Kent

In an attempt at boring everyone who reads this, I have decided to take a look at the Web sites of the parties registered in the upcoming election (news for my non-Canadian (especially the American) readers, Canada is having a federal election January 23, 2006). Not about the relative merits of each party, but about their technology choices for their Web sites.

First up, the major parties

Liberal Party - For my American friends, think "Democrats" and you'll be able to rationalize them. Site is running ASP.NET (albeit on IIS 5)! Written with VS2003! In VB.NET! Language selection is by a click off the initial landing page.They even have a few rounded corners (and you know how much I love rounded corners). However, they do have the irritating, "This is the width of our site, view it wider, and get to love white margins" characteristic of a lot of designed sites. Videos available in Windows Media and Quicktime, audio available as MP3. Oh, and an ultra-trendy, "Blackberry blog" from Paul Martin's speechwriter. They also have a neat riding finder - you type in your postal code, and you find out your candidate. Good to know, as I found out my new riding is "Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca" not "Saanich-Gulf Islands" like I had thought.

Conservative Party - For my American friends, think "Republican", although somewhat more liberal (over some things). First thing I notice, they don't have an English/French landing page like the Liberals do. Site is running PHP on Linux (you'd think the "Party of Big Business" would pay for their Website, wouldn't you?). HTML 4, Transitional, created using something called "Expression". Rounded corners only on a few section heads, but they do have that funky Vista-esque shading happening. Podcasts! Ooooh, how trendy. Videos are in Flash video format, and there is a Flash ad rotator on the front page. You can either type in your postal code or browse by province to find your riding (when I first looked, they didn't have the postal code, so nice touch, guys). The site also suffers from a "this is our width" - 600px, but at least there's only one margin, and it's blue. For half my screen! bah! Oh, cool -- they even have a shop (the cBoutique)where you can order apparel and gifts.

New Democratic Party (NDP) - For my American friends, don't think you have anything close. Think British Labour, before Tony Blair. Not only is their site of fixed width, but fixed height as well. PHP on Linux, using the rather sloppy http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd. Created in Dreamweaver (unless someone else writes MM_swapImage functions everywhere). No blogs, podcasts or any other of that trendy bourgeoisie nonsense. A few videos, in Quicktime format, and a few audio ads in MP3. Oh, and wallpapers for gosh sakes. With the great "Who comes up with these?" slogan for the party: "This time, NDP". They have a riding finder, but you have to click something to get to it, then you enter your postal code.

Bloc Quebecois - The party of Quebec separation. Only has candidates in Quebec, but invariably a major force in elections and parliament (including being the official opposition not too long ago). Strangely enough, side defaults to French, with no visible link to Anglais. Site is running ASP on Windows 2000, no DTD identifying the version of HTML. Fixed width site <sigh>. A few rounded corners. Gilles Duceppe's "Blogue" linked on the home page. Videos in Windows Media, audio in MP3. You can type in your postal code (although it requires no space) and get your candidate. Strangely, no candidates running in BC. They actually have a Site Map - woo! And a link to their extranet just begging for hacking.

The other parties - yes, we have a lot

Canadian Action Party - "The Canadian Action Party (CAP) is a federal political party fighting for Canada's independence and promoting monetary, democratic and electoral reform, to restore hope for all Canadians." Yeah, I never heard of them either, but their slogan is, "We'd rather be Canadian". Site is ASP, running on IIS 4 (in both Canada and Britain), no DTD on the content. However, it does have the (inline) lifted stylesheet from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). Nice touch guys, grab someone else's CSS, and leave the evidence. Yup, fixed width, no rounded corners. Videos are offline, "send $10 to...", but they have a comic! Oh, good, now I can learn their policies (not that I'd read anything else on the site). "Banking is a 400 year old scam." Discovering my candidate took clicking through a list of provinces, then ridings. Oh, no candidate here, yet.

Christian Heritage Party - Well, I'm sure you know where they are coming from. Fixed width, no rounded corners (but would you expect them?). Site is seemingly pure HTML and Javascript, no dynamic features, even the riding finder is an imagemap of the country (Click on the province of your choice). No videos, blogs, podcasts or whatnot.

Communist Party of Canada - There's at least one in every crowd. Site is running Perl on FreeBSD (but you knew it had to be something like that, didn't you?) HTML 4.01 Frameset DTD, individual pages in 4.01 Transitional. Generator is identified as MSHTML 6, which implies to me that they used a browser-based editor to create it, not Vi. Would you believe it -- not fixed width? (of course, they are using Frames, though). No video, audio in MP3, with the great warning on the media page, "This section is only temporary and may disappear if it proves to labour intensive to maintain.". Get it? Labour intensive? Communist Party! <snarfle, snarfle> Couldn't find my candidate, or even much information on the election. Current platform information is from the 2004 election.

Green Party - Oh, my -- NOT FIXED WIDTH. Even better, XHTML 1.0 Transitional. Oh, even rounded corners. Dang, I should vote for these people! Oh, wait -- PHP on Linux (Fedora). Oh, well, back to the tech. They have a "enter your postal code", and I see that my candidate is a "Father, kayaker and nature interpreter". Check, I'm definitely on the Green party site. Weblog, check. Wallpaper? What is it with wallpaper this election? Even a design contest for their new wallpaper. No videos or audio, just a few PDFs to download.

Libertarian Party - Fixed width, HTML 4.01 transitional, pretty vanilla HTML. Nothing dynamic (little government, little Websites, it's a movement!), although the servers are PHP on Linux and BSD. No video, audio, weblogs, podcasts or other big nonsense. So far, nine candidates, none in BC. Next!

Marijuana Party - OK, I'm guessing I know where they stand on at least one issue. PHP on Linux, HTML 4.01 transitional. Not fixed width, and pretty square corners, although it did have a great cartoon on the front page with the punch line, "Geez, it's 4:20!" Sadly, you have to navigate a multi-level menu to find out your candidate (none in mine, yet). No video, audio or podcasts, and only one platform on their list of policies (you can guess what it is, don't make me copy it here).

Marxist-Leninist Party -  Ah, the Marxist-Leninists. The party that believes that Albania was the ideal model for government. Fixed width, with a zany yellow background (would have guessed red), HTML 4.01 transitional, no dynamic features. No videos, audios, but they do have a link to the "TML Daily" in case you need your daily fix. Finding candidates was a click to get the list affair, the individual candidates don't have pages describing them.

Progressive Canadian Party - Who? Oh, the progressives left over after the Progressive Conservative party became just the Conservative Party. Fixed width, no DTD, some Dreamweaver functions on the page, some dynamic features in PHP. No videos, audio, podcasts. No way of finding my candidate, or even if they have any other than the party leader. I guess they must.

Well, that's it so far. Other parties may pop up, they have until Jan 2 to nominate people. However, so far, it seems like they're all voting for Fixed width Websites, written in HTML 4.01 transitional, and just enough dynamic features to show they get tech. We're all doomed!