[BRIEF NOTE] Canadian Federal Elections
Jun. 29th, 2004 06:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldIt was quite fun to check the news of the federal elections' outcomes on my cell phone last night at 2 am, damn the cost (2 cents Canadian per page). The Liberals are the largest party, but they've lost the majority; not only that, but even in coalition with the NDP (which has incidentally done reasonably well) they won't command a majority of seats. The Conservative Party has done reasonably well, thanks in large part to the lack of old-stock Tory and Canadian Alliance voters splitting the right-wing vote, and would command a majority of the parliament with the Bloc Québécois; but then, a Tory-Bloc alliance is rather implausible. The Green Party didn't elect anyone, but they did make a strong showing though I fear that they might be splitting Canada's left-wing vote. Oh, and there's one independent.
I didn't vote in this election, I must admit. I've been too busy with sundry things to register, I don't have a driver's license so registering would be difficult, and besides, I could qualify for voting in three federal ridings--Hillsborough, Frontenac and the Islands, and Davenport--which all returned Liberals by a large margin. I'd have voted for the Liberals, I admit. Yes, they're corrupt, but they're entertainingly so. I disagree strongly with the Tories' political platforms, I'm skeptical as to the possibilities of the NDP or the Green Party, and, sadly, the Bloc Québécois doesn't run candidates outside of Québec. Fortunately, when the current coalition government--whatever it will be--collapses by next year, I'll be able to vote.
This federal election was quite dirty, by Canadian standards, between attack ads, paid hecklers, and bloodchilling claims (of which perhaps the most prominent was NDP leader Jack Layton's claim that Paul Martin was responsible for the death of Toronto's homeless). It's only a matter of time, I suppose, before accusations of babyeating become commonplace (Paul Martin eats conservative babies, Stephen Harper consumes liberal and non-heterosexual babies, Gilles Duceppe sups on Anglo and immigrant babies, Jack Layton dines on rich babies?).
Perhaps Canada's different parties should unite behind a platform of babyeating? After all, despite the recent sharp decline in Canada's fertility rate, there's still hundreds of thousands of Canadian residents who qualify as being underage. We can run a lottery, of sorts. If we want to outsource, then we can eat foreign babies. Perhaps babyeating can become a potent tool to unite all Canadians regardless of their political and ideological leanings.
Or, perhaps I'm just much too cynical.
I didn't vote in this election, I must admit. I've been too busy with sundry things to register, I don't have a driver's license so registering would be difficult, and besides, I could qualify for voting in three federal ridings--Hillsborough, Frontenac and the Islands, and Davenport--which all returned Liberals by a large margin. I'd have voted for the Liberals, I admit. Yes, they're corrupt, but they're entertainingly so. I disagree strongly with the Tories' political platforms, I'm skeptical as to the possibilities of the NDP or the Green Party, and, sadly, the Bloc Québécois doesn't run candidates outside of Québec. Fortunately, when the current coalition government--whatever it will be--collapses by next year, I'll be able to vote.
This federal election was quite dirty, by Canadian standards, between attack ads, paid hecklers, and bloodchilling claims (of which perhaps the most prominent was NDP leader Jack Layton's claim that Paul Martin was responsible for the death of Toronto's homeless). It's only a matter of time, I suppose, before accusations of babyeating become commonplace (Paul Martin eats conservative babies, Stephen Harper consumes liberal and non-heterosexual babies, Gilles Duceppe sups on Anglo and immigrant babies, Jack Layton dines on rich babies?).
Perhaps Canada's different parties should unite behind a platform of babyeating? After all, despite the recent sharp decline in Canada's fertility rate, there's still hundreds of thousands of Canadian residents who qualify as being underage. We can run a lottery, of sorts. If we want to outsource, then we can eat foreign babies. Perhaps babyeating can become a potent tool to unite all Canadians regardless of their political and ideological leanings.
Or, perhaps I'm just much too cynical.
