Canada has a very weird political system. We just had an election 2 months ago, we elected a minority government and the voters are still happy about the Conservative Prime Minister. Then suddenly the other three losing parties try to form a coalition and take over the government with majority seats in the parliament. The coup has became one of the most talked topics in our office. We all puzzled by this weird three parties coalition. The NDP and Liberals has totally different political platforms and they were criticizing each other like crazy in the past election. Yesterday’s enemies become today’s friends, yet the we have no clue what kind of policy their will bring forth. Just the Liberal and NDP is messy enough, then bring in the Bloc Quebecois can only make it messier. Bloc Quebecois is another weirdo political party does not exist in provinces other than Quebec. They have only one agenda, separation of Quebec from Canada. In the parliament, they don’t care about any policies for national good, all they care about is bringing more beef to Quebec. How can we trust the Bloc with power? We feel like cheated by the coalition, we did not vote for this screwed up government.

If the coalition really want to take the power, maybe they should do it fairly and call for election on a common convincing political platform and let the voters decide. I would rather have a Conservative majority government than another government with the leftist NDP and the separatist Bloc. I don’t mind a minority Liberal government if they can win it on their own power though. On a second though, Canada is still part of the common wealth and still ruled by the Queen. Maybe we should just reinstate full monarchy and ask the Queen to be our head of state with real power. I am sure she is more popular and nicer than all of the political party leaders. I may even go so low that I am willing to accept Prince Charles as our King than having the coalition government.

On my way home tonight, I listened to the election debate on CBC radio.  This is my first time listen to any election debate live.  My first impression is we have too many political parties in Canada.  The debate is too crowed with all five leaders trying to talk or yell at the same time.  I don’t think debate help the voters at all.  The candidate simply restating their policy in the debate, voters already know those information from newspaper.  It seems the candidates of all the opposite parties only know how to attack the party in control of the government.  Occasionally they present some bits and pieces of their own policy, but somehow you sense their math do not add up and some of the policies are even contradicting with each other.  The current prime minister is not much better.  He never response to those attack directly, just restating what the government had done in that area.

Each party claim they have a platform, but the platforms are just some empty slogans.  Voters don’t get much information how things will turn out.  All we know is when they are elected, they promise to spend how much money on this or on that, tax cut or tax raise here and there.  Never mind those are just election promises that never intended to keep.  Even if the elected keep their promise, no one knows whether the maths adds up, whether or not those promises feasible at all?  No wonder the public don’t feel much interest in politics, no one is addressing any real issues.  They are not even debating, there is no communication, they are just talking their own stuff.  Maybe we should change the format of the debate.  Instead of having a round table debate, we should have a series of round robin debate, putting the leaders head to head with each other.  Allow them to focus their attack and give them enough time to unmask the bullshit of the other party.

Elizabeth May of the Green Party and Layton of NDP seems to be the best talker in the debate.  It is much easier to irresponsible policy that appeals to everyone than a sound policy that actually works.  Harper of the Conservative may not be the best speaker in the debate, but he is the only one quote real statistic to back up his policy.  Other candidates rely on stories or anecdote to sell their ideas.  I think using number alone worth giving Harper some credits over the other candidates.

No, I am not talking about the US election.  I am talking about the Canadian election.  Something I like about the Canadian political system is the election will not drag on too long.  From the moment the government announce the election, there is only one month before it actually take place.  So we will not bored by the ever lasting election campaign like in the US.  I wonder what’s the point of having pro-long election campaign?  Isn’t that most voter already make up their mind?  The political view of a party won’t change over night, voters should be well aware of what they expect to get from each party.  The candidate themselves are irrelevant, all politicians cannot be trust anyways.  Whatever they promise you in the campaign are lip service.  As long as there the politicians do not make any stupid mistake or involve in any scandals, the voters are pretty much voting for the party.

I used to vote for the Liberal in the past elections.  This time, I will switch to the Conservative, since it is the only party that is not anti-gun.  If I want to keep my toys, I better vote for them.  Other than this factor, the agenda of the other parties are pretty much loads of shit.  The Green Party is a joke, their policy does not make any economical sense.  The Quebecois is really a provincial party, their sole agenda is the independence of Quebec.  Only stupid Quebec people will vote for them.  There are three major party, Conservative on the right, New Democratic Party on the left and Liberal in the middle.  I never buy policy from the left, they always want to raise tax.  The Liberal suppose to be ok, but this time they dig themselves in a big hole by proposing carbon tax.  Tax increase is bad, period.  The Conservative seems to have the best policy with the usual small government and tax cut agenda.  I really admire the Conservative refuse to please the arts and culture group by denying them more money.  The reason is very libertariain, arts and culture are personal perference, the government should not spend tax payers’ money activities that most citizens don’t really care.  They make a very good point stating that those who really care about arts and culture, should just donate to their favorate arts or culture group.  It is unfair asking the general public to pay for their perference.  This kind of sound fiancial policy really win me over as a support for the Conservative Party.