Talkin’ Shit
We humans are clever animals. We have figured out all kinds of ways to make our lives convenient and pleasant. Cars, electricity, space travel, information and communication technologies… so many advances and innovative feathers in our brain caps related to the wondrous applications of human knowledge and intellectual superiority.
There is one particular issue that humanity has been grappling with since we began to organize ourselves in various civilizations. That is, what do we do with our waste.
Human waste as it exists today is significantly more complex than the waste they had to deal with in other eras of history. Back then, most human waste was shit, piss, vomit and blood… Not a very pleasant topic, I know… but a very important one.
I have read that in Rome, public urine vases were commonplace, and tanners would use in leather and fabric preparation. One Emperor (Vespasian 9-79 AD) recognized a serious buck to be made from the industry and introduced a urine tax.
Paris, circa 1200’s… where legislators had to explicitly forbid people for throwing their feces out the window. And when that didn’t work, they compromised and asked people at least shout ‘gare a l’eau’ when showering your urine from an upper story window.
In 1590’s the model for the modern flush toilet was created by a fellow named Sir John Harington, and readily adopted in France and most of Europe. However, in Britain the design did not suit Queen Elizabeth I, as the smell that remained in the pipes was as unbearable as the shit that caused it. By the 1700’s Britain was still the only major European nation without their shit in relative order. A few more tweaks of the technology, and a few 100 years later… most of the modern world can happily report that the only thing they have to do with their waste, is flush.
But as HRM’s recent sewage disaster has taught us, we still have a long way to go before we have solved the problem with what to do with our waste. And, as Jocelyne Rankin and Jennifer Graham from the EAC, remind us in the most recent issue of Halifax Magazine, our waste sure ain’t what it used to be. Chemicals, cleaners, plastics, pharmaceuticals… we really abuse our toilets with the amount of stuff that isn’t either shit or piss or vomit or blood we flush down it.
But beyond human waste, we share our sewer lines with industry… with hospitals and dry-cleaning businesses and research facilities and breweries and gas stations… all these industries creating their own forms of waste which are mixing with the domestic waste creating a superformula of the most unpleasant byproducts of modern human existence.
Now, in Halifax, we are very concerned about all this waste getting dumped into our Harbour… but… there is something else, which is perhaps even more disturbing than the “glitch” we seem to have encountered with our waste management plan. That is, what we are doing with the sludge left once our sewage is processed through the technology we have chosen to “fix” our sewage problem. Our sewage system takes care of 70% of the particulate matter in our sewage… but what do we do with it once we’ve filtered it out?
Currently, as I understang it, the city lets a corporation called N-Viro Systems take that leftover human and industrial waste sludge away. Which is then mixed with cement kiln dust (a liming agent which is another industrial waste product containing heavy metals) at a 50:50 ratio. The resulting product is something they call Bio-solids.
N-Viro Systems trucks bio-solids to various farms in the province, where it is dug into the land and used as fertilizer.
Now, it appears as though HRM has plans to get into the Bio-solids game by building its own facility to process it… and, it appears as though bio-solids are being touted as a “Green” Solution to our shitty problems… However, I seriously question the ecological wisdom in giving such a process the green stamp of approval… As I learned last night, acceptable evidence on the safety of the land use of bio-solids in agriculture is sketchy at best, given the methods of testing for acceptable levels of certain toxins available to us here in NS.
I mean, we are talking about our food here… our food and our land. We are digging this shit directly into our soil and calling it fertilizer.
Bio-solids are on the agenda of some, like Dr. Marilyn Cameron and other members from the NS Environmental Network. Dr. Cameron gave the keynotes speech at this weekend’s GPNS AGM… she has our attention, and now she needs yours.
Dr. Cameron has been attempting to have this issue addressed by the current government, however she is unable to get any satisfactory response. She is unable to get a list of the farms using bio-solids, and the province is unwilling to legislate labeling laws.
She would like to see the NDP adhere to the “Precautionary Principle” on this issue (From Wiki: The precautionary principle is a moral and political principle which states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action).
When we’re talking biosolids, we’re not talking about simply those natural excrements of humanity… but all the unnatural and chemical ones too… It seems to me that I have a right to know, as a consumer of local foods, if my produce is being grown in this sludge.
