Canadian Politics *yawn*

Okay, I know most of you don’t care about Canadian politics. And I’ll tell you a secret… I really don’t care about American politics. So, we’re even. Anyway, the French language leaders debate is tonight, so politics is on my mind. I might watch the debate1 if nothing better is on TV. The Canadian election is moving ahead quickly, as they are do here. The election was announced on May 23rd, with the date set for June 28th. Now, I know America is a large country, but the politicians there campaign for such a long time! It seems they have been at it for almost a year now, and the actual voting day isn’t until November. Wow. I couldn’t imagine putting up with all the rhetoric for that long. (I’m also not sure why the U.S. bothers with fancy voting machine that mess everything up. We do just fine with a pencil here.)


And speaking of rhetoric, it is in full swing here. The NPD leader, Jack Layton (who looks just like the Video Professor guy) is running around making an ass of himself. He is blaming Paul Martin (our current PM) personally for all the homeless deaths in Toronto, among other things. Not a good political move because, as important as the housing issue is, saying something like that makes you look like a crackpot. And the Conservative leader, Stephen Harper, is starting to look a little shady. He says that he won’t bring an abortion debate to the Hill, but if, say, a private member were to introduce a bill, well hey! we will look at it. And, seeing as he is a Conservative, you can guess what will happen. And he says he will bring the gay marriage debate back the House of Parliament, but he won’t discuss his feelings. But, when a couple of gay rights activists tried to ask him, they were shouted down and roughed up by the crowd. Read about his social policy ideas here. I sincerely hope that this man won’t be our next PM. And so do some longtime Conservative members, like Joe Clark, a previous PM.

That leaves the Liberals, the party currently in power. *sigh* They aren’t great either. The last PM, who has since retired, promised to get rid of the GST. We are still paying it. There has been scandal after scandal involving misspent money. Our military has declined to almost nothing. (Note to the US, this is not an invitation to invade us!) They haven’t done much good in the past, other then legalize gay marriage and keep us out of Iraq.

So who am I going to vote for? Well, I’m wishing now that my views on voting hadn’t changed. When it comes down to it, I will be voting for the lesser of four evils. (There is a fourth party, the Bloc quebecois, who are based mainly in Quebec. There are also several smaller parties, like the Green Party and the Communist Party. You can see a list here.) Who that is, I don’t yet know.

1. I characterize my French level as “Cereal Box French”, meaning I can read and understand simple words like you find on cereal boxes. (Win, Free, Good, etc.) So, I will be watching the translated debate on CBC Newsworld.

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