... and then Everything Changed

I thought I had it all figured out. I had made my tough decision of which party I was going to vote for on October 14th; and then the economy south of the border went tits up, and I had to re-think a lot of things.

I was never going to vote for the NDP or the Bloq. I'm especially not going to the vote for the NDP now after hearing about all the spending they plan on doing.

It was down to the Greens and the Conservatives. And I said I would never vote for this new Conservative party. Things have being going along fine, but there's something about Harper, something I just can't put my finger on. But then I stopped paying to the politicians, and started paying attention to the party platforms, and I liked what the Conservatives were saying, especially when it came to the criminal/justice system, and most importantly, the Young Offenders Act.

This is something I have been passionate about for years (since I was 16) and have been waiting for the government to tighten the reins on young offenders. So with that, and some other parts of the Conservative platform, my mind was made up. On October 14 I was to check the Conservative box... And then everything changed. The economy fell apart in the US; it's falling apart in Europe; and like a house of cards or a line of dominoes, Canada will feel the pain too. It might not be as bad; it could be worse; whatever it is, we know it's coming and Canada's economic high is going to come down, and whatever party finds itself in power in two weeks time, needs to be ready for that.

The reason I was not going to vote Liberal this time round is that I find nothing inspiring about Dion, and apparently the same thing goes for many other Liberal supporters. And my repelling of the Liberal party takes place at the grassroots level too - my MP is none other than the one-time NDP Premier of BC Ujial Dosanjh. And we all know what I think about the BC NDP... But yesterday Stephen Dion said something that made me listen to him for the first time since he was elected leader of the Liberal party. He asked people to remember the strong economic stance taken by the Chretien government. Sure, there were a couple of scandals along the way, but bottom line, the Liberals brought us to great economic prosperity in the 90's and the turn of the century, turning an deficit it years of huge surpluses, and focusing on paying down the debt. If any party in this country has proved to us their economic ideas are solid it is the Liberals....

Yesterday I heard someone say that Canada's economic fundamentals are sound. I thought what the hell is John McCain doing discussing the Canadian economy, and then I took a closer look - it was Harper...