Dr. Cameron has yet to get an audience with HRM City Council, but she has an application in to do so. If she manages to get the floor, it will be interesting to hear how Halifax responds to her, an environmental activist from rural NS in response to a problem they believe they’ve come close to solving… I predict it will fall on deaf ears. I mean, the city is pretty pleased with itself, and this so-called Green solution… to the extent that they are pumping more of our tax dollars into a processing plant, which will allow them to cut out the middle man, collecting, processing, selling and delivering the sludge themselves.
I will be pointing my city councilor, my MLA, the Minister of the Environment, and the Minister of Agriculture to this issue… I will also be asking the local farmers who sell their bounty at the numerous farmers markets in the area, whether their food was grown with bio-solids… I have already started talking with my friends and family about the issues… and I (with other GPNS members) am resolved to assist Dr. Cameron in her public education campaign.
Why would the province and the city take such a risk with an already fragile agriculture industry. And what about the local grassroots economy which has sprung up as a result of successful farmer’s markets across the province… what about the health of the residents of the province who actively make the local choice. It all just seems reckless and wrong.
At least let me know if my food is grown in the shit… so that I can make an informed choice as a socially responsible consumer who is weary of the impact of all these chemicals in our environment.
life@speed
I’m dealing with waves of anxiety right now. the last 24 hours have been an intense whirlwind… very intense. Now that the dust has somewhat settled, and our issue… our cause… is in the last 3 minutes of its 15, my protective cognitive devices are kicking in as I start to intellectualize the experience and turn it into something productive.
This story, the story of this little boy with autism, who is absolutely adorable and photogenic (by consensus)… generated so much interest that it was picked up from station to station to station across the country. Newspapers, radio, TV, Cyberspace… the media dug in. We figured a page 6 story on the Chronicle-Herald… maybe.
Our friends and family are amazing and supportive. As are the autism parents I have connected with online over the years, from all over the planet who have a variety of perspectives about autism. One thing is unanimous about all Autism Moms and Dads… they protect their cubs.
And god bless ‘em for it. Lord knows the institutions of our society aren’t going to fight for them… because people with Autism immediately present a problem for the status quo… in that they have different needs than the status quo, so the status quo has to start making exceptions for them. This is true, not just for people with Autism, but for all people who have disabilities that lie in the realm of brain function and cognitive processing.
The status quo easily adapts to people with physical disabilities. We have braille on our money, closed-captioning TV, all of our buildings have to be accessible for people on wheels. But when it comes to people with mental disabilities, disabilities that we can’t see, and that we can’t understand… the status quo doesn’t do so well in it’s adaptation.
But I digress…
The only certain conclusion that I can draw at this point in time, the only nugget I have taken from this experience so far, is that I will not be taking Izaak on the public transit system again, any time real soon.
Other than that, I have to keep digesting…
Why I am voting Green
I have a very dear friend named Greg. Greg has lived with schizophrenia for his whole adult life. After many struggles, psychotic breaks, pills, poverty, addictions and therapies, he has arrived at a very good place in his life. He has found a nice balance between the meds, his art, his friends and living. He has been on Income Assistance because of his schizophrenia for a while now. But recently, he has expressed a desire to get off I.A. and try to find a job. He’s in a stable housing situation, and starting to get involved in a few community and advocacy organizations around Mental Health. Greg will need his meds to be able to maintain a job though, and if he goes off of I.A. he loses coverage for his meds… you see the problem.
I jokingly said to him the other night that his situation now was a good symbol for everything that was wrong with the Departments of Health and Community Services. It is really not right.
So what does Greg have to do with why I’m voting Green? Well Green is not simply about the environment. It is actually about the approach. You see, approaching things in a Green way means looking at them holistically (David doesn’t like it when I use that word, because it’s flaky, and we are really trying hard to reduce the stereotype that the Green Party seems to still face in Canada and especially in Nova Scotia). Viewing something holistically means that you do your absolute best to look at it from all angles, and see exactly where it overlaps and intersects with other issues.
The reason why it’s Green, is because it is the physical environment first.
When David, Ryan (Watson) and I went to Dartmouth High last week, one of the kids there said, “so I’m going to die in 80 years and I don’t plan on having any kids, why should I care so much about the environment (he later admitted he was playing devil’s advocate). But I said to him… if our physical environment keeps going the way that it’s going, it might not be 80 years, but 40… and David asked if he wanted to go take a dip in the Harbour.
