I've never been loyal to a political party. I've always thought that being locked in to voting one way would limit my ability to vote for whichever party actually addresses my needs during an election campaign.
I've been told by so many people that I have to vote Liberal, or Conservative, or NDP, or Green, that if I valued democracy, or the environment, or health care, or anything at all really, I must vote one specific way or I would be betraying myself and my country.
The party I simply must vote for changes depending on who's doing the demanding, but on a notable occasion, I have been recently informed that I run the risk of being voted out of my own family for voting anything but Conservative.
I've always been a little bit of a black sheep.
Unfortunately, I've always had a little bit of a problem making up my own mind. It's hard to decide whose platform I believe in when everybody makes everything sound so good, so possible.
If it were that easy to save the seniors and students from poverty, why hasn't it been done yet? It's not like the Conservatives are up on Parliament Hill sitting on piles of money, cackling evilly, or trying to give it out to the needy while the Liberals and their coalition stand there and say, “Halt, we will not allow you to fairly distribute this wealth!”
If the money for these amazing programs did not exist during the last government, where does the next government intend to find it? Every new spending idea means cutting from somewhere else. There isn't much more that can be cut from arts, education, or health care, so where do the political parties expect to get money to come through on their promises?
The problem I have this election is that everything seems to stand exactly as it did last election. Sure, this time we've got Harper's embarrassing contempt of parliament thing, but last time we had the sponsorship scandal. We've even got Elizabeth May, once again too busy trying to fight her way into the debate to actually say much about her political platform.
Then there's the coalition thing. The Conservatives say vote for them or suffer the wrath of the big, scary coalition the Liberals say isn't happening. Didn't that happen in 2008 too? Personally, I'd love to see the look on everybody's face if the Green Party got elected, if only to shake things up on Parliament Hill. Take that, media consortium.
Back to reality.
We've got every party making wild promises about child care and health care and hiring thousands of doctors and $1,000 RESP grants. The problem I have is I'm pretty sure they made these promises or similar promises last time.
Catch the seniors' vote, support health care, hire more doctors, make child care affordable, cut military spending, increase military spending, support families, support the environment, support industry. Where does the money for all of these amazing programs come from?
Parties make big promises, and then get to Parliament where every day seems to be taken up with bickering over letterheads, stationary, or administration.
I think I've got election exhaustion. What would I like to see from this election? A politician saying something I haven't heard before. Maybe then I'll actually believe it has a chance of happening.
