Well, Here we are on Election Eve..
With faith in the Canadian Public, which for the most part is made up of decent people, I expect, as do many others, that the Tories will win the election and form a new government. One that we can be proud of, after so many years of Liberal domination.
Finally we have 2 clear candidates, Mr Harper, and Mr Layton, who have remained cool under withering character assassination attempts by the faltering Liberals, led by an incomprehensible, emotional, Mr Martin. Both Mr Harper, and Mr Layton are class acts and deserve to be elected. Mr Harper has shown and demonstrated his dedication to a United Canada, and has presented a well researched and documented and doable platform, and he will make an Excellent PM and leader of the Conservative Party. Jack Layton and the NDP would be excellent as the Official Opposition, should they garner enough seats.
Mr Martin deserves our pity, not being able to present a coherent policy or vision for Canada. Many of his, and the Liberal party's faults have been described and witnessed elsewhere. Not all Liberals are to be tarred with the leadership and the 'culture of entitlement' or the scandals, but unfortunately, they are shamed by association. The Liberal Party needs to take a few years and re-examine their party and how far it has strayed from the party it was before Elliot Trudeau took power and began the change. Then make the necessary changes, rebuild and become a proper center-left Party that it once was.
The Mainstream Media represented by the CBC, CTV, and numerous papers such as the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, and others, objective coverage of the election has been sorely lacking and thus has failed the public. The print media, in particular, seems oblivious to what is happening in the real world and lack the objectivity to report the news fairly to their readers. Sadly, only a few instances have occurred where some balance is reported. Unfortunately they have revealed their biases to a greater degree than the average citizen would ordinarily credit them with. They seem to give no notice of the world of instant messaging, and the internet for the immediate record retrieval of facts, details, and truth of past and present events, comments, and records.
Another commenter on Andrew Coyne's recent
BLOG summed up his dissatisfaction thusly..
"Maybe I am naive, but I'm sure that the reason for the somewhat biased reporting by CTV would not have anything to do with the fact that the President of the network, Ivan Fecan, has been involved in organizing Liberal Fundraisers. And, I'm sure that the fact that Jack Fleischmann, the General Manager of CTV specialty channel ROBtv, is running the Liberal election advertising campaign would have no bearing on the change in CTV focus. And I can't image that the fact that Charles Bird, Vice President of Governmental Affairs ( fancy title for a lobbyist) for Bell Globemedia (CTV's parent company), is the Ontario campaign chairman for the Liberals would influence the reporting done by CTV, would it? It just seems to me that there should be a requirement for CTV to state that there may be a conflict of interest in their reporting, shouldn't there?"As one can see from this example, questions are raised, and the public wonders, researches, puts out further questions, proposes conclusions [maybe erroneously, but always questioning] and then others do the same, and in a matter of minutes, or hours, answers, references, questions, and more conclusions are produced.
In the future, our politicians would do well, to take note of this growing capability, and interaction with the citizens of Canada. We will be watching, involved, and judging.
Garth Turner in Halton [Ontario] is one of the first to publicly state that he will use this medium to it's full extent. Check out his
BLOG. This is a must read, and a pattern that would well behoove every politician going to Ottawa [and even all levels of government] to emulate. I hope they do, because they ignore it at their peril.
I have one hope, and that is that Mr Martin will concede gracefully [despite his behaviour of the last year] and not try further desperate attempts to cling to power by trying to form a coalition with any other party.
So, in conclusion, I wish that Canadians not only get out and vote, but that they get the government they really deserve, otherwise, they deserve the government they get, and have been getting for many years.
Bon Chance..
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