The Weighing

I was talking with a family friend today. She's retired, fairly affluent, and just got back from a three-week holiday in Europe. At the end of our conversation, she said,

"Make sure you vote and vote Green."

"Green?" I said, surprised. I wouldn't have thought this woman is a Green supporter.

"Oh yes," she said, "I've been voting Green for years. I'm an environmentalist. We need a better alternative in Ottawa, a stronger voice to fight for the environment. Now, if it ever became likely that the Green Party would form the government, then I would have to review my options again, because aside from their environmental stance, there are other things about the Green Party that may concern me. But for now, they need to be built bigger."

I marvel at her logic, because those too are my thoughts.

The Green Party is generally my party of choice, at least for now. I want to see us build a green economy. There are environmentally sustainable options to running industries and business than plundering the earth and excessively using up natural resources for the sake of convenience and lifestyle flash. The Green Party supports these.

But I don't know how yet. The party needs to be bigger and have representatives in the House before it can come up with viable plans. Once it becomes stronger, I will want to assess how the party plans to bring about its promises, and whether the party will resort to crass posturing, as Jack Layton did recently, which brought the current election forward by three months. C'mon, Martin had already called the election for April.

Experience also tells me that when a party gets stronger, it resorts to pleasing the voters to stay in power. Until Stephen Harper, you could not tell the Liberals and Conservatives apart. I wonder further down the road, whether the Green and NDP will look alike, as they share a common concern for environmental protection. Or will the Green look more like the Conservatives, because they share a goal for business development. But for now, Green is the underdog.

In this election however, I just may give the Liberals my vote. There are several Liberal ridings in the city that have strong NDP support. Ours is one of them. In fact, media speculation is that our riding may well be one that will be unseated by the NDP. If this happens, the Liberals will have lost a seat and Stephen Harper may actually form the government.

Did you know Harper and his running mates are members of the Promise Keepers, a group of Christian fundamentalists that accepts the literal word of the bible. That, and the fact he wants to turn Canada into a society of fear and punishment, make abortion illegal, stop same sex marriage, join the American administration in declaring war in oil-rich countries, and opt out of Kyoto. That is not the Canada I want.

And the fact that Harper has not shown himself to be a good statesman when he attacked Martin in France at the 60th D-Day commemoration. Martin was delayed in Canada because he was cleaning up a mess that Harper made when he tried to bring down the government. Keep your quibbling at home, man, and stop acting like a spoiled brat in public. You are there for D-Day. No grace whatsoever, that Harper. Even Joe Clark, the former Conservative leader, voted Liberal, when Harper became leader of the Conservatives.

And not for a minute do I think that if the Conservatives had been in power, the sponsorship scandal wouldn't have happened.

So for me, never the Conservatives.

I like Green because of their promise of a sustainable green economy.

I like the NDP because intellectually, I am often more aligned with their social and environmental policies, but I am mad at Jack for posturing (I'm petty that way), which makes me think that when a party gets a little power, they abuse it, misspend our tax dollar and wreck havoc on voters. Oh, that's what everyone accuses the Liberals of doing? Well, I'll be.

Martin has impressed me though. Throughout the attacks on him, he has stood his ground and comes across a classy statesman. Except I dislike our Liberal candidate. But if Martin loses too many seats, the Conservatives may win.

So it's between Green and Liberal. How to vote, how to vote...