Election Day in Ontario

It's election day in Ontario and I haven't blogged nearly enough about the issues and smokescreens that have been bandied about by the politicians vying for your vote.  This post is likely too late for you, but there's always the next election.

I see no rational reasons to vote for the Progressive Conservative Party (or the Conservative Party federally) other than pure unadulterated greed.  Yes, the PCs have successfully branded themselves as champions to various special interest groups and religions but that branding is largely based on fiction.  I'm sorry if you fall under that category and you voted PC -- don't expect any return on your electoral investment because it won't be coming.

Last I checked, greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins of Man.  If you're OK with having a Deadly Sin as your motivation for voting then you probably don't deserve a vote.  Still, you have one, and you've exercised your right to do as you please.  Unfortunately, we all pay for your selfishness and folly.  I hope you don't consider yourself a good person because you just failed that test.

If you're looking for a Centre-Right party to put your vote behind and don't want to buy into the ridiculous agenda of the PCs look no further than the Green Party.  Surprised?  The Green Party actually has a Centre-Right fiscal policy behind their environmentalist central theme.  The Green Party has been looking for a break in Canadian politics but our stupid First-Past-The-Post system makes it next to impossible for them to do so. Instead, this system gives us majority governments that received support from about 20% of eligible Canadian voters.  What's worse is they call this 20% 'landslide' a mandate for their Right Wing agenda.  Of those that actually voted, about 70% said 'Hell no!' to the Conservative Party, yet they have received their fictitious 'mandate' and they are now equipped to muscle through absolutely anything.

If you are more pragmatic and insist that your vote have a chance of affecting the outcome of the election, I have two pieces of advice.

First, leave Ontario.  While you're at it, leave Canada.  The electoral system here does not empower the voter to make a difference in the outcome of the election.  In my 25 years of adult life I have never cast a ballot that mattered in the slightest.  By that I mean that in none of the elections of the past 25 years, at any level of government, have I voted for the winner in an even remotely close election.  Either my candidate wins by a landslide making my vote superfluous, or my candidate lost meaning my vote had no part at all in affecting the ultimate outcome at all.  At least federally each vote translated into funding dollars, until the Conservatives squashed that, which of course was in their best interest to do given the fact that their supporters are mostly rich people and corporations who have the means to donate generously while the other parties have supporters of more moderate means and have to scratch and claw to pull together party money.  Was it in the best interest of Canadians?  Not even close!  So much for fairness, hello to pure ideology, on our way to pseudo-dictatorship?

Even if/when you do get lucky enough to affect the outcome in your riding/ward/district/constituency you still have virtually no say in the outcome as a whole.  Case in point, in past elections more than 50% of Torontonians voted Liberal compared to about 25% (Progressive) Conservative support -- an overwhelming result.  Unfortunately, the rest of Ontario/Canada had results predominantly for (Progressive) Conservatives with most of these results close races.  Taken to the extreme, it is quite possible in our electoral system to handily win the popular vote and lose the election by a landslide.  The fact that the Centre-Left vote is split between two parties and the Centre-Right is wholly represented by one (until the Greens break through, whenever that is) biases the system for (Progressive) Conservative results.  The fact that Liberal and New Democratic governments have been elected at all says much our overall political leanings.  All it takes for the (P)Cs to win are a few people here and there swayed by charismatic figures, lies, borderline slander and promises of tax cuts... tax cuts which along with a flood of service cuts will see them worse off than before they cast a ballot for big Blue.  Unless of course you own a significant chunk of  a major corporation or two, and/or happen to be among the very top earners in the province/country -- then, the tax cuts pay off in spades, as if the loopholes/tax shelters you are afforded weren't already enough for you to (largely) shirk your responsibility to the community as a whole.

Second, vote for a party that actually cares about the country/province as a whole and not just what their country/province can do for them.  By and large, we have two of them to choose from: the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party.  If you live in Quebec and have a separatist preference the Bloc/Parti Quebecois is a better, more responsible choice than the plutocrats and oligarchs that make up the (P)C Party.  These parties have shown the willingness to temporarily carry policies that run counter to their general ideological framework if doing so is in the best interest of the province/country.  It was the Liberals that balanced the budget and orchestrated surpluses.  It was (mainly) the (P)Cs that squandered those surpluses and turned them into record deficits and debts.  Perhaps we can give ALL the political parties a free pass for the events of the past several years.  If you weren't paying attention, the entire global economy has tanked in historic fashion and our provinces & country were not immune to this phenomenon.  Deficits were strategic buffers against bigger, deeper recessions.  (And if ALL western governments of the past 40 years hadn't been in the back pocket of corporations, slowly but surely killing the economy by eroding the wealth and earnings of labour and the Middle Class down, while at the same time creating ever more profitable environments for corporations, this strategy might have worked.)

Not so for the (Progressive) Conservatives.  They are married to their ideology regardless of what might result from sticking to their guns (pun intended).  The abolition of the long gun registry in spite of every police force across the country being in support of maintaining the registry is a prime example.  What do the police know anyway?  So what if the registry has actually helped in solving crimes?  Only the convenience of the gun owners matters.  And, after their gun is stolen/lost/sold it's no loner their concern so they don't care at all.  The police do.  And they would too if they were the victims of the crimes committed with their long guns.  Sadly, the gun owners largely live in the burbs and in 'God's country' whereas the crimes committed using their guns largely happen in the cities.  NIMBY at its best.  Thank you sportsmen/hunters for absolving yourselves of responsibility for gun ownership.  I have no respect at all for people who are all up in arms (pun intended) about their rights but are nowhere to be found when it comes to responsibilities. Here's an idea.  Love you gun so much?  Move South where guns are the state religion.  You'll fit right in and our society will be better off for your absence.

So, now that you've heard my take on Ontario & Canadian politics.  Go vote if you haven't already.  (And if the ballots haven't closed.)  I predict a tiny majority government for the Progressive Conservatives because they market themselves better than Apple, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Microsoft and Nike combined and most voters are sheep, following the most obvious carrot -- even when they know it is poisoned.  Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, this government will last less than a year before a non-confidence situation forces another election.  Just what we needed was to spend more money deciding which incompetent, egotistical and self-interested boob we want to represent us.  Sadly, this is the best system we can can come up with... at least for now.