Laughing at the Liberals.

Okay, now last entry I had said I was not going to get into the election per say. I guess I lied.

This is a bit of a continuation on my last rant about the Liberals.

The other day my home phone rang. I normally do not pick it up, anyone important calls my cellphone, but the odd time it is something important or interesting so if it rings long enough I answer to make the ringing stop (sometimes I wonder if it is the phone or all in my head). This time it was, surprise surprise, John McKay's campaign office. Now apparently it wasn't intrusive enough to have some man banging on my door they had to call to double check to see if he can count on my support. Now, to be honest, what does asking if you're supporting the person do besides send you into a panic when they say no? I'll tell you what is does in my case, makes me not want to vote Liberal.

Now I was never a Liberal to begin with. I have noticed most true Liberals were pretty much born into it. Anyone else who votes Liberal is probably doing it because the Conservatives pissed them off, not because they believe in the Liberals. This constant badgering with junk mail, people at my door and on my telephone has become so annoying that even if I was undecided and leaning toward voting Liberal, now I am not. And how can you expect me to believe the Liberal's environmental policies are on par with the Green's when every couple day I am forced to recycle campaign junk mail. Interestingly enough most of that junk mail is Liberal or NDP. Probably has to do with the area I live in. Poor, uneducated and immigrants (these are seperate categories, I am not saying all immigrants in my area are uneducated or poor). Perfect fodder for the NDP and Liberal crowd.

This campaigning has actually completely turned me off voting Liberal.

Now, you may say that the example of my local candidate should not be spread to all Liberals. And I'll grant you the benefit of the doubt as I am sure there are some good Liberal candidates. There are good people in all the parties.

Thing is, Dion has proven himself to be a bit of a dweeb all on his own. I personally, as much as I am for supporting the nerds, can not imagine how he'd survive the American bullying if he was in power. He cannot even arrive in Churchill from Nunavut in time. Now if you saw the news last night while they were running campaign footage (side note: what the heck is with those children behind Jack Layton. Seriously, they're distracting and annoying. Stand still! You're on television for goodness sakes.).. if you had watched the footage you would have seen Dion in Nunavut. They did not, at least while I was watching, show him in Churchill. I have a friend up there who for days had been mentioning all the money and time going into preparing for Dion's visit. It was a big thing to the small tourist town who often sees more polar bears than it does outsiders.

So what happened when Dion arrived? Nothing. He was late. He ran from his helicopter to his vehicle and drove away to his little PR piece, leaving behind all the people who had gathered and spent so much time in preparation for him. Nice eh? Now there's a great way to get a vote.

I cannot wait for this circus to end. I would simply not vote but then I do not really have a right to complain when the whole thing doesn't work out, again.

The Elections

I am not going to go into the campaign or anything here. There is certainly enough of that going around. What has me writing today is the man who stopped by knocking on my apartment door (what ever happened to a secured building? Seriously.)

A gentleman canvassing for the Liberal party showed up this afternoon. Thinking the knock was the mailman with a package for me I answered without hesitation. I very much wish I'd used the peephole.

He handed me a card to Re-Elect John McKay. The local runner. Married to Carolyn Dartnell with five children (Five? Uhm.. Catholic? Or maybe just too much money and time on his hands). Running in the same riding he's lived in his whole life. Former Moderator of the Spring Garden Church. Chair of the National Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast. And contributor to the book Divorcing Marriage: Unveiling the Dangers in Canada’s New Social Experiments. A book on the effects of Gay-Marriage on society. Now I'm going to go off on a side tangent right here just on this book.

Divorcing Marriage: Unveiling the Dangers in Canada’s New Social Experiments:

From “the Foreword”
by Maggie Gallagher, co-author of The Case for Marriage and syndicated columnist

“Same-sex marriage will be, in effect, a public and legal declaration by governments that children do not need mothers and fathers. That alternative family forms are not only just as good, they are just the same as a husband and wife bringing kids up together.” pg vii

“Marriage is our most basic social institution for protecting children. Same-sex marriage amounts to a vast social experiment on children. Rewriting the basic rules of marriage puts all children, not just the children in unisex unions, at risk. Do not expect boys to become good family men in a society of [males] who believe, as they have been taught, that men are optional in family life.” pg viii-ix

Err.. uhm... Pardon me? Now, to be fair, the parts by John McKay are not that bad. However, just the fact that he contributed to the book makes me not want to vote for him.

From “Confusion on the Hill”
by John McKay, Parliamentary Secretary for Finance

“We can see now, however, that those who were ringing the alarm bells were not being paranoid. The central objective of ‘gay marriage’ advocates is to see a forced acceptance of their particular view of marriage established into law. They are no longer interested in, or satisfied with, a mere absence of discrimination against those who practice homosexual lifestyles. Rather, they are interested in moving society beyond tolerance to legally entrenched acceptance, if not approval.” Pg 32.

“The confusion on the Hill cannot be settled by the Supreme Court... It will be settled only when Parliament works together with the citizenry it represents to find a solution to the same-sex marriage debate that truly accommodates profound differences of opinion, while determining what best makes for the common good.” Pg 37-38.

Okay.. now ignoring the obvious flaws of this local candidate for which the person at my door would not realize I would see, the attitude of the canvasser left something to be desired. He asked if the Liberals could count on my vote. Now not wanting to be preached at because of saying no, I said I had yet to fully decide. I pointed out that I am generally a Green supporter (though, with Elizabeth May as the leader they also leave something to be desired). His response was to tell me if I wanted my vote to count (ouch) to vote Liberal if I didn't want Harper in power. Now I never said I didn't want Harper in power.

Now that "vote counting" thing had me very close to slamming the door in his face. The "vote to make sure the person you don't like isn't in power" fad of Canadian politics is one of the major flaws with our current governments. This is how we've been deciding who is in power. We do not vote because someone would make a great leader. No, no. That makes sense. We vote because the previous one pissed us off somehow and the only way to get rid of them is to vote for the second leading party. We vote purely in a manner so that we constantly have something to complain about (especially when you're voting NDP or Green).

I did not close the door in the man's face. I humoured him for a moment while he tried to explain that even Elizabeth May of the Green Party would want me to vote Liberal because, since there is no strong Green candidate in my riding, that would ensure someone she's all buddy-buddy with gets in if she can't. At this point I'm actually feeling a little nauseous at our political system. I decide to point out that I am moving at the end of October (a couple weeks after the voting period) so the candidate in my riding is not really of any concern to me. I will be voting purely on party, not local, politics. Apparently this is a foreign concept.