Why You Should Send the Conservatives Packing

The Canadian Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, is expected to request the dissolution of Parliament today, which will ultimately lead to an election in October 2008. Despite being the smallest minority government in history, it is also the longest a minority government has survived.

Still, this is a great opportunity to send the Tories packing.

"Why, Lownewulf? Why, if the Conservatives have done so well, would you send them home? They even gave us a 2% GST cut!" Sure, but in the end, for a Government whose campaign was centered around government ethics and accountability, they have shown a brazen disregard for their own accountability rules that make the Liberals look like saints in comparison (and given that the Liberals were largely booted out due to the sponsorship scandal, that says a lot!). They are so incredibly dishonest, and have shown such a callous disregard for accountability, that one cannot possibly trust them to lead for a second longer.

• The call for an election contradicts C-16, the law the Conservatives passed to mandate fixed election dates. They passed it specifically to prevent parties from calling elections for political advantage, which is exactly what Harper has just done.
• Despite campaigning around and ultimately passing enhanced accountability laws around election finacing, are trying to slot in an election before the issue of their in-and-out campaign financing is decided in the courts.
• After rolling out a policy of tabling any treaty before ratification legislation is introduced, has brought out bill C-61 without tabling the WIPO Internet treaties.
  (As many of you probably remember, I think the new copyright bill is one of the biggest threats to Canadians in the 21st century!)
• Attempts to limit accountability and visibility by trying to control access to government activities by the press.
• Killing the CAIRS system, a key system used for access and mining of Access to Information Requests.
• Firing the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission over a disagreement on safety with the government.

So, if you feel that a Government should actually be accountable, vote for anyone but the Conservatives! Of course, that's easier said than done. After all, who on Earth are you going to vote for?

The Liberals? Sure, they're the standard middle ground for Canadians - the Liberals are always a safe bet! But Dion is perhaps the least inspiring leader that Canadian politics has ever seen! I may have despised Paul Martin, but at least he was worth paying attention to. And seriously, a green focus? Why not copy a party that's actually successful rather than copying the Greens, who have never even held a seat! Seriously, it's like this party lost it's will after 2006, and is still floundering to find its purpose again.

The NDP? They were exciting during the 38th Parliament, but what have they done for us since then except whine in the background? Anyways, I'm not quite ready for a 80% tax rate to support every sad story on the planet.

Ironically, the Bloc is the sanest of the parties right now (assuming you ignore the whole soverignty thing :p). A socially liberal stance but with the sort of financial and political discipline that even the Conservatives should admire. Problem is, you can't vote for them since they only exist in Quebec - and even if you did, it's a mathematical impossibility for them to govern *.

[ * 308 seats, 75 of them in Quebec. Split the remainder evenly between Liberal, Conservative and NDP; each remaining party must have at least 77 seats, meaning Bloc can't govern without a formal coalition. ]

The Greens? Seriously? Come on. No.

Of course, there's always the local independent candidate. After all, they made all the difference during the 38th Parliament. But, is there a good one in YOUR riding, who will fight hard enough to make your vote count?

Some folks down here admired the fact that we could call an election now, and still have our results decided before the Americans chose their president. On the other hand, at least they have some decent candidates to choose from this time around.