The reason why it’s Green is because environment means more than just saving the trees and putting up windmills… it’s about our social environment to. For too long our governments have been disconnected our selves from our environments, physical and social, for the sake of profit margins and powerful lobby groups.
Our physical environments and our social environments are intimately intertwined. We need clean air, clean food, clean water and protection from the elements absolutely first. Our survival depends on it. Yet, it seems as though it is too much to demand these things living in our democratic and abundant society. You may question the word abundant in these times of economic crisis, but we still have many resources at our disposal, despite the minuscule drops in our GDP.
Last night on CTV Atlantic, Ryan Watson was interviewed by Steve Murphy and he was asked, what do you mean by seeing opportunity in this global economic crisis? Ryan responded that when a crisis emerges, it is the perfect time to take a step back and examine why we have arrived at a crisis situation. It’s not about a few emergency room beds here and a few “green” jobs there… it’s about looking at the whole structure. It’s about taking a step back and examining whether or not we are delivering services in the most effective and efficient ways, it’s about throwing away the perspectives that got us in this mess in the first place… it’s about moving into the 21st century with 21st century ideas using 21st century technology and organizing our government in 21st century ways…
The Green Party is the only party suggesting that it’s time to move away from the GDP as a measure of our progress and province well-being, and instead adopt the GPI, Geniune Progress Index. The fundamental difference between the GDP and the GPI is social accounting. Social accounting is a difficult task because really, what price tag can you put on a human life? How to do calculate the human experience in economics? The current trend is to simply discount it as a part of the equation. The GDP calculates the value of the person as a consumer, and nothing more. The GPI considers the value of a person as a person, participating and communicating with their community.
I am so sick of being referred to as a consumer. I am a person damnit. I have a family and a community. My life is more meaningful than being part of the bottom line in some trans-national corporations year-end profit margins. Greg is not a mental health consumer, he is a person who requires a little more support in his community because his brain works a little differently than most.
I love my province. Nova Scotia is a gem. We have a perfect-sized population, a wealth of natural resources, and a creative class with great ideas. I believe in the 6 priniciples that the Green Party embraces: Ecological wisdom, social justice, participatory democracy, nonviolence, sustainability, and respect for diversity.
I am voting Green because I want to see structural change which reflects their holisitic approach to the issues. I am voting Green because I believe the citizens need an opportunity to participate in the dialogue.
“Safer” Communities Act?
On the surface, the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act is a fine piece of legislation. It essentially empowers citizens in their communities to do something about brothels, crack-houses, gambling rings and other types of seedy operations in their neighbourhoods. Police then take this information, assess the situation, and if evidence warrants, they get a court order to evict the tenants of these crime houses.
“Shut ‘em down,” the mob cries.
Shutting down known crime houses, informed by the people who know best about the goings-on in their communities sounds great… no? But what if in the end, there are no criminal charges laid against the tenants of the crime houses being evicted? Certainly criminals live in houses where criminal activities are taking place… right? Certainly if a judge orders that tenants be removed from their homes, the tenants are facing criminal charges for their criminal activities… right? Certainly the idea is not to shut down crime houses and then disperse criminals elsewhere in other people’s communities… right?
So why is it then, that today there is a man in Cape Breton living in his car with his dogs, while his wife and one of his sons stays with friends, and his other two sons seek help for their addictions? According to CBC NS this morning, a family was removed from their home under the Safer Communities Act. The windows and doors boarded up for 90 days because of neighbour complaints of criminal activities taking place in the house. No one living in the house was charged with a criminal offense… no one living in the house was carted off to jail… no one living in the house was able to face their accusers in a court of law… and denied the right to even appeal the decision.
It is alarming.
Because while the Safer Communities Act has done much to shut down brothels and crack-houses and gambling rings in low-income neighbourhoods based on community reporting of criminal activities, how is it that making this family homeless will make the community safer?
I’m even willing to accept that criminal activity was indeed taking place in this guy’s house. That the complaints registered against this family by their neighbours were valid. That the consequences of having two adult sons suffering from addictions disrupted and unsettled the community. Given that I am not party to the documents which resulted in the court order I cannot make a decision on this either way. But it sort of sounds like this guy was a victim himself. Being a hostage to addiction in his own home.
What concerns me the most about this story, and the possible precedent that it sets, is that the burden of proof is reduced into some sort of perverted community-based panopticon. A family is sentanced to become homeless for 90 days because their neighbours didn’t like the kind of company they kept.
