This post brought to you by McAuslan St. Ambroise oatmeal stout.
OK, all the predictions before the polls started closing (and I can’t legally talk about election results yet, even though I can see some of them now for Atlantic ridings) were that the Conservatives would end the night with a minority government.
Before I go into a little Canadian government background for my American friends, let me quickly outline why I think this a bad thing. In a nutshell, it’s a bad thing because a Harper government would be a further right government than Canada has ever had in my lifetime. For example, I’m quite proud that we passed the same sex marriage legislation, and it’s an open secret that Conservatives will undo that legislation, and then use that giant hole in the Canadian constitution, the notwithstanding clause, make it stick despite the unconsitutionality of such legislation.
Also, I’m really tired of the whole “tough on crime” story, when we have a long term example to the south of us of how that doesn’t work for anyone except operators of privatized prisons.
Also, I’m really tired of the whole “tax cuts” story–especially when the tax cuts are structured so that they give more tax relief to people who are better off, and the party pretends that they can make those cuts without cutting social programs. In other words, the attempt to buy votes with the promise of tax cuts, but hiding the fact that the tax cuts hit the less well-off people twice: once by giving them less relief, and once by reducing the services available to them.
Also, I’m a big fan of public health care, and I fear that the “two-tier system” is the thing edge of the wedge that ultimately results in the public system not providing proper care to people who can’t afford to pay for premium services.
And so on…
For the record, I voted for the local NDP candidate, even though he looks like a dufus, because I agree most often with NDP policies. If my riding had been in any danger of going to Conservatives, I probably would have voted for the Liberal candidate, the incumbent, to do my bit to prevent that. However, my riding was very safe for the Liberals, so I could vote my conscience (and also provide more funding to the NDP, now that funding is related to votes for Canadian political parties.)
I’m going to finish this beer, and then we’ll look at my perception of the history of Canadian federal political parties and government, and how that plays into this election.
