September 10th – Politics

by annemariedemyen, posted in A Piece of My Mind - September 2021

Today I am moving forward into that wee ‘piece of my mind’ that cares about politics.

Canadian go to the polls on September 20th to elect a new or re-elect the old political party that will lead Canada for the next four years (more or less). Just two years ago we elected a minority Liberal government. They are now vying for the power of a majority government but they have some stiff competition and some solid opposition.

For the record, I do not, nor have I ever, stood solidly behind one political party or another. Whether it is a federal, provincial, or municipal election, I vote for the leader that I feel will best represent our country, province, or city. Also, my vote is mine, and mine alone – as it should be. Dan and I seldom discuss politics and we do not always agree when we do, but we do respect each other’s right to vote as we see fit.

In this current election, the Liberals and the Conservatives are neck in neck for first place. The NDP (New Democratic Party) are a distant third. The Green Party, Bloc Quebecois, and The people’s Party of Canada do not have the overall support to seriously affect the election one way or another.

These are my thoughts on politics, this election and the leaders of our top three parties.

First, I do not think it makes a lot of difference who wins or looses any election in Canada. We are a democracy with so many checks and balances that no party in power can make changes that are terribly sweeping or detrimental to our country.

Second, I do not think any of the main party leaders are particularly great or terrible. Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party has been our Prime Minister for six years. He has his strengths, but his public speaking leaves much to be desired and he does have a history of embarrassing himself and our country with his wardrobe, his questionable connections, and regular public faux pas. He has tried to enact policy that is in the best interest of all Canadians and to help all areas in a manner sensitive to specific challenges.

Erin O’Toole is the leader of the Conservative Party. He is dignified, polished, and seems relatively intelligent and reasonable. I have two issues with Mr. o’Toole. The first and worst is that the Conservative representative in our riding is Andrew Scheer, who I personally have no use for as a person or a politician. The second is that Mr. O’Toole obviously supports the Conservative election campaign. Their campaign rests on questionable and ignorant attacks on Justin Trudeau and the star of their ads is a typical arrogant ‘Karen’ making typical patronizing snotty ‘Karen’ remarks. They have already lost two elections using this tactic, why would any leader support a third round?

Jagmeet Singh is the leader of our federal NDP party. As leaders go, he appeals to me. He is charismatic, dignified, and appears to be genuine. Unfortunately, I cannot get behind his doctrine of wealth and power distribution, unions and the like. I am not against helping those in genuine need – but I am a serious supporter of personal responsibility. I believe that there is a point where empowering gone too far becomes enabling irresponsible behaviours.

I believe that all three men who could become our next Prime Minister went into politics with a genuine desire to lead with integrity. (Which I believe is typical of most people who go into politics). I also think that most people who go into politics are painfully naive. They grow up surrounded by one group of people and share a lot of their beliefs. They think good governing should be relatively easy. Except, they get into politics and realize that there are countless people with countless different, and often opposing, views, beliefs, and desires. Few, if any, who want to change or compromise. We all want everything we want or need, we do not want to pay for anything that anyone else might want or need, and we all object to adequate government to make it all happen. Sounds simple enough. 🤔

Fortunately, most Canadians are reasonable and rational. Unfortunately, as elsewhere, there are extreme supporters and detractors of any government policy. Those are the Canadians who drive semis through cities (horns blasting), demonstrate outside of hospitals, throw gravel and scream obscenities at our Prime Minister, drive tractors and combines and tie up traffic from the Prairies to Ottawa. I cannot imagine anyone going into politics, being prepared for such goings on. Nor can I imagine anyone engaging in such goings on and expecting a positive outcome. 🥺

That is pretty much my ‘piece of mind’ regarding politics. Although I know who I will be voting for, I wish the best for all who are running in this election and for all Canadians who will live with the results.

Take care and have a good day! See you tomorrow. 💞

14 thoughts on “September 10th – Politics”

  1. Good reading, Annmarie. You vote the way I do except for our president. I have been a Conservative all of my life and find the Democratic party no less than Liberal idiots who want to destroy this country.

    And that is why I don’t talk politics with anyone except in this rare bit right here. I’m stunned and saddened that these people put old man Joe in the White House, the guy can’t even climb the steps of Air Force One without stumbling and can’t remember his lines in a speech!

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  2. No offence but I think that presently we have a better group to choose from. And, we are not as extreme – Liberals and Conservatives are both middle of the road and are interchangeable. NDP are way more left than the Liberals. Have a good one!

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  7. Dear Annemarie

    Hello from the UK. Whilst I cannot vote in the upcoming election as I am not Canadian, I did my own research and post recently on Justin Trudeau.

    Much of the problem with politics is that people do end up voting by and large for a charismatic leader, rather than a sensible approach. I always consider that ‘neither a lender nor a borrower be’ is a reasonable approach as far as possible and that should include governments.

    And who in politics is prepared to be a servant and people too easily forget that government is the people’s servant, not their master.