Perhaps I am over-reacting. Perhaps there is some piece of condemning evidence against this guy or other members of his family which is so compelling that such drastic measures were required. But it seems to me that if that were the case, there would be criminal charges of some description laid.
The kicker in this story is that the accused does not even have the right to appeal the decision. Even if he did, he cannot afford a lawyer to represent his family’s rights.
How is it that we can allow a family in this province, in the 21st century, suffer the consequences for crimes that were not committed? How is it that our own rule of law has allowed the tyranny of the majority to trump the personal security of a citizen? How is it that tossing a family suspected (but not convicted) of criminal activity out of their home for 90 days results in creating a safer community?
Addiction is a nasty thing. It is a mental health condition, fed by the desperation and hopelessness of poverty. It produces all kinds of unsavory and criminal activity in our communities and neighborhoods. But is our best strategy really to simply shut down the buildings without any plan to deal with the people inside of them?
I guess it’s just a good thing that 1) this guy didn’t have any kids under the age of 15 who were also rendered homeless by this bizzaro situation and 2) the curfew law is not yet in place… poor bugger would be facing a $500 fine everyday for the next 90 days, until they were allowed to go back into their home.
We need to seriously rethink the way we approach law and order around here.
Fringe Fancies of the Loonie Left
There’s a running joke at work now, they are calling me “the politician’s wife.” My friends are calling me Michelle Obama. Well, some of them are. Others are asking how we got involved with with The Green Party. Except they are phrasing it, “how did you get hooked up with these flaky loonies anyway.” To that I got defensive (as any good partisan and politician’s wife would).
“Have you even looked at any of the Green Party’s stuff? I mean, before you start calling them loonies, you should probably read their strategy ideas. Remember it’s the Green Party, not the Pinko party.”
To which he responded he would read the strategy document when it was released tomorrow.
Seriously, we understand the Green Party of Nova Scotia is not in a position to take power on June 9. This is, after all, only our second provincial election. Even David has a realistic goal set for the day. 500 votes. That’s the goal. We’re asking people in our riding (Dartmouth South – Portland Valley) to be 1 of 500 who place an X in the box by David’s name. 1 of 500 who place an X in the box for an alternative approach to political representation. 1 of 500 who place an X in the box to say, I agree that the envrionment, social justice, community sustainability and participatory democracy are important issues that need to be brought to the table.
Of course, if he gets more than 500 votes, we’ll be giddy, since this riding saw 308 votes for the Greens in the last (and their first) provincial election (the third highest riding in the province). But like the tagline in the Green Party brochure, we are approaching David’s participation in this election with “clear-eyed realism.”
David would be a fabulous MLA. Although I am obviously biassed, you will probably not find a person who knows David who would disagree with this statement. Someone with a better grasp of political theatre you will never meet. And he would certainly make the scrum an interesting and entertaining event.
Even our former MLA from Eastern Passage, Kevin Deveaux, understood David’s grasp of politics during the 2007 by-election in the area (that David was voting in and blogging about). He commented “Articulate, intelligent and balanced… glad to see there are thoughtful voters who are able to see through the political bullshit and make decisions based on facts.“
David would indeed be a fabulous MLA, because he gets it…
And because he gets it, I have been able to get it. I credit all that I understand about the political process to David. I also credit my ability to logically attack complex problems to the late night debates and intellectual sparring which often occur in this household. Likewise, I think David would credit me with his understanding of human behaviour and social theory, two areas which were beyond his expertise, but thoroughly entrenched in mine. David and I make a kick ass team when we combine our strengths and mask each others deficits.
In fact if David does, by miracle, manage to get elected, Nova Scotians will be getting a good deal… two brains for the price of one.
We get that there are a myriad of issues facing Nova Scotians today. We get that these issues are complex and interconnected with our economies and our environments. From health care to education to the increasing cost of living, we get that Nova Scotians are struggling to cope with the uncertainty of the future, because we are struggling to cope with the uncertainty of our future.
The relationships that exist between our physical environment, our economy, our culture, and our daily existence in rural and urban Nova Scotia need to be disentangled. While our current government claims to “get it”, years of mismanaged policy and finances, coupled with a ‘wait and see’ approach to the effects of the global economic crisis on Nova Scotia, proves they just don’t get it. While our opposition parties also claim to get it, the platforms released in this current election reveal them to be clinging to 20th century perspectives in the face of 21st century complexity.
