I know it's slightly hypocritical of me to complain about the results of the election when I never spoke about it in the first place. Hell, I have a BA in Politics, so it's not like I didn't know what was going on or have some insight into the whole damn fiasco. The least I could have done was to tell everyone to go vote.
To say I'm disappointed with the results is an understatement. I've lived in Ontario for all but two years of my life, and I vividly remember what having the Conservatives in power meant (granted, they're a slightly different party than the Conservatives at the federal level, but they shared a lot of the same policies). And I'm old enough to remember what it was like under the federal Progressive Conservatives, with Mulroney at the helm. (Would someone please tell him to shut the ever-loving hell up already?)
A great deal was made about how the Liberal party is corrupt, but really? It wasn't the whole party - it was only a group of people, most of whom aren't around anymore. And it's not like any party who has had the chance to be in power is squeaky clean. Also - I never really saw the Gomery inquiry report as that big a deal - the government wastes ten times that on a daily basis, so what's the big deal?
My greatest concern is what this is going to mean for us as a country. Under the Liberals, we've done pretty good for ourselves as a nation. It's not to say I don't want to fling things at Paul Martin occasionally, but I'm much less worried about who we align ourselves with on the international stage. The last time we had a Conservative Prime Minister, we had the mass sale of public holdings, NAFTA, and Free Trade. This time - who knows? Participation in the quagmire that is Iraq? A deepening of NAFTA? And this is just my concerns about what's going to happen to us on an international level, never mind the monumental foul-up which will go on at the national level. (When you get the outcome the Republican Party is hoping for - start worrying!)
The only consolation out of this is that the Conservatives only have a minority, which means they have to play nice with the other parties. And that - joy of joys (I say sarcastically) - this won't last five years because minority governments never last long.
