watch the musical  this incredibly militarized truck with ice but better ready to fight a war this is not canada we're not a fear for our lives from imminent terrorist attack but this is the type of message that gets people elected and sometimes keeps them elected and hopefully diane's billboard is going to make people sit up and realize it really is that if we have another four years or more that of this man as prime minister i don't just fear from my children i fear for my grandchild so canada to us is a place where ideas are exchanged freely and openly without attacking each other and the discussion is about what's good for the country rather than just what's good for a particular interest or a particular political party what we a way of summarising that one way to put that i think that would be helpful to listeners that is to recognize that we do know what you lecter prime minister we elect an individual representative of a particular constituency and then that gets put into let's i'm saying whoever wins the election if we say that if we hold the idea that we are electing our prime minister that's just not for to you so that's not true none of us in this room or on listening on the radio i would say voted prime minister mr harper and yet he just turned the name of the branding of his party hand for government to the harper government but the harper government is the canadian government led by mr harper we had no particular individual influence you know elected true true and of course as we know sixty percent of people who did vote in two thousand and eleven voted for for this billboard well canada is in my blood my great great grandparents immigrated here from different parts of the british isles my great grandfather wrote about corruption in government the eighteen seventies and such and i have all of his work so i'm basically carrying on my great grandfather's work i did notice today i was looking at scandals political scandals in canada their list state and it started in one thousand nine hundred ninety with a conservative and it has doubled with harper the list of scandals he has no and no respect for canadians i totally wish he would stay home i don't ever want to see him on the t v he's the kind of person that you could create a diet around and i have just put his face on a bag of potato chips and you will be ok on your fridge door and you will be so fed up as prime minister i thought i don't trust that guy i just don't trust him there's something about him and and i was true i was right to trust and that's a part of it too you know in how people choose and yours you should be choosing the person you trust the most people strategically vote there is a way of voting and individual and then party and then leader there's an order that is right but it's been inverted john carter brought that up he's neither member of the c o c and he's really very insightful but those are the things people people need to to vote and there's also the you know the voting strategies the voting the electoral system there are other electoral systems we can use quite easily and integrate them into our actual system we can do to tear voting which we can vote and we everybody has a voice everybody's voice across the country not just localized in ottawa and ontario i mean this is where the farthest west you can get in the oh yeah that's right but they're they're not dealing with the stuff that we're dealing with n b c that's true with tankers of pipelines and stuff and you know and the thing is too there's there's a lot of stuff around there that it's all secretive but if you pay attention you can see inside of it and a lot of people do pay attention you become aware and they use a lot of trojan horses like pipeline can easily be converted to a deal that pipeline people aren't aware of that they sneak in they use harper uses a lot of switchin bait he's been in contempt of parliament since the first day he walked in and he hasn't stopped there is so much of the so much he's change the system to suit himself and i'm pretty darn sure he wrote rewrote the bible to suit himself just took a course these are our particular interpretations year of things that he has done candidate and of course he liberally that's probably not quite the right word either i interprets in his own way what other politicians say and spins them in ways we've seen that just very recently when gets a little bit a little bit over the top that's sort of like the cabinet minister that's now the minister of finance calling most of us environmentalist terrorists yeah yeah oh yes and foreign influence well we could talk a lot about all of those things and i'm going to take a brief break here but when we come back i would like to perhaps talk about what we expect from a prime minister so hold that thought while i remind our listeners that you're listening to c h l why would a one point seven f m your listener supported campus and community station based in downtown and imo but we stream as happening from nine am to two thirty pm at what's against this saturday july fourth outside lucky's liquor store and country club mall and lucky's will be offering discounts inside the store as well but of course tomorrow is canada day and every community is going to be having its own celebration here in the ny my whole it will happen at my feel certain park brought to us by the city of  sponsors it will be from eleven am to three thirty pm it's free of course it's a family celebration there will be at eleven a celebration of flags and the opening ceremon and then from eleven thirty to three thirty multicultural food fair interactive booths roving and live entertainment and the best you can waterfront farmer's market will be there as well so you can even do some shopping for your farm produce and probably some crafts and other fun things so happy canada day everyone tomorrow and that brings us right back to the show because the program that you're listening to on c h o i went to one point seven f m is changes today and one of our guests is diane babcock whose message is harper or canada you can't have both and i hear her that you are going to be having a table tomorrow at mafiosa park is that correct yes i am basically joining alongside with the council comedians and because i'm a member and the have endorsed this campaign and very and also have helped to fund along with all of the other contributors who are just in meeting people and you know i've got the best people behind me and i just love that support that they give me and i love it when people say i love what you're doing and thank you for doing this in it's brilliant and and it's just inspiring oh ok that's fantastic all right so council canadians will be there as well so a good opportunity to find out more about what you guys are doing and what the issues are that the council is dealing with and we'll get to those in a few minutes i think because after we talk about our standards for prime ministers then i think perhaps we should go into what is it about stephen harper's might be problematic in that we've talked about how people spin things were add their own opinions