My volunteer efforts with Fair Vote Canada were recognized just recently. Needless to say, I feel good about it.

“Julien Lamarche: executive committee member National Capital Region Chapter, for his ongoing contributions to Fair Vote campaigns over the past year. He organized a phone bank in Ottawa to help raise money and support for the BC referendum campaign, organized phone banks for the membership renewal drive, and is coordinating a webcast* of the upcoming AGM.”
– http://www.fairvote.ca/en/we-salute-these-distinguished-volunteers

*Note: the webcasting is turning out to be more expensive than we expected, so it may not happen. I’ll take credit for the other things that I made happen though

“Religious freedom was first put in the human rights code to protect the right to worship without interference from the government,” said Hawkes [Rev. Brent Hawkes of the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto]. “It was not meant to protect people who use religion to attack others.”

– http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/788900–does-god-care-if-i-m-gay-ads-pulled-from-ttc

Join us for the 9th annual meeting and conference of Fair Vote Canada at the University of Ottawa campus on Saturday, May 29.

Confirmed speakers include Dr. Peter Russell, professor emeritus, minority government expert; Judy Rebick, author, Transforming Power; Dr. Robert Macdermid, campaign finance reform expert; Walter Robinson, Principal, Tactix Government Relations and Public Affairs; Dr. Carolyn Bennett, MP, Liberal Party; and Vanessa Gordon, CAPP Montreal activist. Details on the agenda and additional speakers will be available soon.

Wilf Day made a very good blog post about how electoral reform would actually help the Liberals, not diminish their power. Although the post finishes with matters only of interest for electoral system geeks, he gets a point across of why Liberals should care, but Liberal leadership isn’t.

However, others think 12 fewer Liberal MPs from the GTA are more important than 17 more federalist MPs from Quebec. They think 12 fewer Liberal MPs from the GTA are more important than 18 or 26 more Liberal MPs from regions like Alberta where Liberal voters were unrepresented or under-represented.

Read more here.

I’ve never attended one of their movies myself, but having some outdoor entertainment is always a great use of public space, so I’m spreading the word. The Centretown Movies Outdoor Film Festival is looking for an organization (community centres, schools, etc) capable of supporting it.

The Centretown Movies Outdoor Film Festival (CMOFF) started a decade ago with the objective of using not-fully-utilized spaces around Ottawa centretown for cultural and artistic purposes. During 9 years of operation we brought the chance of having enjoyable entertaining experience to families and individual in centretown area. This was made possible by the efforts of our volunteers and support from the community particularly Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation (CCOC) which was our major sponsor. Since CCOC’s role is to incubate local community projects by supporting them in their formative years, it is stepping back from the role of lead sponsor for CMOFF. Now it is time for Centretown Movies to find another sponsor to bring it forward in its second decade of operation. Because of our volunteer nature, the continuation of CMOFF depends the existence of another organization that can act as our sponsor and liaison with the city.
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Fair Vote Canada - news release

Note:If you wish to help you can subscribe to our newsletter, join or donate.

As the controversy over the proroguing of Parliament continues, Fair Vote Canada announced today that 132 Canadian political scientists from 36 universities and colleges have co-signed a statement calling for federal electoral reform within the next five years.

Among the 132 political scientists signing the statement are 10 professors emerti, the President-elect of the Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA), six former presidents of CPSA, the current Secretary General of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) and a former Secretary General of IPSA.

(more…)

These two pictures are me dancing at my employer’s (The Pythian Group) 2009 Christmas party.

I love dancing to techno (or disco)! But I’m also an introvert, and as this article suggests, I tend to get more of my energy from spending alone or in small crowds.

So if there’s any introvert techno lovers out there in Ottawa, contact me, and lets go to a night club early when there’s very little people. When the crowd gets bigger, we can chat around a beer and plot to take over the world!

Introverts unite!

PS: Here are my and the most popular saved bookmarks on delicious on introvertness.

Dancing to techno / disco at company Christmas 2009 party

To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.

- Oran Arnold

I’m really glad I found this article on having an introvert personality and dealing with a society that places emphasis on extrovertness:

Alicia describes her friendships with both introverts and extroverts this way: “In my neighborhood, we introverts seem to have symbiotically paired up with complete extroverts. The extroverts hang out together at one house, while we introverts share companionable silence at another,” she says. “We’ve labeled this time of writing, painting, and so on as ‘Social Introversion.’ Our partners think it’s less bizarre because we’re “hanging out with friends.” If only they knew we barely speak to each other when we’re together!”
– http://behavioural-psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/dealing_with_introvert_guilt

So, fellow introverts, want to get together to do something where we don’t have to talk?

In the Canadian federal election of 2008, the candidate of Gatineau won with 29% of the votes. Not “the support of 29% of all eligible voters”, but with “29% support of those who voted”.

Recently, I was conveying this fact to a co-worker, and she asked how could this be possible. This is a hint to electoral reform supporters: your audience may not know the rules of plurality voting.

What is plurality?

Plurality: (also known as “simple majority”) the winner is the candidate which has more support than all other candidates. Which doesn’t imply…..

Majority: The winning candidate must have 50% support +1 vote.

In plurality, if there are more than 2 candidates, the winning candidate doesn’t necessarily need majority. They may obtain it, but they won’t necessarily need it to win.

Most US and Canadian elections pick their winner using plurality as the criteria. In Quebec, where there are now 5 major parties contesting federal elections (Conservatives, Liberal, Bloc, NDP and Greens) a winning candidate could have as little as 20%. In Gatineau in 2008, the winning candidate obtained 29% of the votes.

The good news

The good news is that we can fix this sort of thing by changing the electoral system. We have to work a little, but we can have lots of fun at the same time. Join Fair Vote Canada newsletter or better yet, become a member or a monthly donor (it can be as low as 5$/month).