I'll be voting in a couple of hours to help choose a governing party here in the Great White North. The polls close at 9:30 EST and I'll spend the evening glued to the tube to watch the results come in.
I'm pretty excited because I think, for the first time in 13 years, the Conservatives have a chance to form the next government.
I can hear the gasps from my American friends, who equate the C-word with everything Bushy. Relax folks, that's not the case here. The Canadian Conservative party platform wouldn't raise too many eyebrows if it was presented by the Democrats in the US of A. There are no cuts to existing social services. Canucks will still get "free" cradle-to-grave health care. Guys will still be able to marry other guys and women will still be able to marry other women. (It's remotely possible though, that they'll change "marriage" to "civil union" - but I'm betting that won't happen either.) The death penalty will stay off the books. A cabal of right-wing religious zealots will not be pulling Prime Minister Stephen Harper's strings.
What I expect from a Conservative government is honesty and delivering what they promised in their platform - a rare and welcome change from the decade-plus-long reign of the "Fiberal" party.
5 comments:
It seems you and I will be doing the same thing this evening and sit on the same fence. With you I hope that Harper will be our next Prime Minister. Actually, I am quit confident he will be our next "Boss", becuase I do trust common snese of the people. No one in his/her right frame of mind possibly would want more of what we had the past 18 years.
Othmar Vohringer, aka huntwriter
Hi Othmar. A few more seats would have been nice but it was a decent result. The Liberal leadership race should take some of the scrutiny off Harper and ease his transition.
I hate it when the same word--conservative--means something completely different, only a hundred miles away.
It's just weird.
Those words should get filed under the same category as homophones.
I can understand your confusion Mac. The Conservatives do have some hard right-wingers within their ranks (as do the Liberals for that matter) but in both parties they represent a minority.
For the most part Conservatives here are small "c." They're socially progressive and fiscally conservative.
What they don't have (yet) is the arrogance and disdain the Liberals developed after too many years of holding the reins.
Any total control of pwe results in that sort of arrogance but we have a real criminal element running our country now. A liberal democracy doesn't mean politt bureau run by a few rich nutcases. That's what my ancestors fought against attacking Quebec.
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