We really wish our politicians did get it, so that we wouldn’t feel so compelled to set aside the beautiful month of May to actively engage with it like this. Usually during elections, we snipe from the sidelines. We ridicule these stale old policiticans and moan about these stale old policies. We usually hold an alcohol-fuelled salon on election night… not an alcohol-fuelled victory party.
And I have a feeling it will be a victory party. No matter how many votes David gets in the end. Because it turns out that this is an exercise of participatory democracy. We may not be getting proportional representation any time soon – but we are seizing this opportunity to have our voices heard, we are seizing this opportunity to have an excuse to go knock on the doors of our neighbors and chat with them about the things that they need, and we are seizing this opportunity to get our feet wet.
Because when the time comes that Nova Scotians realize that the environment, social justice, sustainability and paticipatory democracy are not just the fringe fancies of the loonie left, but the issues which are fundamental to a truly free and just democray, David, and I and the Green Party of Nova Scotia will have more than just a platform, we’ll have an implementable plan.
Whose issues are they anyway?
It seems to me that during elections, politicians and their parties are often too busy crafting and creating the issues for their constituents, rather than trying to get a deep understanding of what the issues actually are and addressing them accordingly.
A perfect example of this is often platformed emergency room overcrowding issue which almost invariably ends up on some party’s agenda.
On the surface it appears that this is an issue for the People; many have complained about waiting hours and hours in the ER for care. I, myself, have complained about waiting hours and hours in the ER for care. It is indeed an issue worth bringing into the debate.
But the problem comes when the politicians state “We are going to fix ER overcrowding by increasing capacity in ER.” The issue of ER care gets framed and defined as being a problem going on within the walls of our hospitals. “The problem is with ER overcrowding is ER capacity, so our party’s plan to increase ER capacity is the best way to address the issue.”
But if the party that decided to take the ER issue as one of their own had actually talked to the people who were complaining about their trip to the ER they might begin to understand that increasing ER capacity will not fix the problem of ER overcrowding.
If they talked to the people about their ER experiences, they would hear “I had to go to the ER because I don’t have a family doctor and I was worried that the cold my daughter had was serious” “I had to go to the ER because I am too poor to get my teeth looked after properly and I got an abscess that was causing me unbearable pain” “I had to go to the ER because I was having a mental breakdown and did not have anywhere else to go.” All of a sudden, the issue of ER overcrowding is better defined… The ER issue is not simply about capacity. It is an issue because of a fundamental problem with health care delivery. The majority of people who go to the ER do not have sufficient ongoing health support in their lives, and are going to the ER for non-emergency reasons because they have no where else to turn. Minor health issues become emergencies because of a lack of ongoing health support.
If you want to make an issue out of ER overcrowding, wouldn’t it make more sense to first try and address the reasons why our ERs are overcrowded in the first place?
Politically, I suppose it makes sense to simplify our most complex issues into soundbites. The predominant assumption by campaign machines is that voters are not capable of understanding the complexity of it all… if you use too many words, statistics and facts in your political campaigns people’s eyes start to glaze over and they stop listening. You want to appear to be smart, but not so smart that you are no longer a politician of the people. Federally, Iggy is going to have problems with this in the next election… Provincially, none of our leaders seem to have this problem.
It is far easier for them to take the issue and define it for us in a way that is simple and shallow. It is far easier for them to recycle ideas from previous election campaigns. It is far easier for them to act as though 20th century politics, policy and thinking are still relevant and essential for governance in the 21st century.
But I shouldn’t be too hard on our leaders. Most of them simply don’t have the capacity themselves to understand what really needs to be done to fundamentally fix all the problems in our society. They are graduates of business, political science, and public relations programs. The majority of their education and experience is rooted in how to make the message palpable… how to sell it in soundbites and how to form and create public opinion. These are how our politicians are educated rather than on how to listen to the rhythm of the street and incorporate it into the symphony of governance, on how to understand the reality of the issues and put it into policy with teeth, on how to be compassionate and understanding of the struggles of their constituents.
In our era of information overload, our leaders are struggling to make sense of it all. They turn to census data and research that is usually outdated by the time it becomes public. They rely on the traditional media to deliver their message, which has the attention span of a gnat and requires them to speak in soundbites. The rapid pace of reality does not often stop for a critical analysis and deconstruction of the issues (which in the end is just as well because if we did, we’d realize that the whole structure needs to be broken down and build back up for the 21st century).
