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A few weeks ago in the heat of the US elections I mentioned to my American colleague, that despite, or thanks to, the incredulity of Palin candidacy and nasty racial undertones of the Republican campaign, the race for the White House was fun to watch. So much so, that October 2008 Canadian Elections had one of the worst voter turn out in fifty years, not in small part due to the drama that was taking place in the US, making the Canadian politics appear dead boring by comparison.
To compensate for the lack of attention in the last elections Canadian politicians pulled an incredible stunt. A coalition of Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois are planning to take the power away from the recently re-elected Harper-led Conservatives. I don't know about you, my fellow Canadians, but that sure did get my attention. I used to like Liberal party, but the recent corruption scandals and the inept looking Stephane Dion steered me to vote for Stephen Harper last couple of times. I already experienced wonders of socialism growing up in the former Soviet Union, so you can understand why Jack Layton's "free for all platform" does not hold any appeal for me. Neither can I understand Bloc Quebecois' continuous focus on the separatist agenda while the Quebec's many internal problems are ignored.
Back to the coalition of unlikely. Stephane Dion, under whose leadership Liberal party has suffered a crashing defeat in the last elections forcing him to step down, is now aiming to become the next Prime Minister. Didn't we just vote him out or at least made it clear that we don't wont him as PM. The so-called coalition first claimed that their action to defeat the government was motivated by the Harper's proposed cuts to parties' funds, which was withdrawn by Conservatives. Now Liberals are claiming the Governments lack of concrete steps to fix the economy is motivating them to take over the reigns of the country. Hello, we are in the GLOBAL recession, and until the largest economy in the world starts showing signs of recovery, the best we can do is to try to soften the blow by making necessary cuts and investing in key industries.
The newly formed anti-Conservative coalition is not concerned with our economy. They are worried, that comes January, Obama is going to start taking drastic measures to turn the US economy around. Another couple of quarters, and, inevitably, things will start to improve, potentially leading to a huge economic boom that typically follows recessions. If Conservatives stay in power, the coalition figures, they will gain in popularity, may be even form a majority government. That would place Liberals into more weakened position, than the one they are in now. So, the time is now for the Liberals to use the gloomy times to wrestle Harper out of the office, before Obama takes over and brings massive change.
Conservatives should use every tool in their disposal to prevent Dion from taking office. We have voted and, and last time I checked, in Canada it counts.
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