For anyone who’s lived in this country during the past decade, it would be easy to believe that the phrase “exciting election” is an oxymoron. But here we are in the thick of what looks like the most significant federal election since the Progressive Conservatives self-destructed way back in 1993. Here’s how your next House of Commons is shaping up:
The Bloc Quebecois will do very well this coming Monday. Like the majority of Quebecers, I don’t want the province to separate from the rest of Canada. I do, however, think Gilles Duceppe is a basically honorable and competent man, unusually so for a politician, rather like Rene Levesque and Lucien Bouchard before him. Duceppe has said that if the Bloc wins a 50 per cent or greater share of the Quebec vote, he will take it as a public endorsement for another referendum. The latest Decima Research online poll has the Bloc at 45 per cent, which would give them nearly all the seats in Quebec and maybe even official opposition status, but without a ringing endorsement for sovereignty. Fine by me. Go Bloc!
The New Democratic Party also has a likeable leader and seems poised to increase its support base in the prairies and Atlantic Canada. Jack Layton comes across as tough and honest, a far cry from the shrill whininess of Alexa McDonough. Layton is probably the best leader the NDP has had since Ed Broadbent. He’s going after the left-leaning voters, and should do very well among them. While I don’t believe his party has updated its ideas or rhetoric since the ’60s, there are plenty of Canadians who haven’t done so either, and there’s no danger of an NDP-led government, anyway. Let principled leftists vote for a principled leftist party, and let their voices be heard, I say. Go NDP!
The Conservatives have finally succeeded in convincing the average Canadian that Stephen Harper isn’t the “Scary Western Extremist” his opponents have always tried to portray him as, but the “Dull Ontario Centrist” he so manifestly is. And as polls would seem to indicate, Canadians are clamoring to vote for a DOC after nearly twenty years of SCQ rule.
The “Spectacularly Corrupt Quebecer” seemed to have a permanent lock on the Prime Minister’s office, but now, even Quebecers realize just how insulting and patronizing it is to be bribed by the Federal Government every election. After all, Quebecers never elect those kinds of people to lead their own province, which is why the SCQ is a purely federal creature. The fact that support for the Conservatives has tripled in la belle province since the start of the campaign proves that Quebecers are ready to elect a clean candidate when there’s one running, and relish the prospect of punishing the corrupt. While the Bloc will probably still complete a near sweep of Quebec on January 23, the few federalists the province sends to Ottawa may well be Conservatives.
After putting forward reasonable policy proposals and acting responsibly as Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition lo these many years, Canadians seem ready to reward Harper’s Conservatives with a mandate, and maybe even a majority government. Canadians will be watching them like hawks, but they’ve earned the public’s trust, and now they’ll get a chance to govern. Go Conservatives!
Who’m I forgetting? Let’s see. Bloc, NDP, Conserv… Ah yes! There’s another worthy federal party in the running. And while many consider them to be hopelessly behind at this late stage, it would be unfair of me to leave them out. While the “Libs,” as I like to call them, probably won’t form the next government, even the most cynical among us must admit that they do have some good ideas. Some would say that those ideas are an important part of the founding and growth of this great country of ours, and they would be correct.
So this Monday, consider casting a vote for the Libertarian Party of Canada to show your support for the rights of the individual and the most important freedom of all, the freedom from government itself.
That about wraps up the list of credible parties running in this election. Sure, there are a few others, but nobody really believes that the Marxist-Leninist Party, the Canadian Action Party, the Western Bloc Party or the Liberal Party actually deserve to be in Ottawa. This is Canada, after all, and Canadians do have standards.