We assume that our politicians are the experts in managing and delivering services to ourselves and our communities because they seem to have ideas on how to address the issues. This is a valid assumption if we accept their issues as the ones which need to be addressed.
But from where I stand, based on the tired old political platforms and policy offerings from all of our major parties in this campaign, shallowly addressing the issues for the sake of political expediency… none of our current leaders are qualified for the job. None of our politicians are experts on our issues. And none of our politicians are going to fix the problems we face in these turbulent times.
Instead, all of our leaders are playing the same old games, regurgitating the same old lines around the same old issues, and attacking each others ideas in the same old way. No wonder there is so much political apathy in our province. No wonder the disenfranchised say, these leaders don’t speak to me or reflect my values and issues. There is nothing there to inspire us to believe that things will be different under this party or that. There is nothing there to inspire us to have faith that our leaders “get it” and will do everything they can to “fix it” regardless of how unpopular or flaky the solutions might sound.
If voters started hearing politicians making statements on their issues: about how they work two jobs and still need to go to the food bank once a month, about how they are uncertain how they can afford to have their tooth aches fixed, about how they have to travel too far to access essential services, about how they want to make home improvements for energy efficiency but don’t have the capital to do it, about how they are silently suffering with depression and anxiety because it all just seems to much and there is not enough support to help them get through the day… Then, and only then, will they be more inclined to start *really* giving a damn about who wins the next election.
Web 2.0 and the Nova Scotia Election
Back during the last US Presidential Elections, I wrote a blog about the candidates utilization of the Internet in their campaigns. It was way back in the election when it looked like John McCain didn’t have a chance in hell of getting the Republican nod, and Barack Obama had just won a legal battle to have his campaign staff take over the MySpace site which someone else started in his name. I had no idea back then that Obama would turn his campaign into a social media blitzkrieg… picking up where Howard Dean was cut off in 2004.
Obama and his campaign staff knew how to do it… they knew how to effectively use Web 2.0 and engage a whole generation of otherwise disenfranchised voters. By reaching out to them online, because he knew that he probably would get them to come out to the rallies… In fact, after his comment at the first ever Virtual Presidential Town Hall regarding marijuana legalization and the “type” of people he was engaging online… he probably didn’t want too many of them showing up at the rallies after all!
In any case, in that review, I gave each candidate’s website a Web 2.0/Hipness rating, on a scale of 1 to 10… ranking the sites in terms of ability to engage youth, disenfranchised cynics, connectors and netizens based on my critical understanding of all of those things…
Here in Nova Scotia, things are a little different. The population of youth, disenfranchised cynics, connectors and netizens is substantially smaller than the population of status quo voters. We Nova Scotians have been accused of being fearful of progressive change… and Web 2.0 has not necessarily penetrated the whole population as well as in other provinces. Frig, not even our whole population has access to High-Speed Internet… with far too many rural communities being left in the dust.
However, in an election, sometimes it is the small populations of those who have never previously voted which can make big differences in the election outcomes… And politicians are recognizing more and more that the Internet, and the effective use of Web 2.0 platforms can make those small differences have mega impacts. So far the candidates have been slow to take full advantage of the platforms. Of the three mainstream leaders, only Stephen McNeil is twittering… and none have encouraged user-generated video and photo… But they are all trying to connect using their Party’s websites.
Yesterday I chirped “The Liberals are smoking the other parties in terms of an effective Social Networking infrastructure… #nselection” and after taking a thorough look at their site, now I know why. A company called KTUpload is powering the Liberals Website. I worked very closely with one of the folks at KTUpload for years at the Atlantic Centre for the Study of the Information Society… and while he had little to do with the site, I know that he “gets” it. So while the Liberals have a smokin’ website, it is more important to note that they had the foresight to hire a web development team which gets it.
First point… When you Google NS Liberals, the sponsored link at the very top of the page is Darrell Dexter’s NDP website (Brilliant Guerrilla Marketing technique from the NDP)
Second point… The site is clean and easy to navigate. It has clear menu titles and no drop-down boxes. The pages interlink with one another very well… so if you are interested in looking at the media, you can click through the home page… and you will find the Media link on other pages of the site.
Third point… Web 2.0 platform use. The Liberals are using all the big ones… Facebook, Flickr, Youtube and Twitter, and thier links to these pages are prominently displayed on the home page. You don’t have to search for the legitimate groups… you just have to click through.
