Not The End of the World

Well, It seems that several months have passed since Canada elected a Conservative government (or should I have spelled it "small-c"?...I never know). The world still turns, and I haven't seen any eatings of babies, or whatever doomsday scenarios the Liberal ("small l"?) PR folks cooked up. Much noise was made of how "American" it is to be Conservative; how it would be a betrayal of our Canadian-ness to elect these people.

I am not a supporter of the Conservative party. I would, in fact, like to ask any and all Canadians reading this to strongly consider the Green party. They are not creepy tree-huggers, they have a very rational, and pragmatic platform (don't believe me? read it here for yourself: www.greenparty.ca/). This may seem like a digression, but all relates to my central point: Ask "Why?" for once!

I read an article on adbusters.com, which addressed the election of the conservatives in Canada. It implied that Canada's conservative shift had to do with our becoming the premier outside source of Oil to the US (surpassing Saudi Arabia). The corruption in the long-running Liberal party (the "supposed" reason for Conservative victory) was portrayed as some kind of shame, as if Canada is supposed to be governed by the Liberals. I've heard an awful lot of people who say they have "liberal" views, but they hate the Liberal party. I don't think that the Liberals were any better with respect to the US; they displayed the charismatic arrogance that so many of us Canadians do, perhaps threatened by how much Bigger the states are. You cannot have proper relations with a government that you would ridicule to gain support. In short, I do not believe that the Conservatives are going to sell us up the river. I believe that they were elected to knock some sense into a country that has too long been prideful, while at the same time becoming what amounts to a joke. If you want to believe that THE MAN (ie, Big Oil) had his hand in it, fine, but consider Ockham's razor; maybe it was just time for people to wake up and make a change. Whether it's a good or bad change, time will tell. The important part is that we asked "why?" when the Liberals asked us to elect them again, despite their record. Now, when it comes time to choose again, we should simply ask EVERYONE the same question.

It may interest you to know that I am an enormous fan of the original US constitution, and that the Canadian Liberal party is way to Rousseau (greater good > individual) for me. I am deeply disturbed by trends away from personal liberties, and a general shift to suspicion, and intolerance. Canadians and Americans both: don't idly throw away what is perhaps your greatest gift - your freedom!