Canada's Emperors Wearing No Clothes!

For years, Canadian politicians have been playing with you, dear reader. Now it's your turn to play with them.

In anticipation of the 2015 federal election and as part of our campaign to take The Tyee national, we present to you the Party Leader Paper Doll Set.

Just a little gift from the political nerds at The Tyee to the political nerds who join The Tyee at levels of $15/month or more.

Would you like to dress Justin Trudeau as Captain Morgan? What about Elizabeth May as a windmill? Stephen Harper as a general from the War of 1812? Or Thomas Mulcair as a banana?

(Do we have to explain the banana? OK, watch this. Then watch this.)

Each doll comes with a set of accessories. For example, you can dress the leader of the Bloc Québécois, Daniel Paillé, in a Nordiques hockey jersey. You can put Karl Marx's head on Stephen Harper's body. Or you can dress Elizabeth May in Stephen Harper's blue sweater, yes, complete with furry cat.

It's up to you.

If you want to see all the costumes and some of the accessories, check them out in the paper doll fitting room.

They make a great Christmas gift, for those thinking ahead. The entire set is yours at the $15/month level or at the $50 one-time level.

Prorogue away, parliamentary puppet master! (Special thanks to the talented Indiana Joel for the great illustration work!)

Join now. Get the dolls. Give the gift of more independent reporting to Canada.

News priorities: what's in the lead?

At the one-third mark in the campaign, we're at about one-third of the way to our $100,000 goal. Thanks so much to everyone who's hopped aboard.

As with all of our recent campaigns, when you sign up, we ask you to vote for the news priority you think currently requires the most attention. It helps inform our editorial direction.

Here are the current voting results:

• Tyee choice: 109
• Energy & Environment: 62
• Government Accountability: 22
• Inequality & Social Policy: 19
• Rights & Justice: 12
• Labour & Economy: 9
• Arts & Culture: 7
• Media & Digital Policy: 4
• Trade & Foreign Policy: 1

Do you think inequality is more pressing than government accountability at the moment? Does media and digital policy need more focus in light of the TPP? Sign up and tell us.

The builder geography

Phillip Smith, The Tyee's amazing technical guru, assembled the map below (scroll to bottom of page) to show where the current crop of builders live.

Note that the map does not include non-Canadian builders. Nor does it include builders who signed up before the national campaign. At some point soon, we hope to add you all.

What other writers are with us?

Last week we announced that we had some great, tough-minded and insightful writers and thinkers lined up to contribute work to our national desk. The list, displayed here on the registration page, included such thoughtful luminaries as Lawrence Martin, Stevie Cameron, Jonathan Sas, Judith Sayers, Andrew Nikiforuk and others.

Now we're announcing even more great thinkers:

• Dawn Paley -- With a master's degree in women's studies and based in Mexico, Paley is an experienced reporter with a unique view on Canada through the eyes of the Americas.
• Gus Van Harten -- An associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and author of Investment Treaty Arbitration and Public Law, Van Harten is an expert international trade lawyer with an eye trained on CETA.
• Jessie Housty -- With her Heiltsuk friends and family on the Central Coast of B.C., Housty is a young, smart First Nations leader who's had a view on Canada's national interests through the business end of the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline.
• Michael M'Gonigle -- Founder of Greenpeace International and renowned professor of environmental law at the University of Victoria, M'Gonigle has some profound opinions on many of Canada's current national issues.
• Glen Coulthard -- An assistant professor in the First Nations Studies Program and Department of Political Science at UBC, Coulthard focuses on contemporary political theory, indigenous thought and politics, and radical social and political thought (Marxism, anarchism, post-colonialism). He oughta shake things up a bit.

And there are more in the works. Stay tuned.

What's this all about again?

As you may already know, this is all part of our campaign to raise money to bring more independent and diverse journalism to the national conversation. This doesn't mean less of the great B.C.-focused journalism The Tyee has come to be known for. It does mean we'll have more bandwidth for national issues, especially the ones where B.C. finds itself in the crosshairs, and especially the ones Canada's highly concentrated media are missing.

What's wrong with media concentration? Well, consider this comment from the Canadian Media Concentration Project at Carleton University:

...during the 2011 election campaign, every single newspaper in Canada, except the Toronto Star, that editorially endorsed a candidate for Prime Minister touted Harper -- roughly three times his standing in opinion polls at the time and the results of the prior election. When 95 percent of editorial endorsements for PM across the nation stump for one man... something is amiss.

The point here is not Stephen Harper. The point here is that media concentration can lead to less diverse reporting, opinions and solutions. It means your values may not be represented in the national dialogue. Our country's national imagination and our national sense of compassion suffers for it.

Join us now.

If you or the organization you represent are interested in joining The Tyee at a significantly higher level than that offered on the campaign registration page, or if you want to discuss matching reader contributions, contact Geoff D'Auria directly at 604-689-7409.