Although the home page of the Liberal Website may have too many sets of Stephen McNeil’s eyes on it… there is a simple contact form which makes it easy for the voter looking to get a sign or volunteer or get on the mailing list without have to search for it.
The “Follow the Leader” feature on the home page links to a calendar of events for McNeil… but when you click on it… there are very few engagements, making it look like he’s not very active on the campaign trail… While it is a great feature, it may not be juicy enough to be a home page link, when the photo gallery (which is buried on the media page) is very juicy and may have been a better choice as being prominently displayed… either that, or display the calendar for the whole month + of the campaign to show all the places he’s been as well as where he is going on a single view (they could even integrate the photos into the calendar)
The Candidates page shows the current 29 candidates for the Liberals. You can click through to a little bio page with some of their info… the candidates pages are inconsistent in their format. Some of the photos are way too big for a quick load of the page, which is problematic for those who get impatient with page load time (especially for all those folks in rural Nova Scotia who only have dial-up). Also, the candidates who are on twitter, should have links to them on their individual bio pages.
All the multimedia is great on the Liberals page, but they should have the text of the videos audio as well (again for our good friends in rural Nova Scotia who are trying to access the site via dial-up)
Overall the Liberal website gets my Web 2.0/Hipness Rating of 7/10… they lost points because no matter how good their site is, it’s really hard to make Stephen McNeil hip and because of the issues listed above. But also because there is absolutely no where on the website which indicates their platform or positions on the issues… Aesthetics should never compromise information.
It is unclear who is behind the NDP website, which leads me to believe that someone from the party itself is maintaining it. There are pros and cons to this approach. On the one hand, the party will have more control of the content… on the other hand, sometimes you should just let the professionals do their thing.
I do not like the amount of blank space on the NDP’s website. The colour scheme seems weird to me… Too much blue, and not enough orange. The slide show is nice, but there are far too many images with text that is what I would consider ‘negative campaigning’… too much talking about the Conservatives… People are coming to the website to find out about the NDP, not what the Conservatives are doing wrong. And why oh why do the NDP have a widget with PC on it as one of the most prominent graphics on the home page. They are on the offensive, and the tactics leave a bad taste in my mouth.
I like the “your action centre” widget, but disagree with using the word “your” for the videos and pictures on the site… because they are very obviously campaign photos and videos… not “your” videos and photos. If they wanted to show ‘your’ videos and photos, they would have a site upload form and allow supporters to *really* share “their” photos and videos from the campaign trail. They are really “Your Candidates” videos and photos…
The NDP have one up on the Liberals in that they have links to “the issues.” Though again every single stance on every single issue is preambled with where the conservatives have failed, and there is very little substance, or indication how the NDP plan to address the issues. So while they have done their job in identifying their priorities in this campaign… they have not done much to tell the voter the strategy in addressing the issues.
Their Candidates page is nice. I like the electoral map and the list (though rather than alphabetizing by name, it may be better to alphabetize by riding). Their candidate table could also be bigger, with direct links to their websites, emails, etc right on that main candidate page, which would be easy to do if they widened their content page.
The NDP have their Web 2.0 links embedded in the footer of every page, which is very clever… but the blue font is hard to read and the logos are not prominent enough (and the Facebook one may actually violate the FB TOS for logo use).
Overall (and though it breaks my heart) the NDP get my web 2.0/Hipness rating of 6/10… Negative campaigning is NOT hip… and the Website is lacking in aesthetic appeal, without the content to help bump the rating up a bit.
So… when I Google NS PCs, the sponsored link (again) is a link to the NDP website. But, the first link is not the Tory site, it is the Nova Scotia Young Progressive Conservatives site… in fact, Rodney MacDonald’s site is no where on the first page of search results at all. A readjustment of the search to NS Conservatives (still the NDP sponsored link), but there it is (immediately followed by a CTV news story about the conservatives “failing”)
The Conservatives have a very slick website. It is extremely aesthetic and “Nova Scotian”… which is easy to do when you have access to the designers which have gotten some very nice contracts from the Tories (NSLC, and the Nova Scotian Gaming Authority to name two)… Revolve Branding 360 are big playas round these parts… and the Tories have always understood the importance of branding…
Aesthetically, the PCs score big points on the site… they do have the most visually pleasing home page for my eyes. That said, I can’t really find many too many design “problems” with the site, except in their Web 2.0 use.
