Phil Bender, Libertarian

The ever-growing power of the state in Canada is stifling us all. The main problem is that many Canadians have come to believe that all problems can be solved by government.

The only proper justification for government is to protect the individual from the use of force or fraud by others. To counter this doctrine, the Libertarian Party of Canada and I are promoting the principles of personal liberty and personal responsibility. These principles are:

1. Each individual has the right to his or her own life, and this right is the source of all other rights.

2. Property rights are essential to the maintenance of those rights.

3. In order that these rights be respected, it is essential that no individual or group initiate the use of force or fraud against any other.

4. In order to bar the use of force or fraud from social relationships and to place the use of retaliatory force under objective control, human society requires an institution charged with the task of protecting individual rights under an objective code of rules. This is the basic task, and the only moral justification for, government.

5. The only proper functions of government, whose powers must be constitutionally limited, are as follows: settling, according to objective laws, disputes among individuals, where private, voluntary arbitration has failed; providing protection from criminals; providing protection from foreign invaders.

6. As a consequence of all the above, every individual - as long as he or she respects the rights of others - has the right to live as he or she alone sees fit, as a free trader in a free market.

For an advocate for the lowest taxes, an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the greatest personal freedoms and liberties, vote for Philip Bender. More details at www.libertarian.ca

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Manuel Couto, Marxist-Leninist

The Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada is calling on all workers, women and youth to take up the renewal of the political process in Canada.

The current process is controlled by the so-called major parties, which form the government. These are business parties. Their constituency are the monopolies and financiers, and their program systematically keeps the people and the country in the service of the rich. The people's well-being is given lip service, especially at election time, but its the corporate agenda which is always pushed, as the only way, inviolate.

Nothing will change unless the people themselves become political and take up an agenda which favours them. They can start by rejecting the choices the ruling elites say they have and decide for themselves what serves their interests!

Only when the workers, women and youth put themselves in Parliament can we have representatives who are accountable to the people, and a government that represents the will of the people.

Only by putting the decision making power in their own hands, can they make sure their interests are served, not those of the rich.

On Oct. 14, vote Marxist Leninist.

Visit our website at www.mlpc.ca

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Drew Garvie, Communist

Brian Mulroney used to say, "Give me 20 years and you won't recognize Canada." Steph-en Harper hopes to accomplish this radical, neo-con transformation in less time and looks set to succeed. This will mean gutting Medicare, the loss of industrial jobs, further environmental disintegration, a continued drive towards war, racist immigration policies, and attacks on civil and democratic rights. The Harper minority of the last three years has been the most right-wing, pro-war and pro-U.S. government in the history of Canada.

This slide to the right needs to be stopped! We propose electing a progressive block of MPs, including Communists, NDPers and others, who are truly committed to democratic and progressive reform. We need to curb the power of corporations, stop the warmongers and fight for policies that benefit working people, students and environment.

A vote for the Communist Party sends the strongest possible message that capitalist globalization and imperialist war must end. We're about ending poverty with a guaranteed annual income, enforcing the Canada Health Act to protect and expand Medicare, nationalizing our oil and gas industry to restore Canadian sovereignty and save our environment, and tough factory closure legislation to protect our communities' jobs. We strive to fight for the rights of workers and the unemployed, for women demanding full equality, for youth and student and Aboriginal peoples and national minorities who continue to face oppression. We offer Canadians thorough change, which is necessary to solve our social, environmental and economic problems. Please visit votecommunist.ca.

Our goal is a socialist Canada in which resources and economic wealth are socially owned and democratically controlled by the working people, not private capitalists. Put people's needs before corporate greed. On Oct. 14, vote Communist!

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Kornelis Klevering, Marijuana Party

Why vote for me? Don't. Instead, I am asking people to support the Marijuana Party by not voting for the established parties.

It is far more democratic if people were to stay home and not vote at all rather then cast a vote for what can only encourage the main parties to continue abusing our rights and freedoms.

Such voting allows these parties to perpetuate bad and abusing behaviour by doing nothing about ending marijuana prohibition. Their candidates promise all sorts of vote-getting platitudes which are not open to recall.

Their platforms always result in lies, deception and hypocrisy. That is the nature of the parliamentary beast which eats local representatives and tells them to sit down and shut up once they arrive in Ottawa.

Parliament has be-come the plaything of the party leaders. They have hijacked the democratic process by imposing their plutocratic credentials on the elected in order to get what the corporate elite wants, and quick.

The repression which characterizes their war on the right to freely choose to smoke pot is the result of this system of 'representation.'

If the electorate does choose to vote, they should do so for the smaller, alternative parties.

Otherwise don't vote at all.

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Karen Levenson, Animal Alliance Environment

Is Stephen Harper prepared to deal with this country's emergencies? When asked how he'd protect ordinary Canadians from the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression, all Harper offered was tax cuts. Tax cuts to protect peoples' savings, investments, mortgages, homes, pensions and higher education? Harper's tax cuts for big oil and banks, paid for with multi-million-dollar cuts to social programs, won't protect ordinary Canadians. That's whom his tax cuts are hurting.

Guelph learned the hard way how the "Mike Harris" Conservatives in Harper's cabinet handle emergencies.They cut environmental protection, closed hospitals, gutted education and arts funding, ran up a deficit and dumped welfare on cities like Guelph, knowing we couldn't afford to pay for it. Protect us? He's left us more vulnerable!

Canada has some of the lowest business taxes in the industrialized world, yet productivity and economic growth haven't increased. Ask anyone laid off from manufacturing or forestry. According to Canadian Press, manufacturing executives and TD Bank see another 250,000 jobs leaving Ontario. What's left? Government insensitivity to unemployed workers, the homeless, small businesses, minorities, immigrants, aboriginals living near the Alberta tar sands, and people sick and dying from pollution. Harper's assurances that everything's fine are reminiscent of John McCain's just before the U.S. economy plunged.

Gloria Kovach wants us to believe Harper anticipated the economic downturn with his government's tax relief plan! Ludicrous! If he did, why didn't he alert anyone?

Harper's slash and burn tax cuts, deregulation, and oil and bank subsidies, championed by people like Bush and McCain, are creating similar emergencies in Canada. Is Harper prepared to lead us out? Not when he got us there in the first place.

Karen Levenson

Animal Alliance Environment

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John Turmel, Independent

Vote John 'The Engineer' Turmel for personal freedom, cops out of gambling, sex, drugs and rock-&-roll; and for financial freedom, an interest-free account at the Bank of Canada, no more borrowing from middlemen banks at loan shark rates.

With the global financial crisis upon us, Canada could do what Argentina did after their banking system crashed in 2000 to pay off all their international debts to the IMF and World Bank by 2006: switch to a interest-free, time-based "creditos" banking system.

Google: Argentina creditos trueque

I made the speech on the banking system at the Millennium Assembly at the United Nations which passed the UNILETS resolution for a time-based currency. I can reprogram the Bank of Canada's computer with LETS time bank software to work like poker chips so that all Canadians, corporations, and governments can log like PayPal, borrow enough to settle all interest-bearing debts, make payments in currency or in time-at-work against the principal so that everyone someday settles up. Usury, unnatural growth of debt by interest that enslaves humanity in debt forever, is condemned by Jesus, Mohammed, Ezekiel, Buddha.

Google: UNILETS resolution

I have led the fight to decriminalize gambling, and also prostitution, because shy and less attractive people have a right to get laid.

Google: TajProfessor, "Great Canadian Gambler," "Medpot Engineer"

Vote for personal and financial freedom with John Turmel.