A Sorry Day For Canada

$300 Million to have an election.

A month of lies, vitriol and propaganda.

A country with significant issues.

An election result that differs only marginally from the previous parliament.

Yes the Conservatives made some gains, the Liberals lost some seats but essentially the government is the same and to what end?

All involved in the previous parliament admit to it being "dysfunctional", yet all seem to think that now it will be different...why? I'm sitting here watching the election coverage and it is going to be essentially the same cast of characters. We, the voting public, should be embarrassed that we sent all the same loudmouths back. If we truly cared about the state of the government we would have voted for change, for something new. Instead it seems that the majority of people voted for name recognition or party recognition.

I believe that it is time to start voting for the best candidate, while I am no expert I am quite certain that a lot of the winners are far from the "best" candidate. Who cares about party, who cares about name recognition, we should care about who will do the best job representing our riding. My MP, who won again tonight, is not the most visible, at least not that I have noticed. All I ever see of him is a Billboard that is on the side of the road on my daily work commute. He is a member of the governing party, but I don't think he has the ear of the PM so he is essentially just a seat filler.

I also want to stop hearing from Canadians who ridicule the US for voting George Bush in twice, because people you just did it. I'm not sure why people are so confident in Stephen Harper, he is essentially George Bush Light.

1. Our military would be fighting in Iraq right now if Stephen Harper had been PM, even HE admits that it would have been a mistake. He is a warmonger and don't think for a second that he won't hesitate to send our military elsewhere if he feels like it.

2. He has a small group of advisers who make seemingly all policy decisions. Again quite similar to Bush. If you aren't one of those advisers then you are not important, you will be muzzled and dictated to. Basically we live in a dictatorship.

3. Tax Cuts for big business. Yes I know that they want Canada to be competitive internationally but still it reeks of helping out the rich folk. Yes the lowered the GST, but has that really affected us that much? Not really and the loss in income for the government has to be made up somehow and that includes significant cuts to things like the arts (which I know a lot of people don't care about but it is part of what makes Canada great).

4. Fear mongering. Yes crime occurs, yes sometimes our courts are too lenient but all of this fear mongering is typical George Bush style politics. If you keep the populace in a state of fear then they will buy these "tough on crime" policies. Is our criminal justice system currently to lenient...yes. Do we need to go to US style warehousing of inmates? No. We need something in between and the Conservatives are not the party to lead us there. They will continue to tell you how horrible crime is and that we should all live in fear and apparently a significant portion of the populace is buying in and that frightens me.

5. Social Policy. Don't think for a second that Harper won't have members of his party preaching to him about re-opening the abortion and same sex marriage issues. I guess a lot of the traditional Conservative party voters are all for the abolishment of same sex marriage and abortion, but again these are things that make Canada what it is.

6. Negative campaigning. All parties are guilty of it, but the Conservatives always seem to stoop to that extra low level. Case in point, the CTV interview of Stephane Dion that NEVER should have been aired. The Conservatives jumped on that as an example of how Dion is not a "leader". Pathetic. Quite simply the question asked was confusing and Stephane Dion speaks English as a second language and apparently has a hearing problem. First, the reporter and CTV should be severely admonished for airing the footage, it has no news value and was clearly only used as a form of tabloid journalism. Anyone who claims otherwise is obviously anti Liberal because it was brutal.

This was a particularly painful election. Clearly Stephane Dion is not the man to run the Liberal Party, but again I think the personality of a leader should not dictate voting habits. I feel sort of dirty after voting today, right up to standing with the ballot before me and pencil in hand I did not know who I was voting for. At the last possible second I "strategically voted" for the candidate who had the best chance of knocking off the Conservative incumbent. Unfortunately it failed, but I felt wrong for doing it well before the result, I should have voted for the party I wanted to win whether they had a chance in my riding or not. "Strategic Voting" is wrong, and obviously didn't work to well if many people employed the strategy. Clearly I'm still working on my voting habits, Green Party last time as a "lesser of all evils" strategy, "strategic voting" this time which made me feel wrong. Time to start voting for who I feel is the best candidate. Who knows, the next election could be in no time at all.

This is pathetic. I'm sitting here watching Jack Layton's press conference. The people are cheering like they won something...yeah Jack you and you're 36 other NDP MP's are only 120 seats away from running the show. Just another example of how Canada is really only a two party country as far as actually forming a government.

When all is said and done was this election worth it? No.

I hope that these MP's can work together to make a much more functional parliament but they have given me no reason to believe they will and I don't think it is in the Conservative mandate to work with others, it is their way or the highway.