Elections!

It's been a big week in news, and for Canada it's not quite over yet. There have been three big news stories here - the Royal Wedding, Osama Bin Laden and last but not least, the Canadian Federal Election. I think I'll address the latter one first.

It's been interesting to watch the Canadian political process at work. If nothing else, it's made me feel quite at home given we'd just gone through this same thing in Australia before I left. No matter where I go, politicians and their tactics are all the same.

It was initially quite confusing getting a grip on the different parties here. It's not the kind of big two party thing that the US is known for, it's more like the Australian "anyone can have a go" kind of deal. I'm not yet certain if Canada has Independants (people not affiliated to any party) the way we do or not. They do have a broadly similar system, though with radically different names.

Our big two parties are the Liberals and Labor (ALP - Australian Labor Party. Yes, there's a lack of "u" in it, and it really cheeses me off. Bloody sellouts).

The Liberals ally themselves with the smaller Country Party to become the Coalition. These Liberals, despite the name, are what the Canadians would call Conservatives and the USicans would call Republicans. They're the Right Wing, the ones for business and development.

The ALP are the Left Wing, the ones for the people, who are more on the side of welfare, health care and education programs. These are what the Canadians would call the Liberal Party (now you really start to see my confusion), and the USicans would call the Democrats.

How the hell the Australian Liberal Party got all turned around from the meaning of the word and from the rest of the world, I'm not certain. Probably to confuse immigrants to Australia, but they aren't allowed to vote!

Anyway, here in Canada there are obviously more than the two parties. There's also the NDP as I mentioned above, the Greens, lots of lesser known ones, and Bloc Québécois. This latter one is a uniquely Canadian thing, and even though I don't know French, I kind of get the feeling from their site that this is a party for the Québécois who would love to get away from the bulk of Canada and be their own country. I have it on good authority* they tried it a while back, but stopped the proceedings when they realised they'd have to produce their own currency and the like. I would love to visit Quebec sometime.

Every party slags off all the others. It's almost refreshing (in a sour, world-hating kind of way) to know that no matter where you go, politicians and political maneuvering doesn't change. I can't recall seeing any TV ad where they addressed their own policies directly (though I do have a tendancy to fast forward through the commercials, so I might have missed the one that did). There was at least one Liberal ad that had an address to their website inviting one to see their family plan, though when I got to the site last night it took me a while to find the link in the midst of all the pics of Michael Ignatieff and the blog posts about his life on the bus (He went to the Stoney Creek Dairy! I've been there! I wonder if the icecream quality has changed now that the manufacturing of it has gone to Montreal?).

Most of what I've been seeing reminded me quite strongly of the Australian Liberal Party's (not the same as the Canadian Liberal party! See above) campaigns. Both at a State and Federal level, these ads were all about blasting the leader of the Labor Party on a personal level, then the party as a whole, while never once mentioning their own policies.  In fact I have a dim recollection of Tony Abbot, the leader of the Liberals, being pressed about their policies, and them being released only very late in the game.

At least the Canadian ones seem to have given voters some credit and have at least addressed how things were going to be different if their party got in power, though never in any depth, and all I can seem to recall of them now was that the Conservatives believe that "The Other Parties (not us!) Will Raise Taxes" and "Michael Ignatieff Is Not A Canadian". Oh yeah, and that angry two headed coin thing. Meanwhile the Liberals hated the NDP (New Democratic Party - what happened to the old one?) even more than the Conservatives, which really doesn't seem to gel with what I know of their stances on things.

I also recall a whole hell of a lot of Maple Leaf Flags fluttering patriotically in the background, particularly on the NDP ad.

I suppose that after *cough*teen years of being of age in a country where voting is compulsory, it's hard not to get interested in the local political scene. In fact, if I was allowed to vote here I would have.  Even if you people are weird and hold your elections on weekdays instead of our weekends and you don't have to vote if you don't want to, I would be out there at the polling places with you on this one. No, I'm not telling you who I'd vote for.

If you're Canadian and eligible, go vote. If for no other reason than for me to vicariously vote through you. Gods, I never thought I'd actually want to vote. I must be going mad.

* Ok, so it was hearsay and vague memory. I dunno, I was living about as far away as I could get, ok?