Ensight – Jeremy Wright

I’ve decided, after last night’s Leaders Debates to vote Conservative. It was a tough decision to come to overall. My current opinion of each of the parties is:

Liberal: My views most closely align with the Liberals. They have since I was a teenager. I’ve just never been able to vote Liberal, because they so rarely seemed to actually stand by their views or their platform, choosing instead to be largely reactionary in terms of their leadership.

Conservative: Largely, I agree with the Conservative platform. This is because on core issues it is nearly identical to the Liberal platform. Welcome to Canadian politics. That said, I don’t agree with all of Mr. Harper’s personal views (ie: Americanism, free trade, kyoto, etc) but, to be honest, I believe he’s letting his personal views get into the campaign far more than they’ll actually make their way into policy. Especially because if the Conservatives win they’ll only get a minority government.

NDP: I’ll admit, I look t the NDP as a “union party”. I also look at Layton as a schmuck. A really nice schmuck, but still a schmuck. The NDP is also a whining party, which annoys me. My hope is that they can find a new leader soon, as they are the party who can stand on a “common sense” platform. They haven’t, for some reason, done that yet. If they do, and they have a good leader, I might vote for them in the future – despite the union ties.

Bloc: Okay, I love Duceppe. He’s a straight shooter, a common sense guy and very respectable. It’s too bad his largest agenda is pro-Quebec. If he were able to say “okay, my focus is quebec but I want a healthy Canada” I might actually vote for him.

Green: I seriously considered voting Green. The Green platform, as published, is very, very good. The problem is that the leader, what’s his name, didn’t seem to get the memo. Whenever you see him in an interview, he’s always (always (always (always))) talking about the environment. This is fine. But, the Green Party won’t get my vote purely on the environmental ticket for the same reason the Bloc won’t get it on a Quebec ticket. If you can say that you care about the environment more than any other party, but that you also want a healthy Canada then you’ve got my vote. Sadly, this IS what the Platform says. But NOT what the leader says. The leader of the party lost my vote on this one.

The truth is that in this election, I don’t trust any party to trutly represent ME. The Liberals would, if I could actually trust them. And, no, the reason I don’t isn’t just the scandals, it’s 12 years of watching them say one thing and not quite live up to it. On the other hand, I don’t have a lot of trust for the Conservatives. Largely because of Harper. But, since they are the only two parties that align with my goals, I have to make a choice.

Choose the party that is most closely aligned with my goals, but which won’t actually deliver them, or choose the party which is almost as closely aligned with my goals and MIGHT deliver them.

If nothing else, a Conservative win this time might, just might, make the Liberals hungry enough next time to do what’s right while in office instead of what’s stupid, power mongering and hateful.

In an ideal world, someone would start a real Canadian, Common Sense Party. I know that’s what all of these are supposed to be, but the truth is they are all just political parties, with political ambitions run by politicians. I just want one run by a regular guy who can see big picture, manage little picture, love business, love regular people, love the healthcare system and really just LOVE CANADA.

Is that too much to ask? For someone who is passionate about our country?