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Meh.

Well, since you have all sorts of poll results, how a bout a poll on what matters to Canadians, and what the parties are saying about it?

Canadian Voters say Managing Economy in Tough Times (76%), Fixing Healthcare (73%) and Creating Jobs (73%) are Absolutely Crucial Policy Planks for Parties to Address to Win their Vote

   

I'll be voting Conservative again in Ontario. Right nice of them to make it easy for people to vote absentee from the USA!

   

If your experience is typical, then you'll get the absentee ballot the day after the election. Canada Post cuts and all . . .

   

   

Whoever voted 'spoiled ballot' has to abstain from any discussion or complaining until the next federal election

-J.

   

This election bothers me, mostly because the implosion of the Liberals has made a NDP government a distinct possibility. I don't like the Liberals at all but in a worst-case scenario I'd rather have them win than the Dippers. I perfectly understand why Harper is unpopular with most Canadians and why he will be lucky just to retain a minority government. But the NDP under Angry Tom will be an absolute disaster if they win. It might not be so bad if Jack Layton were still around but as far as I can tell that cadre of former Bloc Quebecois that gave Mulcair his big boost four years ago is in total control of the NDP. And they aren't just a bunch of union jerks trying to protect their turf. They're a pack of genuine Quebec Marxist that would close the economic doors on all of Canada for as long as they were in government.

I know I get a little bent out of shape on some issues here, maybe too much. But a national NDP federal election victory? In the early days of recession at that? I can't think of a scenario that deserves to be regarded as a complete nightmare. This election has me rattled pretty badly because of it's potential for something dangerously awful to happen.

   

   

   

The Alberta NDP has to reign in their impulses because if they go too far with traditional Dipper policy they'll be one-and-done and they know it. Both the SUN and the oil industry are already pre-emptively causing a backlash against them where they've got too many people convinced that Notley is personally responsible for the oil price collapse. She's got a fine, and very centrist, tightrope to walk and even if she does nothing radical the odds aren't good that they'll be re-elected next time around.

By contrast the federal NDP doesn't have these constraints. With the majority of their support in hard-left Quebec, Mulcair will eventually have to cave into the radical wing's wishes on some issues. Odds are also that he supports himself what the troublemakers would want because he wouldn't have been chosen as leader without agreeing to placate them. I don't think that in hindsight any of the previous provincial NDP governments, not even the one in Ontario with Bob Rae, would be as radical as the current federal NDP has the potential to be. It's the Quebec factor here that is the most important thing. It's because the NDP is now hostage to the old Quebec supremacists from the BQ and because Quebec is, and always will be, hard left. The Quebec left is as close as any political sect in North America can get to being like genuine European socialists. The problem comes in that Canada is a diverse country, with internal issues and disputes that will never be healed or unified. Trying to implement something that might work in Scandinavia, for example, in a country as contentious as Canada usually is would be a disaster. And I'm not talking about implementing something as mild as national health care either. It's be pushing genuine social liberalism of a sort that pisses off at least half the country or something as genuinely radical as nationalizing the oil & gas sector just so the NDP hardliners can shut it down altogether in the name of environmentalism. And anyone who thinks that a lot of the Dippers don't want exactly that should go and re-read what that idiot Linda McQuaig said a couple of weeks ago. She only said out loud what most of them also firmly believe.

   

You don't vote for someone, you don't have a right to complain. Period.

-J.

   

   

   

That would be the only tolerable outcome from a Dipper win but I remain convinced those Quebec cranks that now dominate the federal NDP won't tolerate a centrist Mulcair government trying to walk a fine line. They're just too radical and committed to vintage left-wing 1960's-era dogma not to force it on the entire country if they're given a chance.

   

   

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