The Trouble with NAFTA:

"If a guy buys 85 per cent of our exports, and wants to call me Steve, that's OK with me."

-Paul Martin

Okay it was Stephen Harper, but we're not too far off, really. And that's the problem. We feel an incredible obligation to make nice with the American President, despite the fact that he doesn't control trade policy like the Canadian Prime Minister does. Steve should be tippling mimosa with Denny Hastert if he really wants to improve our export position. Not handing a lame duck cowboy a neato belt buckle. Not to say that bugs me.

If a couple of weary heads of government wanna be a little buddy buddy I don't particularly see the harm as long as they continue to do their jobs properly. I don't soft play my friends at the poker table, and I'm sure Steve doesn't back down at the negotiating table anymore than his inherent fear of an independent Canadian economy on its own drives him to do.

So... What did I get for my Birthday? Money, Beer, Lawn Furniture, a sniff of Redemption:

I was actually set to come before you to announce my retirement from electoral politics. Some of you might remember the campaign that melted in my hands. I made a boo boo and it appears likely the complete financial facts of my campaign in 2004 will never be fully known to even me. I know I raised about a thousand dollars, spent about a thousand, and lost a thousand dollar deposit that I maxed out my credit card to pay. It was a disaster, one that was, to me, worth it. I got to call Anne McLellan on her 11 year littany of disrespect for civil rights and the spirit of the charter of rights. I got to take quite a few shots that I've been meaning to take at the Conservatives, the NDP, and the Liberals, in general.

"Well Sean, You kicked my ass."

-Anonymous candidate, following all-candidates forum

So if it were my last federal campaign, the one that I could remember fondly, even if it was the only time I didn't get 1% of the vote, then I suppose it would be ultimately worth it, even if I were, in the eyes of the new guarantors of political integrity, now too stained to ever run again at any level, and legally not allowed to run federally in perpetuity. So I was going to retire from politics at the age of 23. I was going to make my electronic goodbye to the Canadian electorate when next I posted.

But then Principled Conservative posted my ray of sunshine. Sure I buggered up a $2000 campaign, of which my dad provided $500 and I provided $1000, but I didn't fail to report $2 Million dollars in contributions. That's more than $6000 per Conservative Candidate. And my campaign consisted of me, my agent, and one night of my dad coming out as our 3 hour sign blitz. The Conservatives are a well oiled machine, with a paid full time crew who's job it is to organize every facet of these campaigns, conventions, and other sundry party events. Any suggestion by Conservative apologists that this was an unintentional documenting screw-up tends to ring hollow in the ears of someone who has produced one of the bigger ones of the last couple years.

So. I will not retire from electoral politics. I will secure, from the party auditor, the release of my financial documents. I will seek to have my right to run in federal elections acknowledged. This may be a most messy process, but then the past two years have been messy for me. I've sort of slunk into a premature obscurity.

I'm back.