Are you annoyed at the recent Senate appointments? I sure am, and so are most Canadians, including small-c conservatives. And if you are one of Stephen Harper’s apologists who kept saying that he’ll become a true conservative again once he has a majority, let me assure you that you look really dumb right about now. I mean, really dumb.
You see, I did the smart thing. I voted for the NDP. I saw the Orange Revolution coming as early as last December, months before any of the so-called “pundits” in Canada even got the first whiff of it. Many of you Harper apologists pounded me hard for voting the way I did, but as it turns out, I was the smart one, and you weren’t.
With the right to vote comes tremendous responsibility. If you’re one of those who always vote for one and the same party, for example, “because I voted this way all my life, and so did my parents and grandparents,” then this country would actually be better off with you staying home on election day.
In the 2005/2006 election, I voted Liberal. Yes, Liberal. I liked Paul Martin. He did some good things for Canada, and he was a fiscal conservative. Adscam wasn’t his fault; that was solely his predecessor’s fault, who in my humble view would be rotting in jail if there were any justice in Canada. Sure, he had his quirks (“windmill arms” anyone?), but I think he would have moved on to doing some really great things for Canada – including Alberta. Above all, Canada would be in much better fiscal shape today if Mr. Martin had been allowed at least one more kick at the can.
I didn’t vote Liberal in 2008. Stéphane Dion was a walking catastrophe, and to this day I can’t for the life of me figure out how he or anyone else could have thought that he – who needs several screws to be tightened – was fit to lead a party, let alone a country. So, I held my nose and voted Conservative. And a lot of good that did me, and Canada!
After his second win, Mr. Harper really let his hair down – in the way any free-spending drunken sailor would. He spent billions as if they grew on trees, kept lying about having cut taxes for hardworking and long-suffering Canadians, and kicked the standards of democracy at every opportunity he could find. To top it all off, he stomped all over the principles held dear by his party’s grassroots. Honestly, a Liberal PM could not have been more disrespectful, and more hostile, to the concerns of (fiscal) conservatives than Mr. Harper.
So, by the time the May 2011 election rolled around, I had decided not to vote Conservative. I toyed with the Liberal option for a while, mostly because I thought (and still do) that Michael Ignatieff was a decent and intelligent individual. But for the Liberal Party’s steering him in the wrong direction, I would have probably voted Liberal in the end.
But the momentum was clearly with Jack Layton and the NDP. Besides, what better way, as a voter, to slap Mr. Harper and his crew upside the head than to vote for the “biggest enemy” they could imagine?
I most certainly disagree personally with many of the things that some NDP MPs and supporters have said or done in the past, but Mr. Layton has a good head on his shoulders, and, truth be told, I have found myself in agreement with him about 85 percent of the time over recent years (such as on income averaging for artists, etc.).
It would have been a completely different story if Thomas Mulcair had been party leader, in which case the Liberals would have won one extra vote here in Calgary. But thank God for Jack. Even you Harper apologists must admit that he is not only the brightest bulb in the NDP chandelier, but one of the sharpest minds in Ottawa, period. The NDP seat count, which the party owes entirely to Mr. Layton and no one else, attests to that.
Oh, and how about that carrot that finance minister – and Irish trickster and leprechaun – Jim Flaherty dangled in the middle of the election campaign when he said he’d kill the federal deficit a year ahead of schedule? If you fell for that, I hope the beating with the stick – that the old schedule is back on and may most likely not be met at all – has been especially painful for you. Clearly, the Harper government has some awesome spending plans in store for you.
See you at the tax office for your annual mugging.
Finally, a word to those closer at home. That means you, Wildrose Alliance. Why haven’t you raised your screaming at Mr. Harper and his Non-Conservative Party to Bloc-Québécois-like levels yet? Why do you still accept help with fundraising or door-knocking from those in the federal party? Could it be, perhaps, that you are pursuing the same “hidden agenda” as Mr. Harper, that is, to attain power for the sake of power alone, instead of restoring a semblance of fiscal prudence? Would a Wildrose government in Edmonton act and think like the current federal government in Ottawa?
These are pressing questions that require immediate answers, because the next provincial election is virtually around the corner. And this columnist and voter needs to know where to park his provincial vote next time.
Be warned: silence will be construed as tacit agreement with Mr. Harper and result in a vote for the Alberta Liberals or Alberta Party.
I also voted NDP, and happily so, since in our riding the NDP candidate was also the best candidate to be a Member of Parliament, in my view. The only thing "Conservative" about Mr. Harper's party is apparently the name.
It's also sad, but true, that the weight of evidence is that should we have a New Democratic government we might just get a fiscal housecleaning and balanced budget out of them.
I shall be interested to see if the Liberals want to truly revitalise themselves and put something in the shop window that I can support — a Progressive Conservative platform of fiscal responsibility and balance coupled with a national project (e.g. infrastructure) and social libertarianism would be very much wanted, not the page-after-page of point solutions we've seen in the past years from them — that we could say "yes, this is the vital centre".
I also voted NDP, for many of the same reasons, though I switched my vote from Green (the Greens seem to be drifting). For me the big question is whether there is room for a party of the centre in Canada or if we are headed for a highly polarized, US style political system. And if there can be a party of the centre, who it will be. I am also concerned that Mr. Harper's bloated cabinet full of rent seekers and political hacks will push the Conservatives to corruption faster than might oterwise be the case (to be clear, I do not think Mr. Harper or any of his senior ministers are personally corrupt).
Werner, I don't quite understand your statement about voting for the NDP because you saw their rise in popularity coming, and the fact that their actual rise in popularity somehow makes your vote the smart choice? Your vote is no more or less smart than anyone elses vote for for the party they supported. Climbing onto a bandwagon, so to speak, should not really add to or reduce the validity of your choice. The smart vote is for the party you believe will best represent what you want to see accomplished. For you, that might be NDP, but for someone else, it could be someone else. I don't believe there is a bad choice, as long as that choice represents what you want. Democracy is not about trying to join with the team that is winning popular support. It should be about expressing your view to help the team you like become the one that wins the popular support.
I do agree that voting one way because you've always voted that way is stupid. Brand loyalty should have no place in vote choices–that should be reserved for sports fans. But, if you do your reasearch and make an informed and well considered choice, then whatever your vote, I think you've made the right choice.
My way of voting was smart not because I saw the Orange Wave coming from afar, but because I did not vote Conservative and therefore did not allow myself to be hoodwinked – which is exactly what happened to all those who voted for the Non-Conservative Party of Stephen Harper.