While they allow the option to “share” their site on a multitude of platforms… they do not offer the voter the chance to *engage* the party and the candidates by linking to their Facebook, Twitter and YouTube presence… in fact the lack of these links indicates to me (a non-Tory supporter) that they do not even have a presence on these sites… ergo, it is not their priority to engage and interact with the electorate in this way.
So rather than critique the site, I’ll point out the subliminal marketing strategies behind some of the graphics and language on the site.
They are rotating three pictures which visually sum up their whole campaign beautifully.
The first is a photoshopped picture of Rodney and his team (the photoshop is in the sign on the podium Rodney is standing at) “Proven Record Economy First” This image wants to remind you that Rodney has a team of capable MLAs behind him… They are applauding him (some very vigorously – look at the two dudes on the exteme left in the front row). This photo, reinforces the other prominent language on the site… “our leader” “our team” “our track record”… they are presenting a united front. Reminding those who are uncertain of Rodney’s experience himself, that he has a solid team of experience behind him.
The second photo is a garbage can, with a white background simply stating that the Liberals (red font) and NDP (orange font) have thrown 20,000 jobs in the garbage. This must have to do with the infrastructure contract cancelling fiasco, but in the end it doesn’t matter… the graphic doesn’t link to the whole story like the other two images do… just a simple statement of interpreted truth with a simple graphic to accompany it.
The third photo is a beauty… perhaps the most compelling of all three. It is related to gambling, and risk… which the designer knows much about given they do design work for both ALC and the gaming corporation… It is an image of two sets of dice, one with letters (probably Boggle dice) spelling out the word “R-I-S-K-Y” and two standard orange one. Both of the visible sides of the dice show the smallest possible numbers they could be arranged with… notice the two ones…
The PC website gets a Web 2.0/Hipness score of 7/10 as well. If the issues around the Web 2.0 connections were resolved, along with a letting Rodney MacDonald have a Twitter account… then I would revise my earlier statement that the Liberals were smokin’ the other parties in their SNS infrastructure, to say that the Tories were.
The NDP don’t care much about the Green Party… not enough to pay for a sponsored link when someone Googles it… But, the NS Green Party is so unknown that Google wants to know if you really meant the “NZ Green Party”.
The Green Party of Nova Scotia uses the federal Green Website template. Which is a good thing, because it is important for people to remember that they are another Federal party… not simply a fringe party with little support… despite the fact that it is a fringe party with very little support.
The Green Party website has no external Web 2.0 integration, however does have a little SNS embedded in it’s site called “The Green Network”. It’s a pretty good idea, though I am beginning to question the effectiveness of trying to start up your own SNS when there is free access to popular ones like Facebook and Twitter… only the most diehard of supporters will actually take the extra step to become a member of yet another SNS… It could, however, be a VERY effective tool for coordinating their campaign provincially… for the candidates to connect and share ideas, and to create strategies which can unite the party itself. But it needs to be integrated with the large existing and successful SNS’s to be very effective.
The Green Party site does not appear to be in election mode at all. There is no candidate list, no campaign rhetoric. no upcoming events. But, the one thing that The Green Party Site does have is content and ideas… Their About the Party page outlines the Green Party’s core values as a party… something that none of the other parties care to offer up to the voter.
The other thing I really like about the site, is the opportunity to really get to know the leader of the Green Party, Ryan Watson… He has a blog, he has a twitter… and if you message him, he messages back! Ryan Watson is young, handsome, charismatic, and hip himself… which scores the Party more points in this election than it has in past elections the NS Greens have participated in.
Overall, the website is severely lacking though. No candidate list, an online form to request a sign which doesn’t inform you if your request has been completed and a graphics which lead the viewer to believe that the Green Party is a one issue, environmental, tree-huggin’ party. Which isn’t bad if you are into that sort of thing… but will not play very well in industrial Nova Scotia.
Unfortunately, the Nova Scotian Greens have a small operating budget, therefore they rely heavily on volunteers to carry out the campaign… so it is hard to do regular updates and high level interaction… Ryan Watson is doing well assuming the role of leader… it’s just too bad that he doesn’t have a political infrastructure to back him up… we may have heard much more buzz about him if he had.
So while I’m giving the Green Party the lowest Web 2.0/Hipness rating a 5/10… I’m giving Ryan Watson the prize for hippest leader with an 8/10.
Hope you found this deconstruction interesting…
