Blessed by the Potato

Long after taxi companies in Vancouver and Victoria set mileage records with their Toyota Prius, Toronto finally has a few hybrid taxis.

I’ve long been a proponent of hybrid cars, and they are ideally suited to use as taxis (well, the ones that are big enough: the Civic and Insight are a bit small). Hybrids gain their biggest gain over conventional gas-only cars in stop-and-go city driving, which is where cabs spend most of their time. The ability to run the A/C and radio with the engine mostly off also helps reduce pollution coming from those trains of idling cabs outside subway stations. Also, as the article mentions, with the extreme number of miles that taxis accumulate hybrids pay for themselves a lot faster than other cars. While battery life is a common concern among potential buyers, it’s much less of an issue for taxis since they tend to go through cars in much shorter amounts of time, and battery degradation happens at least party due to time elapsed along with use (mileage/recharge cycles).

I know that you usually don’t get your choice of cabs when you call for one, but if I did I know I’d request the hybrid cab every time.

Now, if only we could get the message out to the other cabbies that while they use up their Taurus or Crown Vic before moving up to a hybrid, that driving around like total fucking idiots costs them more in gas, we’d all be better off.

Also, for Ontario Citizen’s: January 31 is the last day to get your comments in for the Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform! (Look for mine soon)

I’m shocked and awed at the government’s latest motion to recognize Quebec as a “nation”. It’s a pretty dumb thing to do in the first place, and can really only lead to division down the road. I’m also really shocked that it’s the Conservatives doing this, since they’re usually the first party to stand up and oppose the “special needs” of the French community. It makes me wonder just what the heck is in the drinking water up in Ottawa: usually we can count on the Cons to make stupid, wrong-headed promises, and follow up on a few of them. Instead, with a shakey minority government, they’ve broken a big campaign promise* and broken out something crazy like this.

Yes, Quebecois have their own “cultural identity”, but so does almost every other group you can think of (muslims, scots, gansta rappers, liberals, protestants, gold prospectors, hockey players). Maybe it’s because I’m permanently locked into an English Canadian mindset, but I just don’t see the Quebecois as being all that special. Yes, they did play a big part in our country’s history, but we already recognize that with a huge amount of protection for the language and culture. [Plus, part of that history was losing a war to the English. Props to my man Wolfe, who included a promise of religious freedom for the conquered.]

I hate to make it an us-vs-them sort of thing, since we’re all Canadians together, but that’s what “nation” status will inevitably do. And from there, it won’t be too many decades before nation-within-a-nation status is transmuted into a full-blown seperate nation, and that will get really ugly.

* – Full disclosure: breaking of said promise has wiped out ~10% of my net worth.

I caught the all candidate’s debate on the Rogers community station on tape last night, and it was some good watching. Not so much for the political stuff (though my favourite candidate did do fairly well), nor for the fantastic local media camera work (pan over to the next candidate… ah! too far!… back… ok… crap, now the other guy’s talking!), but for the sheer craziness factor. One of the minor party candidates (Canadian Action) seemed to only have enough anti-crazy medicine to make it through 59 minutes of the hour long debate, because he finished off with a pledge to make London a world-class airship terminus. Air ships, as in zeppelins. Dirigibles. The moderator was stunned after he finished, giving him this “what the hell are you talking about?” look, which was a nice change from the soulless robot impartial moderation most other networks/debates aim for. I had to watch that part at least 4 times to make sure I heard it right (and to see that look on the moderator’s face).

The rest of the debate wasn’t particularly special. Dianne Hasket got booed when she said she was the only candidate who lived in the riding (past tense, perhaps, as all reports place her as living in the States for the last 6 years). Most of the candidates had real trouble speaking to the camera or the audience, having to read a lot (which was surprising as with 7 of them up on stage the responses were kept really short, and also gave lots of time for them to check their notes before speaking). Glen Pearson and Elizabeth May were the notable exceptions.

I managed to sit (well, technically stand since the place was packed) in the first all-candidate’s debate here in London tonight. It was quite a show. I think Elizabeth May did quite well for herself, but the other candidates did fairly well too (and it appears I’ve underestimated Pearson, though he is rather full of himself… but I suppose freeing slaves in the Sudan or somesuch will do that to a guy).

Everyone took the green party very seriously, taking turns to try to shoot them down or steal pages from their playbook in at least equal measure to the other parties.

I don’t think the Tory candidate did a very good job: her party’s platform drew a lot of boos and hisses (especially the “I support the traditional definition of marriage.” comment). She kept spewing the catchphrases about accountability and promises, and that she’d personally stand up for issues relevant to London in the Tory caucus — unfortunately, a big broken Tory promise is barely two weeks behind us, and Garth Turner was mentioned just before she promised to cause a rucus in caucus, and we all know how well the Tories stand for that sort of behaviour now. There was a mock-election held after the debate, and surprisingly the Tory candidate came in second (a distant second to Elizabeth’s landslide — but it was a largely student crowd).

Speaking of students, it was interesting to see the various responses to the question of how to help ease the cost and most importantly debt of post-secondary education. The Tory candidate’s plan was to have more low-interest student loans, and to not charge income tax on loans or scholarships. That went over like a lead balloon, since we all know that even low interest can rack up, and it often switches to high interest the instant you graduate. Plus if you’re squeaking by as a student on loans and scholarships, you’re probably not paying tax anyway (when I had my TAship I had to pay all of $80 in tax; this is the first year it might go into triple digits). The Liberal candidate didn’t really respond specifically, just to say that before they lost power, great things were coming with x-million dollars to go into the budget for education, and if we gave them another chance they’d go back to that plan. The NDP plan was interesting, involving paying half the first and last year’s tuition [or was that part of the Liberal one?], and freezing or rolling back tuition costs. The Green response was “When I graduated from Law school in [70’s/80’s?] I had all of $5000 in debt. That’s because back then the government had bursaries, grants and interest-free loans, which they scrapped after a report said it was a great way to save money. Going back to that system would help a lot of people — higher education should be effectively free for those that want it.”

Anyhow, my general feeling coming away from this is still that E. May is the candidate of choice. Pearson came off as arrogant, and moreover, “a man of action” which is great for a lot of leadership positions, but maybe not as a backbencher in the opposition party of the Canadian Parliament. Men of action lose it in those sorts of situations. Walker liked to tout how the NDP were the only party to do, well, pretty much anything (defend the environment, work for students, support the arts, work towards equality for women, you name it, and the NDP are the only ones working for that). It seemed like a really lame attempt to try to distinguish herself from E. May, and just made her seem kind of sad. I liked it when she finished her women’s issue thing with “the NDP is the only party determined to have women make up 50% of their members”, and then Elizabeth says “well, if you elect me the caucus will be 100% women.”

Garth Turner, former Conservative MP had a press release today to talk about some issues that arose after becoming an independent, and the conflicts between his local riding association and Conservative central. I agree with a lot of what he says, and I think it highlights the need to include the ability to elect independents in any electoral reform process we undertake. I truly do think we can do better than the current first-past-the-post system, but I really do fear that proportional representation with party lists will only give the parties more power to nominate drones rather than representatives. It might give us a parliament divided by parties closer to how we support them, but less of what we really want in the end: effective representation that is accountable to the electorate.