I had a lovely relaxing Thanksgiving and hope everyone else did, now it's politics again ;-)
In 96 hours I will have voted - wow this long election campaign is suddenly short!
Side thought - most of us in this thread are easily identified as Canadians, either by the addresses in our names, or by internal comments. Music lover does neither, and many comments sound more American-based (and trolling) than Canadian-based, although not overtly so. So Music lover, I am curious, where do you live? Country will do, province would be nice to know.
Mouseland: Tommy Douglas, 1944, as explained by his grandson, Kiefer Sutherland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqgOvzUeiAAStrategic voting - I normally vote for the party and candidate I am happiest with. I did one of the online quizzes and my top 3 parties were all close but not perfect matches (that would be Green, NDP, and LPC). So this time I will vote for the candidate in my riding, of those three parties, most likely to win. If there were only one that had come close, then I would not be voting strategically, but I can live with either an NDP or Liberal government. Both are committed to election reform to more representative voting, so next election, if they can do this, I can vote where I want to. Since the parties do not get $ any more for each vote cast for them (thanks so much, Mr. Harper) we are not helping them financially by voting for them. Of course that means we need to actually start writing cheques to the party we like, if we don't already.
Philosophy: American "Conservative" versus Canadian "Conservative" - I have just started reading
Moral Politics: how liberals and conservatives think and
Don't think of an elephant: know your values and frame the debate (both by George Lakoff). He makes the point that in the US there is the concept that if you are a moral person, God will reward you and you will do well financially. The corollary to that is, if you are poor, you must be a bad person because otherwise God would have rewarded you with financial success. And if you are a poor=bad person, why should moral people (i.e. those making lots of money and paying lots of taxes) support you? This is a basic tenet of the American conservatives (Republicans, maybe Libertarians and Tea Party?).
Of course, our early Canadian political history didn't share that view. Lower Canada was ruled by the Church and the Seigneurial system, so doing well financially had nothing to do with how moral you were. Similarly, in Upper Canada, the Political Compact generally had power, and again it was family money and political connections with Britain that favoured those in power, not moral goodness. In fact, in
Glengarry School Days (1902), which is a very moral Christian book (what they used to call "muscular Christianity") and a historically interesting read, the financially shrew boy is not held up as a model, rather he is looked down on as being too "sharp". Also of interest, the girls were as smart as the boys and did as well in school, they are not presented as second class citizens, although the social roles of boys and girls were clearly different in an agricultural society. Canadian social values were more the "it's hard here, we need to support each other" model.
The relevance of this to our present election is that Harper's conservatism seems more aligned with the American model than the Canadian model.