I had a great time this weekend at Capital Pride. I've been participating for a few years now and it's fun to see how the Green Party contingent grows each year, and how it at least seems like the crowd is growing every year.

I liked the new route (the narrower street lets you interact more with both sides of the crowd) although I think it was better when we paraded past parliament.

It was great to see how many people came to support Capital Pride. The weather was not very inviting, there seemed to be more people in coats there this year than last year.

Having my face on our hand-out was interesting, quite a few "hey, that you!"s, I even met some people from Ottawa-Vanier, in Sandy Hill to be more specific.

We might not have the flashiest group of the three political parties but we more than make up for it by having the best policies: Read more »

With the campaign fully underway I have not had much time at all to write new blog posts.

I'll try to get back in the habit of once a week posts but long gone are the days of four to five posts a week. With that said I'll try to write more often especially about the local issues in Ottawa-Vanier that voters have brought up at their doors.

In an effort to keep things a little more up-to-date and to provide some information on a wider variety of topics from different voices you'll soon begin seeing blogs from other authors. So look forward to posts on living green, community safety in Sandy Hill, Vanier, Lowertown and other Ottawa-Vanier neighbourhoods, and a host of other issues important to the voters of this riding.

Thanks!

On Saturday September 25th the Green Party will be participating in the Ottawa Aids Walk as the Green Team.

These are the kind of events that show voters that the Green Party and (perhaps more importantly) Green Party members are active and involved members of their community, it’s also for a great cause.

If you are in the Ottawa area please join our team, make a donation and join us for a great time with a group of Greens. If you are not in the Ottawa area I encourage you to sponsor the Green Team.

You can join and/or sponsor our team here and you can RSVP on facebook here.

You can new subscribe to an RSS feed of all the site comments.  Please subscribe using your RSS reader of choice.  Hopefully this will help people keep up-to-date on conversations.

Thanks,
Dave

http://feeds.feedburner.com/DaveBagler-Comments

I thought that C.A.P.P. stood for Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament. Then Katie sent me a link to their facebook group and now I'm not sure what they stand for.

On facebook the image you pick to be your group's logo says a lot about your group. Along with the name of the group and the member count, the logo is displayed wherever groups are listed. So the administrators of the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament group decided that the most important message they had was: don't vote Green. Read more »

I love Diplomacy.  It is quite possibly the best board game goin'.  It has been around for like 50 years and the rules haven't changed much at all.

Diplomacy is war game based at the beginning of the 20th century.  Your play as one of 7 European powers (Austria, Britain, France, Germany,  Italy, Russia, Turkey) fighting for control of Europe. Read more »

I have observed a rather disturbing trend over the last few years. I went to St. Lawrence College (SLC) and SLC has a rather popular Police Foundations Program (PHP), so naturally I ran into many PFP students. Now I want to make it clear that I am not talking about all PFP students, however I have yet to meet a single PFP student who I would actually trust with authority and a gun.

In fact I can broaden that statement a bit. I have yet to meet anyone who has volunteered that they want to be a police officer (but isn't a police officer), who I would actually trust with authority and a gun. Now, I know very capable, very trust worthy officers so my trend can't be universal but still, it worries me. Read more »

For some reason my benefits package at work covers everything except my eyes and teeth. I'm pretty sure that I have a absurd amount of drug coverage (that I never use) as well as disability coverage for a wide range of work place injuries that quite frankly are things I would worry about if I worked in a factory or in construction but that I'm not exactly concerned about happening at my desk.

Anyway I haven't been to a dentist in a while and since nothing is really bothering me with my teeth I have not been motivated to go see one. However two of my bottom front teeth are bumping into one another a bit and while I don't really think it's a problem I probably should go check it out.

So I called a dentist that's close to my office to see what their prices were and this is what I learned: Dental Care is run by the mob. It has to be. Their prices are ridiculous. Read more »

As an after though in my last blog I linked to a story about Queen's canceling a food drive because it was based around sumo costumes.  Apparently sumo costumes (the fun ones, we all know and love) are actually terribly racist.

OK full disclosure I lived in Kingston, I'm not a big fan of Queen's.

So since there were complaints that these suits were so offensive not only was the event cancelled but it was followed up with a over long letter of apology with an obligatory mini-celebration about how inclusive they are. Read more »

I picked up my new bike up on Saturday morning.  It's awesome, so much faster than my old bike and much more suited for the type of cycling I do.

Earth Hour was fun although cold.  Also while we cheered when the lights on Parliament went out it was disappointing to turn around and see the lights on in all the office buildings down town.  However, I'm sure that we'll here about how Canadians from coast-to-coast turned out the lights and spent an hour watching the third period in the dark.

It was great to see so many people on the hill with their candles.  CTV was there and I think I saw a couple other TV cameras.  Congrats to Kevin and the other volunteers!