Parents, elections and other points of interest (though not really)
So my parents got into town last night and have likely almost left by now. Their four-times-a-year stop and dash where they travel for 12 hours each way to see their doctors because the Province of BC would rather that than actually let them see doctors in Alberta, which is, shock, way closer to where they live. It's silly, it's pointless, and, strangely, my parents don't seem to mind too much because they've never made a big fuss about it. And believe me, if my dad is annoyed, *everyone* knows about it. So, whatever.
I got off work early yesterday because of the election. Apparently the federal government believes it takes me three hours to take a bus from Downtown Vancouver to my polling station, which is in, like, Fairview, which is actually in Vancouver, not a suburb or anything crazy like that. If you know Vancouver, you know it's pretty close to downtown, and if you don't, well rest assured that I could *walk* there in less than three hours. But there's this law and everyone at the office wanted to leave early, and hey, we still get paid for the whole day, so off early it was.
Voted, went to meet my parents at their hotel, ate dinner. My mom wanted to go to the bookstore because there's no bookstores where they live. Which doesn't mean she doesn't have a million books, because she does. It just means that someone needed to teach her how to order books online from Chapters, which I think is actually worse for her than actually having a bookstore in town because she can't physically see how many books she's buying until they arrive at the post office and won't fit in the PO box. My dad swears he needs to build an addition to hold all these books she buys. And, scarily, it's kind of true. They're totally crowding the pool table at their house right now.
So spent a bunch of time at the book store. Maybe an hour and a half or something. Then we went and got tea at this really cool tea house across from their hotel and went to watch the results of the election.
And that went mostly how I had expected it to go. Now I've always voted NDP for a lot of reasons, health care, education, social justice issues and so forth, but I've never had any belief in my party actually winning an election. I'm twenty-eight, so that means that for almost half of my life the Liberal party has been in power in Canada which means that I really don't know any other reality. I'm more than a little worried about the Conservative agenda, and Steven Harper gives me this funny, slimy feeling, but it is a minority government so they should be reined in a little bit. Of course, my dad reminded me last night that minority governments have made some pretty major impacts on the country in the past, medi-care and same-sex marriage for example, so you never really know.
But most shocking last night was that I found out that my parents vote Liberal. Now politics have always been a discussion point in my family growing up because, really when you have two adults and five children all with IQs over 120 living in the same house, how can it not be, but my parents have always refused to actually tell us who they vote for. Fair enough. It's a personal choice and really nobody's business. But, I always assumed they voted Conservative, or at least that my dad did. My dad's Catholic in that absolute truth, black and white kind of way. He thinks abortion should be made illegal, is totally against same-sex marriage, and abhors the gun registry. So, I just assumed. But apparently the Conservative are too radical for him. He's worried about their fiscal responsibility and he doesn't think that Harper can stand up to Bush. I agree with him, but, wow, I so never expected him to agree with me.
So over all yesterday was kind-of fun, kind-of ridiculous and kind-off worrisome. I guess we'll have to wait and see how this government turns out and when the next election might be. 18-months is the average. And now, now I need to get back to work...
I got off work early yesterday because of the election. Apparently the federal government believes it takes me three hours to take a bus from Downtown Vancouver to my polling station, which is in, like, Fairview, which is actually in Vancouver, not a suburb or anything crazy like that. If you know Vancouver, you know it's pretty close to downtown, and if you don't, well rest assured that I could *walk* there in less than three hours. But there's this law and everyone at the office wanted to leave early, and hey, we still get paid for the whole day, so off early it was.
Voted, went to meet my parents at their hotel, ate dinner. My mom wanted to go to the bookstore because there's no bookstores where they live. Which doesn't mean she doesn't have a million books, because she does. It just means that someone needed to teach her how to order books online from Chapters, which I think is actually worse for her than actually having a bookstore in town because she can't physically see how many books she's buying until they arrive at the post office and won't fit in the PO box. My dad swears he needs to build an addition to hold all these books she buys. And, scarily, it's kind of true. They're totally crowding the pool table at their house right now.
So spent a bunch of time at the book store. Maybe an hour and a half or something. Then we went and got tea at this really cool tea house across from their hotel and went to watch the results of the election.
And that went mostly how I had expected it to go. Now I've always voted NDP for a lot of reasons, health care, education, social justice issues and so forth, but I've never had any belief in my party actually winning an election. I'm twenty-eight, so that means that for almost half of my life the Liberal party has been in power in Canada which means that I really don't know any other reality. I'm more than a little worried about the Conservative agenda, and Steven Harper gives me this funny, slimy feeling, but it is a minority government so they should be reined in a little bit. Of course, my dad reminded me last night that minority governments have made some pretty major impacts on the country in the past, medi-care and same-sex marriage for example, so you never really know.
But most shocking last night was that I found out that my parents vote Liberal. Now politics have always been a discussion point in my family growing up because, really when you have two adults and five children all with IQs over 120 living in the same house, how can it not be, but my parents have always refused to actually tell us who they vote for. Fair enough. It's a personal choice and really nobody's business. But, I always assumed they voted Conservative, or at least that my dad did. My dad's Catholic in that absolute truth, black and white kind of way. He thinks abortion should be made illegal, is totally against same-sex marriage, and abhors the gun registry. So, I just assumed. But apparently the Conservative are too radical for him. He's worried about their fiscal responsibility and he doesn't think that Harper can stand up to Bush. I agree with him, but, wow, I so never expected him to agree with me.
So over all yesterday was kind-of fun, kind-of ridiculous and kind-off worrisome. I guess we'll have to wait and see how this government turns out and when the next election might be. 18-months is the average. And now, now I need to get back to work...