When I first came here, my new friends often grilled me about American politics. Especially prevalent were questions about why and how Americans could re-elect President Bush with all that he did to the American people. For my friends here, who had news people who were more probative and more willing to ask the tough questions and dig after the truth than what was going on in America at that time, it was obvious to them that Bush was up to no good. The lies, the obfuscation, the repealing of Constitutionally guaranteed rights, all this was more obvious and was commented on in their news, even while our news was refusing to do its job.
On May 2 Canada is having a new election. I'm reading and experiencing all that Harper and his Conservative Party people have done recently (broke the law, prorogued (or "shut down") the government to keep from being ousted, lied, gave huge contracts to friends of the government, trying to change the official name of the government to "Harper's Government," etc.) and I'm trying to correspond this with the fact that 40% of Canadians polled are saying they will vote for the Conservative Party again, keeping Harper in office to continue these shenanigans.
With the shoe firmly on the other foot, I am now asking why and how my friends and other Canadians can vote for a party that has done so many negative things. The simple answer seems to be, "Because they are better than the other choices," which doesn't seem like much of a choice or answer to me. If the estimated 40% do actually vote Conservative Party as the polls predict, that would give Harper and his cronies a majority in Parliament (currently they have a minority), and they would be able to do more of what they have been doing.
I guess it wouldn't be so bad if Harper hadn't run on a platform of accountability and transparency. Because of that, all the swept under the rug issues and outright law bending and breaking seem that much more egregious. Just as one example of this, do a search on "Bev Oda" and read about the entire, sordid affair, and ask yourself how she still has her job. There are at least 10 or 12 more similar scandals, and Harper has fired or accepted resignations from very few of those involved.
Bush seemed, at the time of his reelection, to be the better of two evils; the devil America knew versus the one it didn't. The Republicans also ran very efficient and effective smear campaigns against both Gore and Kerry that worked surprisingly well. This seems directly analogous to what is happening in Canada right now; the people know that Harper is a bad guy and his cabinet is not to be trusted, but they would rather stay with that than go with someone new.
It will be very interesting to see both how Canadians vote and what the party that gets the majority (if any) does with the power on May 2 and beyond. Maybe I'll be able to turn that question around to my friends and ask, "How could you re-elect Harper, knowing what kind of leader he is?"
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May 3
It appears that Harper and the Conservative Party got the seats it needed to have a majority. The shoe is definitely on the other foot now.
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