That's what Canadian Liberal-supporters are saying! The Conservatives won 122 seats, only 33 shy of a majority government, making them the minority government of choice. They also won the popular vote at 36.25%. Some more key points were that Quebec was almost all Bloc Quebecois and Alberta/Saskatchewan almost all Conservative. For more detail check out http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/electionnight/index.html.
If the critics are right, Canadians may have an opportunity to chance their pacifist reputation if the government may look to remove a woman's right for choice, reverse the trend that was about to make gay marriage legal across Canada and join the United State's Coalition of the Willing. Americans have not been happy with Canada of late with Paul Martin's verbal attacks in his re-election campaigns, and previously during the lumber disputes. They see this election of a "Pro-American" Prime Minister as a sign that Canadians do not subscribe to the former Prime Minister's anti-American positions.
Speaking of Paul Martin, I think the happiest man in Canada after the election was not Stephen Harper, (who actually seems to have an aversion to the media spotlight), but Mr. Jean Chretien. Paul Martin's legacy will be the punch line to many jokes in Parliament over the next few years. Here is a man that used his political power to push Jean Chretien from office before he was ready to go. He then called for what was latter to be termed "the Gommery Report" to look into the sponsorship scandal under the Chretien only to have it completely backfire and be the cause for both him being ousted from the Prime Minister-ship and for Jean Chretien to come off looking like a light version of Pierre Trudeau. He wanted to destroy Jean Chretien but was instead brought down by a machine of his own making.
Meanwhile, voter turnout was up almost 4%, as 65% of the eligible population performed their civic duty to vote for a party that would do nothing for them. For that, I am most disappointed, but 35% of people not voting is on par with the total amount of votes that each of the top two parties received. If you want there to be a change, we must find a way to really tap into the disenfranchised in order to organize and mobilize for action. The trend for the last few elections is that voter turnout has been decreasing over the last few elections (steady decline since the Conservatives were last in power!). First time voters continue to be strong, but the rest of the people were upset when their elected members drove up the national debt and killed small business with Free Trade, and none of the Liberals lies and false promises ever did anything to motivate them to go vote again.
How can we make a change by not voting you ask? Let's look back into when George Bush got his brother to fix the election against Al Gore. The Democrat's took a look at the low voter turnout and looked to minorities in order to secure their vote when they sent Senator John Kerry. They made sure that their platform and issues were specific to the needs of those minorities and it help mobilize many communities to go out and vote. Sure, it didn't work, but that is mostly due to the fact that Americans were more concerned about the War on Terror than social services, and they honestly thought they would have won by now, or that there was going to be a lot less casualties. They also have all of the media restricting negative information which further polarized those in Hollywood who were against George Bush and made them look like radicals who overstated their position.
Tenwebzine wants to grab your vote in 2010! We think that if we can show that we can mobilize a large group of Canadians in the next few years to go against what we firmly believe to be the direction that Mr. Harper will direct us towards during his reign, then we can make a difference. Show us your commitment by signing up to our Newsletter. Here are some of the policies that we believe in:
Pro-Choice: We are not pro-Abortionists, but we believe that the Federal Government does not have a place in those decisions. A woman has the right to choose if she will give up at least 9 months of her life to birth a child. The government has done a poor job in ensuring equal pay for women, and an even worse job with the after-birth care and social services that are available to women in need.
Gun Control: Criminals do not legally buy guns, so people who think that gun control will reduce violent crimes are wrong. Gang violence is increasing (most recently in Toronto), but you can be sure that almost none of their guns are registered. That means that gun control laws have NO impact on the violent crimes that are happening today. What tough gun control laws do is install a climate of non-violence in Canadian Culture. We do not allow guns to everyone, and there is a limited to the type of weapon you can have. You do not need an Uzi to go hunting!
Gay Marriage: No one can or should force any religious organization to accept gay marriage, but there should be legal rights of any two people decide to share their lives together. Hetero-sexual marriages do not work. Approx 40% of non-gay marriages in North America will end in divorce, so why should heteros corner the market in misery? Do we try to stop gold diggers from marrying millionaire's? Do we want to stop shotgun or even drive-through weddings? We say, allow them the opportunity to be as unhappy as any other married man or woman.
Legalizing Marijuana: As the hip-hop culture has planted roots into the mainstream, and some of the old-school hippies have returned to their earlier habits for their glaucoma, the surge to make marijuana legal is increasing taking the National scale. We are going to go buck this new popular yet counter-culture trend and be against legalizing dope. While we may lose a lot of our support base by this stance, we just don't think that we need more substances that can be purchases legally that lowers ones ability to think clearly. Sure, alcohol and tobacco are bad for you too, worse than pot even, but you know what, it's already out there and our culture is well adjusted to it. We can only hope that as we create more tobacco free zones, that the trend will come to include marijuana as well.
We expect this to expand great and be updated depending on the actions and positions that will be taken by our new Canadian government, so stay tuned or join our newsletter to get updates via email!