So today, one day after the Conservative Party of Canada was turfed from office faster than a drunk from a M.A.D meeting, why am I not happier?
It of course a very good thing that the Marble Man has been removed from office - see previous entry, which I need add to by the hour. I am very glad that the right wing wet dream is over. The air already tastes cleaner. Naturally the chicken-littles of the world are already crying that the country will be bankrupt within a week, that the Muslims will take over, and the Unions will be allowed redesign people's kitchens. I take a bit of devilish pleasure in reading such complaints, though sadism of this variety is highly unbecoming of one as saintly as myself.
But I can't exactly sing. And I didn't exactly go to bed with sugarplums dancing in my head. I can't help feeling like one has just been removed from his torture chambre and placed in a padded cell. Very happy development, thankyou, don't get me wrong, but my situation hasn't fundamentally changed.
Canadian voters, in their much ballyhooed appetite for change, have only opted to rearrange the window dressing and once again went for the status quo. The Liberal party. That creaky old party that has more accumulated years in power than the Communist Party of Russia. Whom, up until about a decade ago, were so firmly entrenched in power people were beginning to wonder if they'd ever leave. (Funny to think of now).
Change in other words, by doing the very same they'd already done a million times before.
I’m
probably being unkind. Trudeau’s Liberals will probably not bait Muslims quite
so shamelessly, or censor scientists quite so blatantly. They will at least try
to attend global conferences on climate change, and will doubtless smile at
many fund-raising luncheons. They will probably not try to take anyone’s
citizenship away, and probably won't try to disenfranchise ex-pats. They just might give lip-service to diplomacy and peace. They might not be so petrified of "bogus refugees", and just might let a few into the country. Probably. Maybe. Possibly.
All
very good things. But that hardly amounts to radical change.
For one thing, my
incredibly witty analogies notwithstanding, the Tories haven’t exactly been
turfed; they’ve still got 91 seats in Parliament. They can still do damage.
They just might come back stronger than ever. But more importantly, the Liberal
Party, who’ve governed this country for most of its history, are the party of
entrenched power. Even more than the Tories, they represent the vested
interests of the privileged classes. They are the very embodiment of the status
quo. And folks turned to them for change?
I
mean, sure, they can be expected to poke their heads in at International
conferences to combat climate change, but do you really expect them to impose
strict regulations, or to actually take on the Oil Industry? I’ll believe it
when I see it. What about civil
liberties? Remember, these guys voted for bill C-61, not against it. As
for poverty and inequality and all that stuff, well, you may recall these were
the guys who pledged to eliminate child-poverty by 2000. How far’d we get on
that one prey tell?
How
about privatization of public services?
Don’t forget it’s the Provincial Liberals who are in the process of
selling off Hydro One, hoping for a little marketplace black magic. Granted
that’s the Provincial wing, and maybe the new, more photogenic Federal wing
won’t toady up to the private sector in quite the same fashion, and maybe I’ll
win the next Super 7. Hey, it could happen. . .
The
party of change? More like the party of everything we’ve tried already and
insist on trying again. But who knows. . .
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