dvsuk.net

I made my first post in CBC’s Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister forum a couple of days ago. The 80+ contestants are creating quite a buzz, discussing everything from Responsibility to Protect to violations of the Canada Health Act. I will be making regular (weekly or biweekly?) contributions over there, and cross-posting them here for those of you that would like to hear what I have to say, but don’t have time to wade through hundreds of posts.

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Hello All,

Wow! CBC has harvested quite a crop of concerned Canadians. I am happy to see the many good ideas and compelling arguments that have appeared in this thread so far. Most of all, I am delighted to see my fellow contestants so passionate about building a better Canada. Our country needs all of us! Perhaps CBC would considering reworking this competition into “Canada’s Next Great Parliament” . . .

There is one theme that is missing from the thread, and I would like to bring it to everyone’s attention. Many of you have brought up the deplorable conditions on Canada’s reserves. But did you know that more than 50% of Aboriginal Canadians now live off reserve?

It can be tremendously difficult Aboriginal people living off reserve to access social services because of jurisdictional disagreements between Canada’s various levels of government. Provincial governments are hesitant to provide many services because they claim that Aboriginal people are the responsibility of the Federal government. The Federal government claims that once an Aboriginal person leaves his or her reserve, the provision of social services (such as health and education, for example) to that person becomes a Provincial responsibility. The result is an inadequate array of social services accessible to Aboriginal people living off reserve.

In my video-platform (http://www.cbc.ca/nextprimeminister/candidates/davidsuk.html) I suggested that “the three E’s” – Energy, the Economy, and the Environment – are a set of closely related challenges that Federal and Provincial governments must tackle as a package, together. Well a cooperative approach will be needed in other areas of policy as well, including Aboriginal affairs. All levels of Canadian government must come together to ensure that urban Aboriginal Canadians have equal access to adequately funded social services that take into account the disadvantaged position of Aboriginal people in Canadian society.

What do the rest of you think about the situation of Aboriginal Canadians living off reserve?

Best,

David Suk
http://www.cbc.ca/nextprimeminister/candidates/davidsuk.html

Dear Friends,

I am writing to ask for your support in my campaign for CBC Television’s Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister. After watching my video platform, and considering the contents of this letter, I hope that you will help me advance in the competition by creating a CBC.ca member account, leaving a comment and a five-star rating on my candidacy page, and finally, forwarding this message along to as many people as you can.

Canadians want our country to be economically prosperous and environmentally responsible. I hope that my – no, OUR campaign – will help our real politicians come together and confront the interconnected issues of energy, the economy, and the environment head-on.

Our economy is being torn in two. A strong oil & gas sector has created thousands of jobs and generated billions in tax revenue. Meanwhile, the manufacturing sector is struggling to cope with the high cost of energy and the often over-valued Canadian dollar. At the same time, Canada and its provinces have reached a near impasse on Climate Change. In the absence of Federal leadership, provinces have implemented a patchwork of approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions that is ultimately unlikely to be successful.

Because the oil & gas and manufacturing sectors are concentrated in certain provinces, these interconnected issues have the potential to manifest as divisive debates on national unity. Politicians – calculating the political risks of entering a debate with dissonant regional overtones – refuse to confront these challenges as a package. You and I know, though, that these problems won’t go away just because we ignore them! It’s time that Canada’s political leaders mobilize our tradition of cooperation and compromise to negotiate a comprehensive and effective integrated policy on energy, the economy, and the environment.

To hear more, take a look at my video at http://www.cbc.ca/nextprimeminister/candidates/davidsuk.html. Or send me a question at pm@dvsuk.net. Then, help me bring these issues to a wider audience by leaving a comment and a five-star rating for my video.

Sincerely,

David Suk
pm@dvsuk.net

Please remember to go to comment on and rate my video HERE, on CBC’s site. You will have to create a CBC.ca member account first.

A friend and I spent the weekend in Cleveland, Ohio, working on the Obama campaign. At a Sunday afternoon rally, Obama and Springsteen drew a crowd of approximately 80,000. Once we finally got through the metal detectors, a volunteer invited us to stand in the backdrop behind Obama. So there I am, wearing the blue hat on the right side of the screen while Obama is speaking.