and so on if we can try to stick to verifiable facts that would be helpful because i think there are enough of the who's probably to take us almost to the end of the hour and that way we can't be accused of just slagging the poor gentleman so but first of all what are our expectations of  prime minister of canada just in general before we start talking about stephen harper i would say they both they they need to represent the people and they need to listen to the people and the need to be actively involved in doing what's best in bringing people into their highest you know their optimum capability using people's minds and in developing the reason being a leader a leading country a model country like we were once we had the greatest you know health care system we were modeled after now we were we're like shunned because we don't have the we're not showing up with our intelligence anymore that our leaders need to recognize and some of them do they need to see they need to you say we need to see them having proven themselves in a track record even before they become a prime minister or any such political figure they must have quality of that resume i would think in terms of community service for example as opposed to simply being a partisan hack you know maybe being a bag man for a particular party raising funds maybe that's not what you want to see you want to see somebody who is out there working with the food bank who are working with aboriginal organizations working with you name it you know if there are so many ways for people to be involved in the community or involved in things that promote the well being of the country as opposed to a particular political party shall we say i guess the way i see that is i certainly would say the first criteria for the prime minister needs to be leadership i don't know we'll never expect him to work at the food banks however i think he's got more wide range we need to operate it but the thing that i see that's important i think diane again touched on this in a way the leadership needs to have a certain moral component to it that would be respectful of the people that they're supposedly working for because he's not elected by the people of canada he can go his own way and say he's not actually responsible to do that i think that's part of mr harper's way of looking at things so for me it's a boat trust and ethics and morality in the individual person trust is the very biggest thing in the person has to convince me that they are trustworthy naively i've given people trust in the past mr herbert might be a good example that turned out to be not productive in that way and i think that's what a lot of the canadian people are finally starting to see now after ten years and i happen to be one one of the greatest men i think that has led this this country in my lifetime these are people who did not represent just the people who voted for them but they actually they actually tried their best to represent canadians as a whole and when you're a leader when you lead you have to step outside and be willing to step outside your comfort zone that you are not just representing your personal viewpoint you are trying to do the best where everybody and that is what we've gotten away from we've where we're now on this me ism where i'm sorry the harper brand is a den a fight with a very small group of canadians who do as their basis whether it's their religion or their creed do talked a lot about compassion and sharing and god's will but when they actually the talk they don't that they do not care about people who are outside of their immediate circle they do not act or act compassionately with a feeling of entitlement and that they should be rewarded for it and that this is just so fundamentally wrong it's just that it drives words no game and if we look around mr harper they control the media the visit to the pope and overseas for the for their for the the it was a g twenty what was a perfect example they only had of the only pictures that were factory there was a one done just recently in ontario all all the contract workers were given the day off they were not there that many of the people working at that plant for that photo walk were contract workers not protected and not employed into the same standards as regular full time workers those people were given the day off just might say something oh dear oh dear now before we go on to more verifiable facts about what i do have a car and they're going to let's just touch for a second on myth speak because i think there are certain myths around the different political parties and i think both bill and jordan have kind of touched on one of those which is the religious thing that that there's a sense and i've heard people say this that if somebody expresses being religious and allegedly attends a church or i have another religious institution that that makes them a moral person so is there a man around the conservative party having to do with that and then what are some of the other myths for example another one is that an n d p government will bankrupt the country by spending so much money that it how about  even just those two meth say what would be your take on those of it because i think the conservative with the the latter one about spending the conservatives are perceived as fiscally responsible tyee common sense the vancouver observer the globe and mail but the last couple of weeks they've run a whole series about looking at the conservative branding as following the economy and picture and we're now starting to see that as things like the price of oil has gone down and scientists now say all of the oil in the tar sands to save our planet should be left in the ground that doesn't fit his picture of the way it's supposed to go but he keeps selling that picture and people sort of believe it they say well there's good paying jobs which is wrong with taking the one where there's lots wrong with it but i think darren made the point earlier that we believe the promises of those people because we have an expectation of them as our leaders our politicians the fell tell us the truth and they'll put plans in place that will be in our best interests and that just hasn't turned out to be the factual wind farms there already they've done good solar potential and she's talking about diversify and she's reopened the question with where the former premier law he'd ranted about for the last couple of years before his death where are the refineries in alberta that if it instead of shipping out raw product we're hewers of wood and and dryers a water still mean if we want to look at b c s logging exports we ship refineries and everybody said oh it's too expensive it's too costly these pipelines cost billions of dollars and the threat on our environment is beyond belief so there where where is that in the equation of the economy in terms of jobs what about the refinery jobs right what about there in new all the energy jobs mcdonald's must be good enough i got a pretty little he has a case so we've already started doing this actually from the very beginning of the that are particularly strong in the