Federal Election

Well, well, well, what do we have here. Another federal election. If you happen to be American, and are bit caught up in your own national election - for which I don't blame you - here is a tiny little synopsis of the political action north of the 49th parallel. Mostly ramblings, but then, what else is it that you expect from me? The only question is should I use bullets or numbers....

• The Right Honourable (attention blogger, since this posting is about Canada, I am choosing the "ou" rather than simply "o" to spell this wourd) Stephen Harper requested of Her Excellency the Right Honourable Governor General, Michaelle Jean (there should an umlau on the first e, for those fastidious grammaticians out there) (also, grammatician is a made up word)...hmmm, where am I, I have opened up too many brackets....point of the story, September 8th, the 40th general federal election was called.
• Canadian elections last 40 days. I'm pretty sure that is just about as long as an Obama - McCain debate.
• Speaking of master debators, Canada's consortium (what an awesome word) of broadcasters oversees the national debates in this country. There are two debates - one in English, one in French. Simple enough right. Well, not so fast. You see, there are 5 "major" parties in Canada. Wait, cancel that. There are 2 major national parties, one party that thinks it's a major national party, one party that knows it is a regional party and finally one party that is most definitely not a major party, but is a national party. Did you get all that? Maybe I should start another bullet....
• The point I was trying to make, prior to be drawn into tangential thought paterns (oops, there it goes again)....the point is that in the Leader's debates, the broadcasting consortium has decided to not allow Elizabeth May, leader of the Green party. The Green party, prior to September 5th (yes, of this year) did not have a sitting candidate - ever. Yes, they are polling around 10% and over 600,000 people voted for them in the last election, and yes they have candidates all across the country (with one notable exception that I won't discuss here), but they are essentially teenagers in a Legion Hall. Nobody cares what they have to say. Oops, when I say nobody, I mean the party leaders - Canadians themselves, who don't really care about politics, do seem to care about letting her into the debate. But that is because Canadians are "nice". Not really because they care about what she has to say.
• Which brings me to another point - Canadians, almost overwhelmingly, don't care about politics. The level of political discourse in our country is fairly elevated when compared to the lunchroom discussions of mentally retarded patients, but nobody would ever call that discussion elevated - so to speak. No, even at 40 days, Canadians feel the campaign is too long and costs too much money. What's more, most Canadians don't feel that the outcome will be much different than the previous two elections - minority governments.
• So why are we having an election? Well, because having one, at this stage, is illegal - or at least some pundits would say so. Yes, by law, we were suppose to have fixed elections, the next one scheduled for October 2009. But the Governor General has the power to dissolve parliament prior to these fixed dates. And of course, to avoid having the Queen's undies get all wedged up her ass, the GG pretty much has to listen to the PMOC (a.k.a. Stevie Harper). So, basically, to avoid a Constitutional reform - because then some province that starts with Q and ends in C would probably want to go take a dive in the waters of Lake Meech - Canada can have an election whever it wants.
  
• But, we don't want an election, so could sobody please tell me why we are having one? Oh right, so Jack Layton's mustache can get more air time.

For my part, I'm voting for the Work Less Party - http://www.worklessparty.org/