3 February 2004

Election Year Blues

For better or for worse, this year is going to be an election year.

In my case I get to deal with this wonderful nonsense not once, not twice but three times. This year will likely be a provincial election year here in Alberta, and it's also going to bring us the delightful joy of a municipal election here in Edmonton.

I won't apologize for sounding sarcastic about the whole thing, as I find the idea of having to envision politics on three scales at the same time so I can make an informed decision about the future of my city, province, and country to be somewhat distracting. That is; I would rather be thinking about other things.

It's not that I'm against the concept of elections, nor am I against the concept of representative government. What I am against is how bloody difficult it's becoming to make an informed decision about these things.

Let's look at the Federal scale, for example. The Progressive Conservative party and the Canadian Alliance have finished their merger talks and are in the process of selecting a leader. My opinion of the new Conservative Party of Canada is on record, so I won't go into that. What I will go into, though, is my prediction of who will win the leadership race. I think it's going to be won by Belinda Stronach, not because she's the better politician (she's not) or because she's the best person for the job (again, she's not) but because she's not only the most attractive candidate but also the only female candidate and Conservatives are a horny lot. She's going to win the leadership race and spend the next decade trying to keep her delegates out of her pants, or letting them in as the case may be.

The matter is further complicated by the fact that there is no sense of coherence or unity in the Conservative Party. Instead the party is fractured, with one delegate putting forward one set of policies and another delegate putting forward a totally different set of policies. Indeed, given that members of the Conservative Party were former Alliance members, who were former Reform Party members, who were all disaffected Conservatives in the first place, it seems as if some of the delegate's policies border on the irrational and reactionary. The party has a lot of work to do before they're ready to stand up to the Liberals in an election, and I don't think that they're going to be able to do it.

The Liberal side of the house is just as bad off, but at least they have a somewhat stable governmental structure in place. It needs a lot of work, but at least it's there. The biggest problem the Liberals have, however, is that the only really intelligent person in the Liberal cabinet is Paul Martin himself. All of the other cabinet members put together lack the cognitive and logical capabilities that God gave a sack of hammer handles. The sick thing is, this was done on purpose, so that Jean Cretin could push forward policies which bordered on the asinine without a lot of opposition from within his own cabinet.

The Provincial side of the equation isn't as bad as the Federal side if only because things are a little more clear cut here. The Conservatives are the natural ruling party of Alberta and have been for decades. The day the Liberals win a majority in Alberta is the day that hell freezes over. The real question, though, is, is that a good thing? Now, I'm not questioning whether or not the Conservatives are capable of ruling this province, for they've proven that they are. The question that I'm trying to ask is, is it a good thing that King Ralph remains the leader of the Provincial Conservative Party? I will admit that a lot of the things he did when he first went into office simply needed to be done, and that's all there was to it, and I will admit that overall the province is probably better off than it was when he took over, but by the same token he has done things that I will never forgive him for. In all his time in office he has made serious changes to the health care and education system by yanking a good portion of the funding rug out from under them. Health care has been changed in other ways as well, and I have a big problem with the idea of using taxpayers money to finance a report on Health Care for the purpose of using it as a rubber stamp for raising taxes on certain items in the name of encouraging Albertans to live healthier lifestyles. There are better ways to encourage citizens to live healthier, more active lives than raising taxes. I think that the whole thing was a simple government cash grab, and I also think that if he was going to do it he should have come out and told us he was going to do it, instead of hiding behind committee findings.

On the municipal side we have a mayoral race that's just starting to heat up, as City Councilors come to the stunning realization that hey, they can run for mayor too, if they want!I mean, anybody can do a better job of things than Wild Bill Smith, right?

I don't know how much more I can say about that, because things are just starting to shape up there and I don't have enough information to be able to predict where it's going to go.

I have said it before, I will say it again. Politics is a Very Silly Business that is conducted by Very Silly People who have Very Silly Objectives for Very Silly Reasons. The American government has been demonstrating this axiom for decades (as an example, I give you Bill Clinton ... enough said) but the Canadian government hasn't been that far behind (as an example, I give you Jean Cretin ... enough said).

Elections themselves are a Very Silly Business, and serve as a showcase of just how silly the silly can be. At the very least I can say that it's going to be an interesting year, but I still have to wonder if that's a good thing.