I'd like to thank my fellow voters in the Parkdale-High Park riding for voting out Sam "Hollywood's MP" Bulte and voting in Peggy Nash.
Some of the credit should go to Cory Doctorow, Michael Geist, Ren Bucholz and the EFF/Online Rights Canada and all the bloggers who spoke out about Ms. Bulte. It would probably be wrong to declare that "The Internet" or "The Blogosphere" was the sole factor in Ms. Bulte's ouster, but it probably helped get the word out. A lot of the credit has to go to Peggy Nash for calling Ms. Bulte on her Big Content cronyism during her campaign, and a lot of the blame has to go to the way Ms. Bulte presented her case: with a toxic mixture of arrogance, contempt for her own constituents and a willingness to play fast and loose with facts.
Here's how the votes broke down:
| DISTRICT: Parkdale-High Park | ||||
| Candidate | Party | Vote Count | Vote Share | Elected |
| Peggy Nash | NDP | 20690 | 40.31% | X |
| Sarmite Sam Bulte | LIB | 18489 | 36.02% | |
| Jurij Klufas | CON | 8767 | 17.08% | |
| Robert L. Rishchynski | GRN | 2820 | 5.49% | |
| Terry Parker | MP | 311 | 0.61% | |
| Lorne Gershuny | ML | 133 | 0.26% | |
| Beverly Bernardo | NA | 119 | 0.23% | |
If there's a candidate I feel sorry for, it's Marxist-Leninist Party candidate Lorne Gershuny. As I said earlier, he made articulate and impassioned statements and was considerably more personable than Bulte at the January 11th all-candidates meeting. Still, his party was beaten by the Marijuana Party by a two-to-one margin, even though their candidate Terry Parker passed on a few questions and was mostly unintelligible (and possibly baked) for the rest. Even worse, they were nearly matched by Beverly Bernardo, who didn't show up to any of the all-candidate meetings, didn't have any signage and whose candidacy was unknown to many voters until they saw the ballot. He's probably thanking his lucky stars that the Communist Party wasn't in the riding to further split the no-hope vote in a People's Front of Judea/Judean People's Front sort of way.
Office phone:
Google Talk:
(Now watch me get sued by a vengeful MPAA.)
It's here.
The most telling part was comments from Sam, excerpted below:
Meanwhile, Bulte, driving home with her family, had little to say about her defeat.
"What do you expect me to say? I have no thoughts. You run on your record and the people decide for change," she said.
When asked about her thoughts on a minority government, she said, "To be frank, I don't care. I dedicated my life to the people and to the riding and they decided. It's great; it's a democracy."
Bulte, a lawyer, said she will return to her practice.
"According to everybody, I did nothing. You work so hard and devote your heart and soul and the people have chosen. So good luck to the NDP. Good luck to Peggy Nash and good luck to the country."
Copyright Toronto Star January 24th, 2006
Arrogent? Perhaps.
Bitter? Yes.
Who I want in power in my riding? Ummm, No.
Its hard to say what will happen now that there is no arts representation in power in Ottawa. Many arts orgs like having at least one MP of the party in power representing Toronto, but doubt anyone would have voted Conservative based on that.
The money will dry up quickly and thier will be much nastiness about funding art I think. The Con's are on record dozens of times with MP's complaining that the government should not provide grant money even for television production, much less film and theatre.
bob