Monday 2 May 2011

Election Day!

The polls open in just a few more hours. If you haven't voted already in the advance polls, get out there and cast your ballot.

Tomorrow my nation decides what kind of future we want. Will we look forward or will we curl in on ourselves? Will we open our minds or will we close our eyes? Will we prove to ourselves and the world that we are still of that same courageous stock as our fathers and forefathers, or will we denounce ourselves as cowards and paranoiacs?

There are many candidates running for office in tomorrow's election, but there are really only two messages. Stephen Harper and his Conservatives are petty, small-minded, theocratic, authoritarian, cowardly, corrupt, venal and thuggish. The campaign Harper and his people (and the lazy, complicit "liberal media" *hawk-spit!*) have run has been the most negative I can ever remember: attack ads, cheap smears, outright lies, people thrown out of town-halls or banned from gatherings, candidates campaigning in hiding and ducking debates.

All of this is of a piece. The Conservative Party follow their leader, and he is a low, vicious, vindictive excuse for a man. He would happily sell out the ideals of my country for his vision of what we all should be - dismantle our socialized medicine, engage us in every brush-fire war the United States sees fit to start, play spendthrift with our tax dollars and have nothing to show for it but photo ops, shiny toys that don't work (courtesy of Lockheed-Martin and their lovely F-35... we'd be better off buying BAC English Electric Lightnings to protect our borders), withdraw funding from charities and NGO's, deny women and homosexuals their human rights and trample all over all of our rights and freedoms with his band of handpicked goons.

That is the message of the Conservative Party of Canada.

The other parties, while they bicker and snipe at one another, all have things in common: principles, ideals, hope, moral courage and a vision for Canada that is positive instead of negative.

Are they perfect? No. Are they flawed? Yes. Do I agree with all of their platforms? No, there are issues that none of the opposition parties have touched on that I feel are very important.

But they they stand for something positive. They all want to build something, instead of tearing down what others have striven so hard to build.

Tomorrow, you have a choice. You can decide the direction of Canada's future, along with every other citizen.

As a people, Canadians can choose to move forward courageously into an uncertain future. Or we can place our heads back into the sand for another five years and hope that the trials and tribulations afflicting the world will mostly pass us by.

Canada was once a leading nation, a shining example to other countries. In technology, in foreign aid, in democracy, in caring for one another.

We can be again.

We stand on the brink of a collapse into authoritarian chaos, if we allow it.

We stand at the cusp of a Golden Age, if we will it.

Today we decide what shape the future will be.

Get out there. Vote your conscience. Vote strategically.

But Vote.

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