united states and so he just exactly remodels what united states policy has on his real and it's not a fair policy at all and so he supports all of everything that israel does against the people of palestine for example i'm not judging which whether one side is great or wrong in saying it that way but many people see it in a fairer way that they judge both sides of that issue our government is handcuffed to following and supporting the policy of the united states as far as international relations go in israel and palestine and that's that's a fact and who do we think we are where the big kid in a sandbox i don't think so we send six jets over to bomb missile well you want to know what we could have set up one or two hospitals in palestine or syria and protected refugee camps and sent over aid and clean water but because we s armaments for your around on the terrorist list they have said they will attack canada because of the way we've chosen to be helpful to bombing them so you say why did war in the policy has been counterproductive in other words you no there are men and women overseas wearing the blue another he's a keeper hasn't killed any military or no longer peacekeepers another clear example you wanted verifiable examples mr harper sold his brand on being an honest broker a moral person based to some degree on religion though i have to give him credit that he didn't talk about religion particularly because we're supposed to be separating state and religion but a fact that i saw on the television just two days ago i think it was was a former member of parliament named elder mastro hall in handcuffs and yeah this is one of the moral people that was elected as one of our representatives to act in our best interest who reason is going to jail is he did exactly the opposite he supported the harper pact kind of idealism  and that's the price he's going to have to pay for that now i don't know course there's many others and one of the nastiest critics you know anybody you know the media that had this man was downright pile in the way he treated people in her interviews and on the press was acceptable to mr harper in the concert because sure he's even been saying the judge was wrong and worst case the judge was right every you just have to look at the facts as well for example he donated twenty thousand dollars to his own campaign when he was running for parliament well the maximum right on the elections canada website is five thousand so right there you know you've got to lation the judge in his decision goes into great detail about why he instituted this that  to lie throughout the proceedings right so the you know another one politically is just along that line mr harper is having lots of disagreements i might say with our supreme court because the supreme court lives up to is inconvenient for mr harper to admit to so now he's saying that our supreme court is wrong where for many people in in canada and i'm one of them that's one of the checks and balances that i have the most faith in because they are not elected who's our supreme court of canada they're the smartest group of people we have in our country in our prime minister is going to time they make a ruling based on law disagreeing with him they throat and while we're on the supreme court counsel canadians has got the pilon the inquest unquote unfair election act this is coming up on i think on the on friday we're hoping to try and get some kind of a stay sensually  conservative branded fair elections act is going to either disenfranchise or change the id requirements for close to seven million canadians all first nations ban cars can't be used foreigners anybody who's and that a good person according to mr harper it's going to be difficult to vote forty years of voting i voted for my residence in the last election yes what i file my income tax i'm not on the electors list after all these years and we've been going through this with thousands anyway just to inform yourself about how a lot of these things are supposed to work because you are not going to find from necessarily all that many other places that's a good site to go to just so is the lead now site but so is just the parliamentary website if you want to find out who's representing different parts of the country is incredibly got one more specific example to relate to what you had said and something bill said just made me touch on it as i was walking around with my harvester or canada t shirt on someone made the comment to me about sending the money that we're spending on jets in armaments that so many other countries can handle why are we taking care of our own people here in canada spending that kind of budget on our first nations people who live in a third world living conditions and have ever since mr harper came to power that he continually promises that he's doing wonderful things for first nations the clear facts on the ground in any person's face and looks at it as he's not doing that he's keeping them in a third third world country kind of living situation and then blame it on them for their situation so you have the fact that you asked about basically there's over a billion dollars left on spent on the first nations but yeah there is no longer a billion dollars on veterans affairs and spent this is how we defeated a budget by not helping those in need the seniors budget is exactly the same again way under spending again a turn of a billion dollars of money that people who need help did not get it we are just about out of time and i know there is lots more so please listeners just go to the tyee read the globe and mail i mean go there or check the c b c website just get the information if you're not sure about how some of these things are happening check the council of canadians that's canadians  find out more about that and how they can make a contribution from the grassroots to actually getting that billboard up on the highway well it's very easy if you go to the harper or canada dot ca website i actually have a video up there too the time for talking is over the time for action is now and it's you can donate through pay pal there's  also a link to the crowdfunding site a fundraiser there's a thermometer it shows it's halfway there almost i also have some files i have a cheap talk about a friend who rode four thousand miles for democracy in tw twelve i have i'm just going to put up all of the information i learned in democratic development the course i took i am i have compiled into a booklet and it's in la it also shows what i'm seeing in government is called crash course in democracy the symbol for democracy is crashing with the canadian flag into a a bomb and that's the that's just cover but i quickly put this together and organized in a a that even the layperson can understand these are our options we're not powerless we are not powerless we have a voice we need we will be heard excellent conservative and you want to see something different you have to vote but we are out of time so thank you so much diane badcock bill mccallum and jordan ellis for being here today that is our show and on  thanks so much for joining us