Only five weeks?

A week from today I will be getting on a plane. A week from tomorrow I will be here for a month.

Couldn’t be happier about this prospect.

Well, that was until yesterday when Prime Minister Carney (still a bit strange saying that, although I hope I will get used to it in the years ahead) called for a federal election. He could have made it six weeks from today, but he didn’t. He made it the shortest campaign period allowable – five weeks. Which means the election will be the day before we get back. Argh.

Politicians often say, in sombre tones, “This is the most important election of our lifetime.” Occasionally this is true. It was true last year in the United States. Unfortunately, millions of people didn’t get the memo, so that election went very badly wrong – getting worse every day. Thanks to the deranged, vengeful Wankmaggot in the White House (and his out-of-control minions), this coming Canadian election actually is the most important of my lifetime.

If the polls are to be believed (and I can’t remember the last time they were), the Conservatives have lost their 20 point lead and are now running neck and neck with Carney’s Liberals. The prospect of the Wankmaggot’s Canuck mini me Pee Pee becoming the next prime minister so appals many Canadians that it looks like most are going to be voting ABC (Anyone But Conservative). Good news for the Liberals, I guess, but bad news for the NDP. (If you’re reading this and you’re not Canadian, the habitually third place New Democratic Party are social democrats and the reason – because Liberals love stealing their ideas – that there has been universal health care in Canada for many years and, much more recently, dental care and pharmacare.) It is predicted the party will be wiped out in the coming election as voters put their X in the Liberal circle.

This would be a real shame. The only reason we have recently acquired government assistance with the cost of dental bills and prescriptions was that Justin Trudeau needed the NDP to prop up his last government. Progressive shit only gets done in this country when Progressives hold a bit of sway.

There is a good NDP MP in my riding. She only won, after the Greens split the progressive vote, because a couple of thousand voters opted to cast their votes for the extremely-right-of-right People’s Party. I would love to see her re-elected, because I think she deserves to be. This won’t happen if the Greens once again split the vote and a bunch of ABC voters panic and vote Liberal. If that happens then I will come back from France to discover I have a Conservative MP.

As soon as the election date was confirmed yesterday, I went on to the Elections Canada website and requested a mail-in ballot. The odds of it arriving before Friday are pretty slim, but you never know. Fingers crossed.

I’ve also requested a lawn sign for the NDP candidate – something I have never done before, but points need to be made. I hope they deliver a HUGE one.

Speaking of points being made, before the election was called (but after we all knew it was coming), I wrote this letter to the Green Party.

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to you today to make an appeal on behalf of the country.

Whenever this year’s federal election is held, it is my hope that the Green Party will decide not to run a candidate in my riding.

As you will know from the last federal election, the number of votes cast for the NDP and Green candidates was fairly evenly split. Had it not been for the 2000 or so votes cast for Maxine Bernier’s populist party the result would have been the election of a Conservative MP. There will be no such split next time, as the current Conservative leader is cut from the dame cloth as Bernier and is far more in tune with the beliefs of the Republican Party in the USA than he is in the core values of Canadians.

We have an MP who has proven herself to be good at the job and would almost certainly be re-elected IF the progressive vote is not split. Keeping the Conservatives out of power is the single most important issue in this year’s election. I am sure I do not need to list the many reasons why this is the case.

So, please, please, please consider putting the wellbeing of Canadians above any other political consideration by not splitting the vote.

Yours most sincerely,

Anne M. Holmes

No surprise that I’ve had no reply. Sigh.

Well, que sera sera.

Oh, and just for the record, Prime Minister Carney… I know I told you to get your elbows up, but this is just lame.