Provincial Election

So I watched the leader's debate tonight with leaders of four of Alberta's largest parties go at it for an hour and a half. There was Stelmach for the conservatives, Taft for the Liberals, Mason for the NDP, and some other guy for the Wild Rose Alliance (err ... yeah). It has been awhile since I attempted to watch anything like this on TV before, but I figured since I was home I should try and watch it so I could make an informed vote come election day. Well. After sitting through that garbage, I really don't know who to vote for. If anything, the entire thing made me feel an ever increasing disdain of politicians in general. Not one of the candidates made me feel like they knew what the were talking about. A couple of notes:

• Kevin Taft made a couple of comments about infrastructure that included the words "we have the cash, let's spend it". Errr, yeah, I'm sure it's that simple. The whole reason there is any debate is because the cash the government gets isn't enough to do everything they want to do with it. So if you just spend everything on infrastructure you don't have enough cash for stuff like health care.
• Brian Mason did talk some sense, but then came his talk about rent controls. I'm sorry Brian, but Stelmach was right on this point: if you expand the number of units in places where rent in soaring out of control, the competition will help bring rents back down to a reasonable amount. It's easy to charge monstrous rents if you have a tenant who has no choice but to pay you. It's a little hard on the pocket book if you drive your tenant away to new buildings being built.
• The Wild Rose Alliance guy (I'm too lazy to look up his name) came off very strange. He made some comments about how they should give Albertans more of their money back so they could keep their children at home instead of sending them to daycare. Both Mike and I thought this statement was a little odd -- like he was saying that it was the normal thing to do to have one parent stay home? What about single parents who have to send their kids to daycare? Hmm. Dunno what to think about that one
• Where did these men learn their manners? Every one of them had moments where they were talking all through the other person's point. In fact, there were points (particularly at the beginning) where there was two or three people talking at the same time. I don't know about you, but if that happens I can't follow what any of them are saying let alone all of them. I think they must've had the moderators talk to them in the commercial breaks, because it did calm down a little later on
• Who is one supposed to vote for? All these guys don't instill any confidence in me whatsoever. It's all the same thing rehashed over and over again. We want to do X for health care, we will do better than the government currently is, we want change, we want innovation, blah blah blah blah blah. I really want a refreshing change to this! It makes me wish there were more Stephen Mandels running around with fresh thinking and a positive campaign.

I don't know much about politics. I wish that it wasn't really necessary. The election in a couple weeks is not exciting to me in any way. No matter what happens, it will feel like we're putting some clown in power. Am I wrong when I think that?

Heraldk

Politics

Lets take a moment shall we and discuss politics? Normally I wouldn't do this, but the latest outbreak on the federal politics stage has *me* fuming ... and I don't even live in the riding in question!

I'm sure you've all heard by now about Mr Emerson crossing the floor from liberal to conservative to accept a cabinet position. He did this before the parliment even sat ONCE!

Frankly, I don't agree with the idea of MPs changing parties. If you're an elected official in the Canadian government, then you were elected because the constiuents in your riding decided that they like you and the party platform you were representing. When someone crosses the floor, they are dropping the platform they were voted in on and picking up a different platform that is likely very different!

Now, under extenuating circumstances, there may be a case where the MP thinks that his constituents no longer fall into the same platform as the party they belong to. But Emerson hadn't even sat down in the house of commons yet to see anything like this! He was purely drawn for the cabinet position being offered.

He's arguing that he gives his riding more of a voice by taking this position. The trouble is - what sort of voice is that? Is he going to push liberal platform choices on the cabinet? Or has he adopted the conservative platform? Because I'm sure his constituents are going to be really happy about that!

Brutal.

But what really gets me is not just that he had the audacity to make this move. He also claims that he's surprised that people are outraged at it! Come on now, what did you really expect? Cheers from the masses? Riiiight.

It makes me shake my head.

Heraldk

Voting Day

Ugh. I hate politics. Everytime it happens it feels like I've got to decide between a bunch of idiots who make a mitt-ful of promises that there is no way on earth they will keep, or if they do keep them all then they'll screw over an aspect of the country they didn't stress in their political platform. Blah. I'm scared of the conservatives. I'm not entirely sure why, but it seems oddly creepy that Stephen Harper seems like such a good candidate when last time around, he scared the crap out of most anyone I talked to. Paul Martin is running a terrible campaign from where I'm sitting - he is running a fear based campaign which I heartily disagree with. While I might agree that I don't want to see Mr Harper in charge of our country, I want to hear why YOU Mr Martin, will do any better! All your campaign has done is made me want to vote for someone other than the liberals. Since I can't quite bring myself to support the conservatives, I have to move onto the other options.

I ended up picking the green party. Why? Because I empathize with their position. I hate how they are a party with candidates in all the ridings in Canada and they had enough of the vote to get federal money to support this year's election ... but their leader is not invited to the leadership debate. A debate where the bloc-quebecois leader is assumed to be in attendance even though they are a Quebec-only party. I just don't understand.

Frankly, it won't matter who I voted for. My riding is so overwhelmingly conservative that there is no way I can stop that. But, I have to place a vote, and so I'm going to put it where it'll do the most good.

Heraldk