Martian Chronicle

It is a few days before the Canadian Federal Election. The people from the Planet Mars have been receiving our TV signals from Earth and are very confused. They have seen the reports about how important the Windsor border is to the economy of Canada but they are not getting clear messages about what is happening here. Since they hold shares in Canadian mutual funds (Those Martians are out of this world investors), they decide to send one of their analysts to Earth to check out what is going on. [CBS News, January 9---Mars Rover "has provided convincing evidence that Mars once had water. It is still unclear if there was life"]

The quickest way to get information is to use the Internet so that is what our Martian friend does. He knows the three relevant Windsor ridings and knows who the candidates from the three major parties are. Here is what he discovers when he goes to each of their websites to see what their position is on the border.

WINDSOR WEST

Brian Masse---As the Martian expected, there were pages of Masse material on the border. A link made it easy to find what Brian's position was and explained what he wanted: public ownership of the next crossing and a Public Authority to manage all of the crossings. He sets out the NDP commitment of $2.5 billion over 10 years (not just for Windsor though) to get trucks off of city streets. Our Martian noted that Brian did not say where he wanted the crossing to go or how to get there other than to keep it out of Sandwich.

What the Martian found hilarious however was Brian's tagline and how it was positioned on the .pdf page: "Getting Results for People. This Time." I guess, thought our Martian, that Brian was admitting that he had done nothing for the People LAST time around.

Werner Keller----no website it seems other than the Liberal Party created one

Alfonso Teshuba---No idea what his solution is but he does say "I Guarantee that I will Stand Up and FIGHT for Windsor, as your next community MP. I have the most serious conviction for getting the proper funds committed for the right area solution, which a Conservative Government will respect. I have already went on record, stating that I am very confident in my communication skills to do so, that if such funds aren’t committed accordingly, within 18 months from the time I am elected, that I would resign."

Windsor Tecumseh

Joe Comartin--The Martian had read the Globe and Mail story about how important the border was to the riding so expected to see a lot of information about what Joe stood for. Instead all he saw was "The border remains one of the most important issues for citizens of Windsor." Joe’s plan: "A third border crossing that will end the crisis of truck traffic in our neighbourhoods and ensure that our goods and services can be exported efficiently…." and that Joe "Fought for community input on border traffic and supported a third border crossing to keep transport trucks off of our streets."

Bruck Easton----nothing on the border

Rick Fuschi---"Our area is facing a border crisis that may come as soon as 2013 if no new crossing is built. A Conservative government will respect the local solution to our border problem and will make sure the funding is available to implement it." The Martian wondered if that meant he supported the Schwartz Plan and if so, why he did not say it.

ESSEX

Taras Natyshak---nothing on the border

Susan Whelan--- nothing on the border

Jeff Watson---"I have fought for action to reduce congestion at the Windsor-Essex border." Hmmm thought our Martian, no mention of DRTP this time.

As you can expect, the Martian was more confused now than before. Four of the nine had no position on their website and of the others, none of them said precisely what crossing they wanted. Maybe it was buried somewhere on their website but if they could not make it easy to find, since this was such an important topic, he wasn't going to spend time looking when he could be downloading MP3s instead.

So what were the Martian's conclusions: sell Canada and quickly!