I think people should vote if the want to and I hope they use their best judgement. It is hard to decide who to vote for in an election that comes around once every four years. You cast one ballot and then you are stuck with that government for four years. Apparently, democracy is something that can only be done on the same schedule as the Olympics or the World Cup.
It looked like it was going to be Trudeaumania all over again and The Hair Guy was riding a wave to sure victory. His final week commercial clipped from his triumphant speech before the largest crowd of the campaign had just the right amount of fascist undertones to make him look darn near presidential.
Then days before the vote, news breaks that The Hair Guy's right hand man is sending around a "How to get access to the Hair Guy's New Government" cheat sheet. The back room politics of access and corruption that drove the Liberals into the ground are still creeping around.
The sponsorship scandal and the insult heaped upon Quebec as being a corrupt province is what unraveled Liberal support in that province and ushered in the current regime. There is no mania if Quebec isn't dancing.
It wasn't supposed to go this way. If Jack were alive. It would be game over. It would have been a coronation. The Orange Crush would have been the new thing. Quebec and the Youth vote and the Native vote and the New Canadian vote would have crushed the Old Stock Canadians.
It would have been Real Change and instead we got Beard Guy who is no only the smartest guy in the room he's also the creepiest. He could not deliver that message of Hope that Jack delivered with so much conviction and so much humanity. But just because someone has zero charisma doesn't mean they can't be Prime Minister.
Case in point.
What is it with Damien? In his final commercial he is lit by the studio lights to look as white as humanly possible with pink skin tones and bright blue eyes while speaking blissfully from within his bleached out world.
It is shocking that he is even in this race after the corruption and scandal and crimes that plagued his government. Conservatives are supposed to follow the rules and manage money.
Conservatives support the Military. These Conservatives have treated our Veterans shamefully and yet we are at War. Conservatives are into hunting and fishing. They have removed the majority of protections for our rivers, lakes and streams.
They mismanaged the economy and watched the oil industry flounder and left Canadians put of work in that sector on their own. They sold out the last of the Canadian auto sector in the Trans Pacific Partnership. It's not about jobs.
Yet they might win this thing.
Is it really the race issue that is going to give Damien four more years? He knows the deep, dark, racist, misogynist Canadian spirit that exists in the Old Stock Canadians and that it is more widespread than most would like to admit. He knows we aren't all Martin Short and John Candy. He knows this is the heart of his base so he stirs up the shit and clouds the water.
Meanwhile we are getting ready to dump 8 billion litres of raw sewage into the St. Laurence River. We have the technology to pump out this sewage and treat it before putting it back into the river; but we are acting like a third world country when it comes to having fresh water. No one wants to spend the money to take care of our shit so the best response is the cheapest one dump it into the river.
This is happening in Montreal. You know it gets worse from there with raw sewage being dumped all across the country. That is not the worst of it, we are planning to bury nuclear waste under the Great Lakes.
We are shitting in pool. We are pissing in the garden and poisoning the well. These are bad times and the vote cannot be your only act to save this country.
Where you shit matters as much as where you vote.
