Ok, it is now almost 10 days after the Canadian election and I haven’t yet commented. No, I haven’t been licking my wounds because the boy Harper got back in and with more seats. Life just has been a bit rushed lately. It will be a bit rushed for the next two to three weeks as Remembrance Day approaches. Damn offline life intruding into my blogging time!

Anyways, back to the election. As the dust settles on the worst showing by the Liberals in at least 20 years, Dion has said he will leave the leadership of the Liberal party as soon as a new leader has been chosen. Some consider him to be a lame duck leader but that isn’t necessarily so as the alternative is a dog fight between the Rae and Ignatieff camps over who will be interim leader. Dion staying on stops that fight from taking place in the midst of preparing for a leadership race. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay Canada, we’ve had 30+ days of politicians begging, lying, cajoling trying to get our support. Today is the day. We might not like any of those running to run our country but the fact is, they are all we have at this time and ONE of them has to be elected. Pick the one you dislike the least and mark your ballot but for god’s sake, VOTE.

If you are thinking about ignoring, not bothering or whatever — think of this. Currently about 2,500 Canadians are laying their lives on the line in Afghanistan. Several hundred other Canadians are in precarious situations trying to help keep peace and good order in other countries around the world. Other countries that do not have the freedom to walk into a polling station to express their democratic will — and live to tell the tale. Canadians do, because those who came before us fought for that freedom.

Politicians may suck, but freedom never tarnishes. Cherish it by exercising the rights and duty that comes with it, VOTE. Tomorrow we can pick at the carcas of the election.. not quite as tasty as leftover Thanksgiving turkey but could be interesting.

A quiet Thanksgiving weekend is winding down as I write this. Quiet for me, but for politicians in Canada the weekend has been a mad sprint to the finish line. The campaign ends today and tomorrow Canada votes. If the polls are right, Harper will be held to another minority. With a bit of luck, a smaller minority than the last one.

It would take a huge miracle for enough votes to move from the NDP and the Greens to bring Dion into minority territory. If instead of three parties arrayed against Harper there was but one, the Liberals would be in clear majority territory, which tells me, any mandate for Harper is actually no mandate at all. The majority of Canadians don’t want him. Read the rest of this entry »

You know, two weeks ago, I would have been willing to bet that Harper was going to manage to hoodwink the Canadian people enough to win the majority he has lusted after and that Dion would do well to elect a handful of MPs. How quickly things can change.

Here we are two weeks later, two debates and world markets in a tailspin, it looks like Harper will not get his majority and if the current trend continues, he may even end up where he belongs — in the Official Opposition. The last part is a bit of a longshot but then so was Harper being held to a minority two weeks ago.

Yesterday Harper had balls enough to muse about how “Prime Minister Dion” sounds in an effort to scare people away from that prospect. He needs to be careful, that might start to roll of people’s tongues a lot easier than he wants. At best Dion could only pull off a minority government but would put Harper at minimum into the Official Opposition benches, if we got real lucky maybe not even there. Read the rest of this entry »

Today is the last day of the advanced polls in our election and then next Tuesday is vote day. I’ve not been posting much on the election but have been watching very closely. I tuned into and listened closely to the English language debate last Thursday. I was glad that I did, as it is likely one of the very few times that Harper has been forced out of his ‘bubble’ in this election and it was long overdue.

Until now, Harper has managed to appear only at well staged events with only pre-registered attendees. When the press started to blow the whistle on the fact that Harper was keeping a bubble around him, and avoiding any unexpected outbursts by the electorate who have the right to answers from him, his campaign claimed that it was necessary due to security issues. Yeah right.

Anyways, back to the debates. Harper provided no surprises, he was the smug, arrogant individual he always has been. Talking around every issue put before him and beating hell out of the truth about the other leaders. He was nailed not badly a few times by the other leaders but it rolls off of people like Harper who really doesn’t care when it comes to others.

He’s not wanting to be Prime Minister to see a better Canada, he’s wanting to be PM to alter the country to his liking. For a guy who chose to call an election on a trumped up excuse, one really has to wonder why his party remains the only one which hasn’t produced a platform for the public to examine. What’s he hiding other than the fact that he really doesn’t have a plan beyond wanting to get a majority government. Read the rest of this entry »