that been NDPers since its inception. Big fucking deal they are the opposition. It means dick all now that Harper has a majority. I'm pissed off they relentlessly attacked Ignatiff in their ads instead of focusing on what Harper would do and has done.
What the NDP should have done, what they needed to do, was coordinate with the Liberals, and not run candidates where the NDP didn't have a damn good chance of being elected. In my riding, in the last election, the NDP got about 7500 votes; this time they got about 12K The Liberal got 15K, and the Conservative won with just over 16K.
I have the NDP to thank for helping the Conservatives win their precious majority.
I voted for Olivia Chow because I voted stragetically but will never vote NDP again. They are the ones that brought down Martin's minority and are responsible for Harper getting his foot in the door.
I voted strategically for the Liberals because I was absolutely desperate to keep this seat from falling to the Conservatives. If the NDP had pulled their candidate here, and done the same in another dozen ridings, then we would have a Conservative minority, not a Conservative majority.
I've heard Jack literally rail against strategic voting -- it's all fine and good saying that you should vote for something you believe in, and not vote against something. In a system other than our brain-dead first-past-the-post polling system, he would have a point. The point of this election was to keep Harper from getting a majority government, and instead of that, we gave him one. He now has carte-blanche to do whatever he likes, for four long years. I expect him to pack the Senate with more Tory bag men and political cronies. More ominously, at least two members of the Supreme Court are going to retire in the next few years -- Harper will get to appoint their replacements, thus ensuring that even if his government is defeated in another four years, his conservative legacy will live on, in a rightward-leaning Supreme court.
I haven't felt so disillusioned, not to mention disspirited, since the 1988 election where the Mulroney Tories got a majority government and foisted 'free trade' on us, despite the fact that over 50% of the voters voted against 'free trade'. Compared to this lot, Mulroney is almost a socialist.
I expect to see a repeat of what we saw after the defeat of the provincial NDP government under Bob Rae; when the Mike Harris Tories came to power in Ontario. They rammed-through a series of omnibus bills, rolling-back worker and union rights, cutting social assistance, and generally laying waste to all the social programs that previous governments had built-up over the decades. I fully expect that, in a similar manner, unemployment insurance will be slashed, transfer payments to the provinces cut. Although Harper has promised that there will be no abortion-related legislation passed as long as he is Prime Minister, I expect that one to be quickly introduced as well. Even if abortion is not re-criminalized, I expect that funding for it will be eliminated, to the maximum extent possible. I also expect an all-out assault on human rights -- Harper was famously quoted saying that Human Rights Commissions were totalitarian -- expect those to be eliminated/de-funded, just like the Court Challenges Program.
A Harper majority is a fucking disaster. Next election I'm voting for the Green Party.
For me, this election is the straw that broke the camel's back. For some 40 years now, since I started to vote, I've been a political junkie, actively following politics, and never missing an election. I've voted in Federal, Provincial and Municipal elections, and even the Quebec referendum on sovereignty, where I voted for the Federalist side.
In all those decades, there was only one election whose results I was really happy with. I lost count of the number of times I said to my family (or my wife):
"Why is it that no matter who we vote for we always get what we don't want?"
Trudeau was arrogant, Mulroney was arrogant (and corrupt) but both of these men are literal saints compared to Stephen Harper. Harper is the first Prime Minister in Canadian history, indeed in Commonwealth history, to be found in contempt of Parliament. Even Robert Mugabe was never found in contempt of Parliament!
Instead of throwing the bum out, we REWARD him for his perfidy by giving him a majority! I've come to the sad conclusion that voting is pointless, particularly under our brain-dead first-past-the-post electoral system. I do not expect it to change in my lifetime, given that the parties in power have benefited from it.
I am reminded of Emma Goldman's statement: "If voting ever changed anything, it would be outlawed."
Finally, one of the things that Harper campaigned on was that only a strong majority Federal government could stave off the threat of Quebec separation. Nothing could be further from the truth -- now that Harper has his majority, you can expect that the separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ) will win the next Quebec provincial election in a landslide. A year or two after that, the PQ will hold yet another referendum on sovereignty -- and instead of the Federalist side winning by a hair (by 50K votes) like last time, I expect that the separatist side will succeed this time.
Why? Simple. Harper's political/philosophical views are 180 degrees opposite to those of the vast majority of Quebecois. It is well-known that Quebec is the most left-leaning province in Canada while Alberta is the most right-leaning. After the Quiet Revolution, Quebec is now the most secular province, while Alberta is easily the most religious.
Quebecois don't want to live under a theocracy once again, having already experienced one under the Duplessis regime. Most of what Harper represents (particularly his social conservatism) is anathema to Quebecois. If Harper aggressively promotes his social conservative agenda, this will only highlight the difference between English Canadian and French Quebecois society.
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