How to Choose a Party

Justin Trudeau’s latest ad says we should vote for him because he has the nicest hair Nice hair, nice platform. There are reasons to vote for Mr. Trudeau, but surely such trivia are not among them.

Steven Harper says we should vote for him because he will defy the supreme court and force Muslim women to remove their niqabs when they take the oath of citizenship. Whether Muslim women are covered or uncovered has absolutely no effect on you. Harper is trying to distract you away from much more important issues with his appeal to bigotry.

By far the most important issue is climate change. If we don’t elect a party who will get on with dealing with it, most of us, our children and grandchildren, will die quite horrible deaths. This is a downer and politicians refuse to talk about it. Not even the Greens and the NDP (New Democratic Party) have given the issue center stage. Harper is a climate change denier. Trudeau is on the fence. For me because of the supreme importance of climate change, there are only two plausible parties running, the Greens and the NDP. The other two are barking mad delusional.

Further, Mr. Harper subscribes to an archaic Christian sect that rejects science, including climate change. With Harper, we might as well be running the country’s science with ouija boards.

The economy goes up and down mainly from international effects (such as the price of oil). Nothing politicians do has much effect, yet at election time they all pretend to be masters of the universe. Anything they claim about the economy is just hot air. Politicians are a bit like roosters crowing, imagining they make the sun rise. Harper claims to know the magic of balancing budgets, yet he did not manage it even once is the last decade. He faked one for the election by not paying bills. Because Harper put all the country’s eggs in the oil basket, no one will be able to balance the budget until the price of oil rises.

Each party has a loyalty to a different economic group. The NDP serves the poor and the middle class. The Liberals serve the upper middle class. The Conservatives serve the top 1% and corporations, foreign and domestic. You can vote for your own financial self interest, or you can vote for what you think is fair. But if you are poor and vote for the Conservatives, you are a blithering idiot, imagining real soon now you will join the elite. Wealth mobility is very low in Canada.

The other reason I would not recommend Mr. Harper is he is fond of trade deals that do such things as:

• Allow foreign corporations to veto Canadian environmental law.
• Make whistleblowing on corporations illegal.
• Force Canadians to sell resources even when we need them for ourselves.
• Remove labels so you cannot tell the country of origin or whether something is GMO (Genetically Modified Organism).
• What do we get in return? less than a tenth of a percent optimistic projection in increased GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

~ Roedy (born:1948-02-04 age:68)