Election Reflection
I've a New Democrat. If you don't know what that means, it's the furthest left of the Canadian political parties. It's essentially a social democratic party, deal with it.
Getting that out of the way I must confess that I am in no way upset over the recent election results. Sure, the Conservatives are the NDPs blood enemies, but maybe thinking like that was the reason kicked us clear in the balls for the last 4 elections. The Liberals aren't our friends, never have been and never will be and it's time we recognize that.
Given the nature of the first past the post system every party is an enemy to all others and any fantasies we have over NDP-Liberal partnership is only true if the Liberals need the NDP.
Having one party in charge for 13 years is bad for a country. There becomes isolated power, and corruption, a good cleaning house, even if politically aggregious to me is necessary. The NDP went up in vote share and seat count. I was hoping for more, but what can I say, it is up to me this would be a NDP minority government.
Stephen Harper takes a lot of slack for being boring and essentially evil. Harper is no more boring then most of our past Prime Ministers, I'm sure Arthur Meighen, Louis St. Laurent, or Charles Tupper were real laugh-riots. This reminds me of in the states where the most accurate way to predict how a person will vote is, "Who would you rather have a beer with?"
Rediculous. The Liberals did a lot of things that the economic and social conservative (a very small part) in me cringe. Military spending leaps to mind.
It's time for electoral reform in this country. We're using a system that was last cutting edge in 1876, or 130 years ago if you're counting. Our system is actually become LESS democratic since 1867, at least in terms of vote worth. The rural countryside and small provinces are over-represented, and the Senate is still appointed, note the evil blood-thirsty Americans made theirs democratic in 1912.
We are the behind the times, and countries like Sweden, New Zealand and (heaven forgive us) the United States is leaving us behind. Perhaps we stop complaining about the players and talk about the actual game.
Getting that out of the way I must confess that I am in no way upset over the recent election results. Sure, the Conservatives are the NDPs blood enemies, but maybe thinking like that was the reason kicked us clear in the balls for the last 4 elections. The Liberals aren't our friends, never have been and never will be and it's time we recognize that.
Given the nature of the first past the post system every party is an enemy to all others and any fantasies we have over NDP-Liberal partnership is only true if the Liberals need the NDP.
Having one party in charge for 13 years is bad for a country. There becomes isolated power, and corruption, a good cleaning house, even if politically aggregious to me is necessary. The NDP went up in vote share and seat count. I was hoping for more, but what can I say, it is up to me this would be a NDP minority government.
Stephen Harper takes a lot of slack for being boring and essentially evil. Harper is no more boring then most of our past Prime Ministers, I'm sure Arthur Meighen, Louis St. Laurent, or Charles Tupper were real laugh-riots. This reminds me of in the states where the most accurate way to predict how a person will vote is, "Who would you rather have a beer with?"
Rediculous. The Liberals did a lot of things that the economic and social conservative (a very small part) in me cringe. Military spending leaps to mind.
It's time for electoral reform in this country. We're using a system that was last cutting edge in 1876, or 130 years ago if you're counting. Our system is actually become LESS democratic since 1867, at least in terms of vote worth. The rural countryside and small provinces are over-represented, and the Senate is still appointed, note the evil blood-thirsty Americans made theirs democratic in 1912.
We are the behind the times, and countries like Sweden, New Zealand and (heaven forgive us) the United States is leaving us behind. Perhaps we stop complaining about the players and talk about the actual game.