After taking a 5 month hiatus, here we go again! Know Your Vote is back! We have re-developed our business plan and made several critical administrative decisions. All to better the service we provide to you! We will spend the next several weeks implementing changes to the site and we encourage you to continue to tell us how we’re doing so that in the future we can continue to serve you better!

The major change you will notice is that you are directed to a Know Your Vote landing page and from there you will get the choice of which specific page you are going to visit. The four (4) options are:
1 – Know Your Vote Political Ticker/Blog
2 – Know Your Vote Issues Forum
3 – Parliament of Canada
4 – Elections/Polling Information

Not all of these pages are designed yet, so while we are in the design face, we have conveniently linked everything to our main page.

Another change you will notice is that on the Political Ticker & Blog page, we will be giving daily updates on local, provincial and national political events. It is our hope that we will be able to publish 1 or 2 in depth stories on important issues every day.

While we go through these changes, we ask for your continued support and patience. Please, if you have any questions contact me directly at kyle.harms13@gmail.com and I will be more then happy to assist you.

Good Afternoon,

At this time it is with great pleasure that I am announcing several new, unique and fresh ideas that will change the way Know Your Vote operates. over the course of the past month I have developed new short term and long term plans for Know Your Vote. These plans include implementation of a forum, issues panel, more up to date news stories, live blogging and voting history records of Members of Parliament.

In order to bring all of this into fruition, it will take time. Parliament resumes on March 3rd, 2010 and the following day the finance department will be tabling the budget. Know Your Vote will be ready, we will be prepared to bring you live in-depth coverage of the whole day and as well give you a chance to voice your opinions on the issues that matter to you.

In order to prepare for March 3rd and the beginning of a new session in Parliament I will be working around the clock to make these changes happen and due to this the site may experience some techincal difficulties and may experience short outage periods. Please know that this is routine and should be expected, if you experience any issues do not hesitate to email me.

Thank You for your ongoing support,

Kyle Harms
Know Your Vote | Executive Director
(250) 809-9645 | kyle.harms13@gmail.com

The definition of prorogue literally means, “to defer” but recently Stephen Harper has decided that the definition (Canada’s newest verb) should read something along the lines of:

“There is too much currently going on with the Afghanistan torture scandal, the 2010 Olympics are coming – God only knows I need to be there to say I am the reason we won our first gold medal on home soil, oh and did I mention the Budget needs to be finished (Jim Flaherty doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he says that the budget work is mostly complete).”

On December 31, 2009 (last year) Stephen Harper had his Public Relations who-ha tell Canadians (quietly) that he would be suspending parliament until March 3, 2010 oh and did I mention he asked for it to be done quietly, on New Years Eve, at the end of a decade, on the eve of Team Canada’s big win over the USA. So it was settled, when most of Canada was out celebrating, the announcement was made and the Conservatives seemed to be on this unfathomable high. They had, once again, deceived all Canadians but the thought of deception did not last long and soon from somewhere in another continent opposition leader, Michael Ignatieff seized upon this opportunity presented in front of him saying the PM’s decision was simply “ridiculous” and some have even said “un-democratic” The Prime Ministers response: A sitting Parliament causes market instability. (This is where someone would hold up a sign on the comedy network that reads “Laughter”) Sadly, however, this is the truth, the Prime Minister of Canada believes that a sitting parliament leads to political games, which causes market instability…and no one likes market instability…So Michael Ignatieff responded to Mr. Harper “I thought it was the funniest thing I’ve heard in politics in a very long time. I mean, the idea that democracy creates instability is ridiculous.” Well isn’t this just fantastic, our Prime Minister thinks Parliament leads to unstable markets and the other guy thinks it is funny!

Happy New Year Canada…Clearly we are no better off 15 days into the New Year then we were in 2009. One thing has changedthough and that is the popularity of the Conservatives. In a recent EKOS Politics poll the Conservatives are losing ground, and doing so at record speed. The new poll shows that most Canadians are aware that Parliament has been shutdown and most are in opposition to it. Only 31% of those polled in someway support the decision while a huge 58% oppose the Prime Minister’s decision. 63% of Canadians, meanwhile, believe that this move was not only wrong but they believe anti-democratic. All of this, coupled with a scathing article recently released in The Economist which says Prime Minister Harper is acting out of “Naked Self interest” and continues in saying he “has subjected Parliament to Prime Ministerial whim,” has dramatically changed the political landscape in Canada. Should an election be held today 33% of Canadians would vote Conservative; 28% Liberal; 16% NDP and the Greens would pick up 13% of the vote. None of that seems to bad except when you look at the past five months of poll data it is clear that the Conservatives are rapidly losing support, in fact, now instead of worrying about being able to form a majority they need to be more concerned with just holding on to government.

So as we ready ourselves for the World’s watchful eyes in less then a month, when the 2010 Olympic games begin, Canadians will continue to watch our Government to see what it is exactly that they are doing, or not doing.

**This story is a Know Your Vote exclusive with data from EKOS Politics**

The website will be upgrading servers and updating member information during this time. Services affected will be the Member of Parliament and legislature finders as well as the Contact and Donate Sections. News stories and databases will not be affected and the shite should remain fully operational during this scheduled time.

If you have any issues please contact Kyle Harms immediately by emailing: kyle@knowyourvote.ca

The Following story is a Know Your Vote Exclusive, by Kyle Harms with excerpts from EKOS.

The EKOS Poll released yesterday (December 3, 2009) polled approx. 2500 Canadians on what they felt were the most important election issues would be, should Canada go to the polls in the near future.

And the Winner is…The Economy. Of course, through these economically turbulent times, it would be the most important issue

should an election be called. Coming in a close second (4% difference) were social issues such as Health and Education.

Party Supporters & Voter Types

The economic issues were of most concern to Conservative party supporters(44% of the votes cast), coming a close second were

voters aged 45-64, 36% felt this was the most pressing election issue.

Social Issues were highest on the lists of Women (36%) and the Bloc Quebecois (34%) and the NDP (34%)

22% whom were worried about the Fiscal issues this country faces, were Conservatives.

The most important issue to youth voters were issues pertaining to the Environment (29%) and the Liberal Party suporters overwhelmingly agreed as 42% felt the environment was much more important then the economy or any fiscal or social issues facing this country.