politics as usual in canada

it’s that time of year again, when politicians make promises we all know they won’t keep, but we keep our fingers crossed nonetheless that the promises we care about are the ones that will somehow make it through the grinder of political expediency. yes that’s right, it’s a canadian federal election.

i don’t follow hockey, baseball, nfl, futeball, or any other sports, but i do follow politics. i can’t help it, i was raised anglophone in quebec during multiple referrendums and bill 101. my family is predominately francophone, and if you don’t know, there’s nothing the quebecois like to do more than argue politics. i remember going to a dinner party with my mom and brother prior to the 1988 federal election, standing in the dining room shouting TORY! TORY! TORY! while the kids of the other adults shouted in turn NDP! NDP!! NDP! and LIBERAL! LIBERAL! LIBERAL!   (in my defence, my mom was a conservative supporter because she worked for an agency supported by their platform, shortly after their election victory they decided to cut staff at the agency and my mom was laid off, and ever since then, my enthusiasm for the conservatives has waned)

so, much like my ten year old self, i’m again in a position of trying to figure out who i should be shouting for at the dining room table. i don’t really trust any of them to do anything substantively positive on the files i think are important, however i’ve voted in just about every election i’ve been allowed to vote in, and i’m not going to stop now just because the candidates suck.

ok, to the point, i live in toronto-danforth, i think that jack will have a comfortable enough margin that perhaps i can vote freely without worrying about the strategic implications, here are my options:

• the dude with the mustache
• the “why do conservatives with no hope of winning always look good” candidate
• the required local activist
• and the “exactly what you’d expect a liberal candidate to look like” candidate

i’m sure there are others, but i haven’t voted for a joke party since i was a teenager, so i’ll stick to the big guns. despite my jabs at their physical appearance i assure you i will be voting based on both their stated policy platforms and how well they individually express those policy positions especially in the face of hostile questioning.

ah, i love election season