I went to the town-hall meeting/debate that was held here at Redeemer last night for the four candidates running to be state legislator MPP in this electoral district riding. One, Mike Trolley, is a second-year (sophomore) Redeemer student, the candidate for the Family Values Coalition, a grassroots party. The other three were from the Progressive Conservative Party (a contradiction in terms to me, but apparently not up here), the Liberal Party, and the New Democratic Party.
I liked bits from all their platforms, but I couldn't see any real differences between the three major parties, and even the FVC seemed to have no strong stances besides being anti-redefining marriage and anti-politics-as-usual. They all seemed pretty out-there liberal. The Conservative guy was maybe where moderate Democrats are back home, and the othe two were just plain left-liberal.
The NDP lady (former head of the Ontario teacher's union) was the one I liked best -- she mentioned in passing that milk came in a carton. Now if she'd only had an anti-black squirrel plank...
I miss the Republican party, horribly corrupted as it is. As I noted to some people after the debate, in the States the politicians have to at least promise to cut taxes and shrink the government. Here, the Liberals are running "We won't raise your taxes... but we won't cut them either" commercial spots.
Oh, and the media keep talking about how divisive and negative this campaign is. I don't know what they're smoking. The Tories are running ads saying that Dalton McGuinty (the Grit candidate for Governor Premier) is not up to the job; the Liberals counter with commercials about how horrible the Tories are. Come on, we're big people. We can deal with the fact that each party thinks the other one isn't good enough. But then again, this is Canada, land of political correctness. No name-calling here -- although apparently a Tory email called McGuinty a kitten-eater.
Heh. Indeed...
(I think I have a new Filthy Lie to spread)
Posted by Tim at September 28, 2003 02:10 PMYour going to have to explain how you can up with the name of your blog.
Posted by: rich at October 4, 2003 06:43 PM