Friday, October 13, 2006

Vote McCorp for a better world!

To be eligible to vote in a BC local election, you have to be a citizen, you have to be 18 or more, and you have to have lived in BC for 6 months and your district for 30 days.
Did I leave anything out?
Oh yeah - you also have to be a person.

Some people aren't so keen on that last qualification and they want to change it :

"WHEREAS corporations contribute to the operation of local government but have no representation.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Union of BC Municipalities request that the Provincial Government review local government election legislation and amend it accordingly to permit corporations the right to a vote in local government elections."
Submitted by Lumby

Ha! Good old Lumby, eh? This year's 'useful idiot' municipality.

Resolution B76, as it is called, will be debated at the Union of BC Municipalities convention Oct 23 - 27 in Victoria, and will presumably be defeated like it always has been before.

As if we don't already have enough trouble with the Council of Chief Executives writing Canada's energy and foreign policies.

But I'm most curious about the proposed logistics here.
Would corporations be required to provide documentation that they are 18 years or older and Canadian?
Because currently, our human U.S. relatives up here on holiday don't get to vote.
And if they break the law or act like social psychopaths while they're here, they get deported.

Meanwhile, the appliances in my kitchen are both Canadian and well over 18. Just sayin'.

Link from Peace Earth & Justice News

8 comments:

MgS said...

Good Lord! That's a postively vile proposition - what collection of wingnuts keeps putting it forward?

Anonymous said...

Once corporations were granted the status of person it was only a matter of time.

RossK said...

Could you imagine how many trees Kinder-Morgan would have cut down in Burnaby if they got control of Council?

And don't forget, those Corps are very very proficient breeders when they want to be - especially the numbered ones.

.

Q said...

I was in Lumby. It was so sweet. They had Lumby days celebrations with a little parade.
Maybe Vernon is a bad influence, seemed more malevolent over there.

Alison said...

Grog : Different ones every time. Quel surprise, eh?

Dana : I may be wrong here, and someone please correct me if I am, but I don't believe corporations have been granted anything like personhood in Canada. It's just another one of those creeping things. Even Joel Bakan of "The Corporation" is unclear on this. Very bad news though if we allow ourselves to be convinced it is inevitable. Of course as the rights of persons become eroded, this will become less relevant.

Ross, Q : I'd be very surprised if more than a handful of people in Lumby even know about it. I'm going to check on that.

Q said...

I emailed someone I know in top admin. for the Lumby munic. and they were shocked people know that. I'll try and get more info out of them but they just said this is called 'taking care of your buddies' grrr

Scotian said...

One of the things that has most disturbed me over my lifetime is watching corporations gain more and more "rights" as a "person/citizen", yet not the same amount of responsibilities that come with them. They seem to be getting more and more of the rights and privileges without having to accept the equivalent responsibilities that go with them. I find that notion incredibly disturbing, a massive double standard, and this notion that you linked to being yet another example of this insanity creeping throughout western society.

Rev.Paperboy said...

One of my favorite quotations from an American president is from Andrew Jackson, who opposed allowing corporations to have any legal status at all on the grounds that they had "neither asses to kick nor souls to damn."

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