Monday, November 12, 2007

Red, Blue, Orange and Green!

As a likelihood of another Canadian federal election looms, I wonder who is going to win. In the last election, I made one of the greatest mistakes of my life - I voted Blue! Yes, yes, yes! As much as I am ashamed to admit it, I voted for Steven Harper!

Like so many other Canadians, I was totally disillusioned with the Liberals. There were so many news about corruption, and just pure ugly politics, that it sickened me, and I thought why not go for a change?

Oh, what a horrible mistake that was.

One of the first things that Harper did was list the LTTE as a terrorist organization, in effect picking a side in the 3 or so decades of conflict. While previous governments avoided labeling the LTTE as terrorist, despite protests from various quarters, just to avoid picking a side, this man went ahead, and labelled them a terrorist. While this act alone may not had led to the eventual demise of the ceasefire agreement, there is no doubt, it had a hand in it as well.
Aside from that, the Tory government also went onto bring the GST by 1%. While I really don't feel the difference when I shop, I can't help wondering, to which programs did the government made cuts to implement this tax cut? I am sure to the Government the 1% reduction in GST is a big amount. To me all this tax cutting is a reminder of the Mike Harris era in Ontario. While many may disagree, to me, he brought turmoil to Ontario. I was a teenager then, and I had to endure numerous strikes by teachers, all because of Mike Harris.

Anyhow, as the chance of an election increases, I think despite the short comings of Liberals I will vote for them. Even though I do think Stephane Dion is more of a leader than Steven Harper, I don't like him much either. Liberals had a good leader in Paul Martin, there is no denying he made a great finance minister, but the public dispute between him and Jean Chretien took it's toll.

As the Tories are doing their best to force an election soon, I hope the Liberals will work to boost their image, as well as Stephane Dion's image. It may be absurd to support a party like this, but in the Canadian Political spectrum, Liberals stand somewhere in the middle, while the Tories are to the extreme right, and the NDP is to the extreme left. I really don't want the government to increase taxes, as I suspect NDP will, and I really don't want the government to cut taxes like the Tories are doing. I just want the government to manage the funds, with what ever it gets. I think only Liberals are capable of doing that!

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