Frum says that Canada is no longer a single-party state.
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Anonymous
said...
I don’t usually agree with David Frum, but he says some good things about Harper’s role, and on the impact of each side’s advertising. Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately) I wasn’t in country to see most of the ads, so I can’t really comment on them, but the more I examine the results from the election, the more disappointed and even disgusted I become.
A high school friend of mine now living in New York is always complaining to me how Toronto is not yet a world-class city because it refuses to think big and attempt big change. More and more I’m becoming convinced he’s right. But now it seems it could apply not only to my city, but also to my province and even to my country. Canadian voters, especially in Ontario, decided they’d rather elect the same old Liberals rather than try even moderate change with the Conservatives. There seems to have been considerable voting based on the knee-jerk reaction to the Conservatives that they were right-wing radicals bent on removing women’s and minority rights, eliminating the national healthcare program, sending Canadian soldiers to “die in Iraq”, and making Canada “more American”. This sentiment appeared again and again from left-wing columnists, letters to the editor, and even online. This despite the clear centrist platform the Conservatives put forward, and the near impossibility of actually being able to carry out such radical policies even if they’d wanted to. But unbelievably, it seems as though many voters in Ontario (where the election was again decided) and elsewhere actually believed this fear-mongering, and this led to some Liberal wins in some ridings that definitely should have turfed out their representatives. A few examples: 1) In one riding in Atlantic Canada, the voters re-elected (with 53% of the vote) a former Cabinet minister who was fired for funnelling government money to his brother’s private college. 2) In one Ontario riding, the voters re-elected (with 45% of the vote) an MP who visited Baghdad before the war, and called Saddam’s henchmen “extremely charming”. 3) In one Toronto riding, the voters re-elected (with 48% of the vote) another former Cabinet minister who deliberately and unapologetically voted twice in a single municipal election. 4) In another Toronto riding, the voters re-elected (with 54% of the vote) an MP who publicly stated that she “hates” those “damn American” “bastards”. 5) In a BC riding, the voters re-elected (with 40% of the vote) another former Cabinet minister who once commented in Parliament about one BC town where “crosses are being burned on lawns” at that very moment.
Obviously, not all of the elected Liberals are that bad (most are like my MP, a do-nothing empty suit, who still won almost 59% of the vote). But across the country, very few incumbents, especially Liberal incumbents, lost, and it seems that only in Quebec did people vote for change; unfortunately it was towards the separatists. Luckily, the Bloc Quebecois did not do quite as well as they had hoped (there was talk of almost 70 seats), and they won’t hold the balance of power in the House, but they still gained almost 20 seats from the last election. For their part, although they lost seats, the Liberals ended up winning almost 30 more seats in Ontario than was expected (and probably than they should’ve), which almost offset their losses in Quebec and allowed them to win a more comfortable minority.
I’m not anti-Liberal; in fact I’ve been quite supportive of Paul Martin over the past few years, and was close to voting for him. But from my point of view, he was not willing to take the country in the direction I wanted to see it go in, and so in the end I couldn’t vote for him. I don’t know why so many other people have become so complacent and so ready to simply vote for the Liberals one more time (again and again). One columnist called it a fear of the unknown, and it certainly seems like people are equating change with the unknown (which is obviously bad). All in all, it doesn’t seem like we’re willing to embrace any sort of change in this country, and that will probably come to hurt us, if not soon, then before too long.
1 comment:
I don’t usually agree with David Frum, but he says some good things about Harper’s role, and on the impact of each side’s advertising. Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately) I wasn’t in country to see most of the ads, so I can’t really comment on them, but the more I examine the results from the election, the more disappointed and even disgusted I become.
A high school friend of mine now living in New York is always complaining to me how Toronto is not yet a world-class city because it refuses to think big and attempt big change. More and more I’m becoming convinced he’s right. But now it seems it could apply not only to my city, but also to my province and even to my country. Canadian voters, especially in Ontario, decided they’d rather elect the same old Liberals rather than try even moderate change with the Conservatives. There seems to have been considerable voting based on the knee-jerk reaction to the Conservatives that they were right-wing radicals bent on removing women’s and minority rights, eliminating the national healthcare program, sending Canadian soldiers to “die in Iraq”, and making Canada “more American”. This sentiment appeared again and again from left-wing columnists, letters to the editor, and even online. This despite the clear centrist platform the Conservatives put forward, and the near impossibility of actually being able to carry out such radical policies even if they’d wanted to. But unbelievably, it seems as though many voters in Ontario (where the election was again decided) and elsewhere actually believed this fear-mongering, and this led to some Liberal wins in some ridings that definitely should have turfed out their representatives. A few examples:
1) In one riding in Atlantic Canada, the voters re-elected (with 53% of the vote) a former Cabinet minister who was fired for funnelling government money to his brother’s private college.
2) In one Ontario riding, the voters re-elected (with 45% of the vote) an MP who visited Baghdad before the war, and called Saddam’s henchmen “extremely charming”.
3) In one Toronto riding, the voters re-elected (with 48% of the vote) another former Cabinet minister who deliberately and unapologetically voted twice in a single municipal election.
4) In another Toronto riding, the voters re-elected (with 54% of the vote) an MP who publicly stated that she “hates” those “damn American” “bastards”.
5) In a BC riding, the voters re-elected (with 40% of the vote) another former Cabinet minister who once commented in Parliament about one BC town where “crosses are being burned on lawns” at that very moment.
Obviously, not all of the elected Liberals are that bad (most are like my MP, a do-nothing empty suit, who still won almost 59% of the vote). But across the country, very few incumbents, especially Liberal incumbents, lost, and it seems that only in Quebec did people vote for change; unfortunately it was towards the separatists. Luckily, the Bloc Quebecois did not do quite as well as they had hoped (there was talk of almost 70 seats), and they won’t hold the balance of power in the House, but they still gained almost 20 seats from the last election. For their part, although they lost seats, the Liberals ended up winning almost 30 more seats in Ontario than was expected (and probably than they should’ve), which almost offset their losses in Quebec and allowed them to win a more comfortable minority.
I’m not anti-Liberal; in fact I’ve been quite supportive of Paul Martin over the past few years, and was close to voting for him. But from my point of view, he was not willing to take the country in the direction I wanted to see it go in, and so in the end I couldn’t vote for him. I don’t know why so many other people have become so complacent and so ready to simply vote for the Liberals one more time (again and again). One columnist called it a fear of the unknown, and it certainly seems like people are equating change with the unknown (which is obviously bad). All in all, it doesn’t seem like we’re willing to embrace any sort of change in this country, and that will probably come to hurt us, if not soon, then before too long.
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