Archive 1997-2016
By Angela Hall
The office is cramped, the work is all-consuming and the slim budget allows for a full-time staff of just one. At 36, Duff Conacher is in his element.
Co-ordinator of the advocacy group Democracy Watch since it began in 1994, Conacher campaigns on everything from ethics in politics to better bank service and encourages Canadians to flood MPs with letters, his political tool of choice.
By Damali Nabagereka
Some voters in Ottawa Centre say they feel they’re having a hard time getting answers from some of the candidates at all-candidates forums in this election.
“I received no direct response,” said Tracey Lauriault, who attented a child-care forum at the Bronson Centre. Lauriault is a full-time student at Carleton University and a mother of two children aged 4, and 8. She asked for a commitment from the candidates to increase child-care spaces.
Jen Ross reports
With his two-inch-high Jerry-Lee-Lewis-style hair, flashy neon green tie and smart black jacket, Rev. Alex Osorio looks more like an enterta-iner or stand-up comic than a minister.
Coloured spotlights line the ceiling at his church. In lieu of organs, drums pound and trumpets blare Christian hymns to funky Motown rhythms. People get up, dance, yell, cry, fall to the ground. The more reserved hug the wall or sway with hands outstretched towards the ceiling.
“It’s very grueling during the elections. You’re awake all the time. You are dealing with 120 other observers with radios trying to contact you. If there is an emergency you have to deal with distances the size of Ottawa to Montreal.”
Evidently democracy isn’t just an ideal in Bosnia-Herzegovina — it’s a long process.