I gotta level with you folks: 2016 was pretty rough on Ellen and me. Geo-politics and other tragedies aside, we faced a
series of challenges that we're still struggling to deal with.
A year ago, Ellen's neighbour announced that he had decided to sell his two properties--both directly upwind of her, one
next door and one behind--to developers. This was the thing we'd been fearing most since the City of Waterloo began the
process to rezone Ellen's neighbourhood, and it happened mere months after we'd gotten married with the intent to move
Ellen out of a house that had worked well for her, but had become increasingly confining and problematic as more
construction happened around her and more and more neighbours moved in.
We had already stated the process renovating my house to sell, but also maybe to give Ellen a temporary place to escape
from the problems in her neighbourhood. With that in mind, we took on renovating my bathroom. It was a bit of a trial to
see if we could do renovations Ellen was reasonably okay with.
The renovation was funded largely from the generosity of our wedding guests, who we still haven't properly thanked. For
that, we apologize. Ellen still wants to send cards! I'm also sorry you couldn't see the bathroom for yourself.
It turned out pretty well, too, as you can see. But as Ellen's neighbour's sale went ahead, we made the decision to sell
my house, so we could have a downpayment if we managed to find a place we could share. The bathroom was a big part of
the quick sale of the house.
We haven't found that house yet, but we're still looking. It turns out that air quality like Ellen found when she first
moved into her house is very hard to come by. We've been to quite a few properties now, but with our requirements,
combined with a very... active... real estate market in Waterloo Region, our home together hasn't materialized.
A few weeks ago, Ellen addressed Waterloo city council to talk about how the developments are affecting her (skip to
about 56 minutes in):
I finished my first full year employed at Netsuite Waterloo. Netsuite was acquired by Oracle late in the year which,
while the process added a little additional unwelcome uncertainty in our lives, was completed successfully and the
equity I held in Netsuite gave us a bit of a boost in our downpayment fund. I still greatly enjoy working with the
people in the Netsuite Waterloo office, and it looks like very little of that is changing with the acquisition.
Aside from house hunting, my major extracurricular project this year was my second year on the oranizing committee
for Maker Expo. As well as chairing the committee, I coordinated our social media efforts and
our awesome team of photography volunteers.
You can see a whole pile of photos from the event here:
This was probably my favourite moment of 2016: in September, Ellen and I finally took a road trip to Grand Bend. We'd
been talking about going to a beach on Lake Huron for years, but in 2016 we finally packed up a picnic and drove out to
Ontario's west coast for some clean air and clean (if cold) water.
But, of course, just as it seemed like we were making some progress in house hunting and getting past all the crises,
this happened, on my way to Certified Scrum Master training in Waterloo:
Unfortunately, this is the only car in the world Ellen can comfortably ride in. It took two months, and altogether too
much wrangling with the insurance company, but I managed to get my little Corolla fixed up and picked it up just this
week. I'm claiming that as a victory at least.
For those we've seen and talked to and supported us through this year, thank you so very much. It means a lot. If we
haven't been able to keep in touch, maybe we can correct that in 2017. Things aren't going to get much less hectic any
time soon, but you all mean a lot to us and we're happy to have you in our lives.
Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, from Darcy and Ellen.
I'vein the pastbeen an advocate of strategic voting.
Strategic voting, though, is very, very hard to get right. Even with all the polling data (which, for individual
ridings, you don't even have), you don't really know what your neighbours are going to do election day. We have great
tools likeVote Together
andThree Hundred Eight, but I'm not convinced these are really enough
information to base a good strategic vote on.
In strategic voting, you're voting for a less-favourite party to keep out a hated party. Say you're a big fan of the
Greens, but your riding is a close race between the NDP and Conservatives, with the Greens trailing far behind. In this
case, you might choose to vote NDP to keep the Conservatives out.
And this might be a rational choice. But are you sure the NDP and Conservatives are the only parties who have a chance
at winning? How do you know that? Is that data reliable?
Vote Together, for the first time, actually did riding-specific polling for hotly contested
ridings.Waterloo was one of them. They chose to use the results of
their polling to say that people who didn't want Peter Braid to take the riding again needed to vote Liberal.
But if you look at the actual polling data, their margin of error is about 4%. They've got Chagger at a significant lead
with 39% and Braid and Freeman fairly close at 31 and 26% respectively. This isn't the case that the NDP have no chance
of winning, even by their own polling. And the poll was taken a month ago.
Maybe now as the Liberals have the momentum local NDP support has fallen further, but do you_know_that?
Also important are other factors that may not show up in polling. In the last provincial election, and the by-election
that proceeded it, this riding went to the NDP. Now the races and issues (and even the riding itself, now) are
different, but what it does mean is die-hard NDP voters who might normally stay home because they think their party has
no chance are emboldened and determined to come out and vote. And that Freeman, a popular city councillor, has more name
recognition on the ballot than, say, a Chagger or a Walsh. The polls only ask about parties, not candidates.
Both the NDP and the Liberals have been making appeals to strategic voting, further muddying the waters. And the NDP has
been the most egregious here, honestly. It's a bit of a mess.
If you actually want to vote Liberal, that's awesome. I'd usually agree with you. I actually prefer the Liberal economic
plan and get really irritated by the populism of the NDP. But C-51.
If you were thinking of maybe voting NDP, at least in Waterloo, I don't think strategic voting is a good reason not to.
There are lots of other reasons why strategic voting's bad for democracy, but here, now, I don't think it even makes
sense.
While I know it won't eliminate strategic voting, I do take heart that both the Liberals and NDP, who seemed destined to
form the next government, barring a constitutional crisis, have promised to introduce some form of proportional
representation before the next election. And, from my perspective, it can't come soon enough.
So there's an election Monday. Let's get this over with first:
This blog endorses Diane Freeman for the riding of Waterloo.
I'm making this endorsement for two reasons. One, I honestly think she's the best candidate for the job. And
two, C-51.
Also the TPP, which has come along recently, but that only helped reaffirm my decision to
vote NDP this time around. We'll get back to that.
C-51
C-51 is a travesty of a law, enshrining secret trials and creating secret police, eviscerating any remaining Internet
privacy protection. It needs to be repealed. It can't just be amended, slapping on a little bit of oversight. It
furthers the Conservatives' agenda to criminalize dissent and flies in the face of our Constitution and Charter of
Rights and Freedoms.
It cynically exploits the murder of a Canadian soldier to strip Canadians of the rights that our soldiers supposedly
died for. Soldiers that Harper so dearly loves to talk about. Soldiers Nathan Cirillo was standing guard over.
It makes me so fucking angry.
I'm appalled that the Liberals supported this bill and even more shocked that they'd choose to defend it in this
election campaign. For that reason alone, I can't vote Liberal this time around. Strategic voting be damned.
Two parties have pledged to repeal C-51: the NDP and the Greens. So those are my choices.