    This does not mean you should not be generous to those who need help, but there is a difference between want and need. Too often borrowing has occurred which merely increases debt. For example this has occurred in housing, merely driving up costs and only really benefiting the moneylenders as always.

    And governments spend other people’s the taxpayers money and don’t tend to direct it wisely the more they have of it. Local needs can be better met by local people.

    As regards your comment on Justin Trudeau ‘He has tried to enact policy that is in the best interest of all Canadians and to help all areas in a manner sensitive to specific challenges.’ I am not quite sure how that adds up.

    Nevertheless, the current issue of Covid 19 rebranded from the ‘flu as it used to be known, shows that he has exploited it to his advantage. He is attempting to force unwelcome and I as I explain on my website, indirectly at least, necessary measures on Canadians.

    These include vaccines which I once thought until last year I thought were of some use to public health.

    However, once I had researched these properly having had the time at 60 years of age to do so I realised I was wrong. I put this research on my website.

    This is part and parcel why some people are so angry with Justin Trudeau. You might reasonably object to their behaviour, but as so many seem not to see the truth behind the fraud of vaccines, this is a source of their frustrations.

    The damage done to Canada’s people is immense, but this is not all Justin’s fault as there are those behind him that pull the strings as it were. They have been at it for years.

    Anyway, here are my links if they are of interest.

    https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/2021/09/10/justin-trudeau/

    https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/?s=vaccination

    Kind regards

    Baldmichael Theresoluteprotector’sson

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  8. Thank you for your comment! I obviously do not follow politics as closely as you do, but just three points as far as my comments on Justin Trudeau goes 1). I did not ever vote for his charisma – I appreciate the way he treats his wife, children and Mother, and the memory of his father and he did rid us of Harper, which was a huge bonus. 2.) His over the top spending is, in my mind, his response to our over the top demands as Canadian citizens. That was what I was thinking of when I was saying politicians are naive and unprepared for the reality of the job. 3) The anger at Trudeau – I wasn’t talking about masks or vaccines demonstrations particularly – everyone is angry at every politician about the response to Covid. I don’t even go there. I live in Saskatchewan (next to Alberta). where it is all about economy vs environment . Oil money vs environmental concerns in the rest of Canada. Trudeau has poured a lot of money into Saskatchewan and Alberta – investing in a pipeline, cleaning up orphaned oil wells (which should never have been allowed to get out of control by provincial governments) financing for dealing with forest fires and floods. Regardless of what Trudeau does, Alberta and Saskatchewan attack him and the most notable attacks on the Covid (To note – both my husband and my son are directly involved in the oil industry. Neither support Trudeau but they would never attack or abuse him – or anyone else.)
    I will check out your links. I do try to understand where others are coming from even, and especially, if their views are different than mine.

    Take care
    AnneMarie

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  9. Thank you for your comment! I obviously do not follow politics as closely as you do, but just three clarifications as far as my comments on Justin Trudeau go 1). I did not ever vote for his charisma – I appreciate the way he treats his wife, children and Mother, and the memory of his father and he rid us of Harper, which was a huge bonus. 2.) His over the top spending is, in my mind, his response to our over the top demands as Canadian citizens. That was what I was thinking of when I was saying politicians are naive and unprepared for the reality of the job. 3) Regarding the anger at Trudeau – I wasn’t talking about mask or vaccine demonstrations particularly – everyone is angry at every politician about the response to Covid. I live in Saskatchewan (next to Alberta). Here it is all about economy vs environment . Oil money vs environmental concerns in the rest of Canada. Trudeau has poured a lot of money into Saskatchewan and Alberta – investing in pipelines, cleaning up orphaned oil wells (which should never have been allowed to get out of control by provincial governments) financing the fighting and recovery from forest fires and floods. Regardless of what Trudeau does, Alberta and Saskatchewan attack him and the most notable attacks on Covid (across Canada) come from Alberta extremists. (To note – both my husband and one of my sons are directly involved in the oil industry. Neither support Trudeau but neither would ever attack or verbally abuse him – or anyone else.)
    I will check out your links. I do try to understand where others are coming from even, and especially, if their views are different than mine.

    Take care,
    AnneMarie

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  10. Dear Annemarie

    Many thanks for your reply. It is very helpful to have your clarifications. I only know one family in Canada so have little insight from insiders as it were. I had two uncles who trained in Canada near the end of the war but never got to fight as the war ended thankfully.

    I hope you don’t think I thought you voted on charisma, I am just aware that many do that’s all.

    I suspect the attacks on Trudeau may be exaggerated by the mainstream media; they do like playing devil’s advocate. I try and read round it to get a fuller picture but it isn’t easy. Images and videos can skew perception.

    If you go into politics you do need a thick skin, and to be honest I suspect you do in many walks of life. Using humour is a far better way of attacking an opponent than mere direct insult.

    I do use humour on my website, and for various purposes. Sometimes just for the fun of it; not all my articles are meant to be serious. But sometimes when you play with words as I do you find some surprising truths.

    Yours

    Baldmichael

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  11. Thank you! Canada is such a large and diverse country, you could probably discuss anything with a dozen of us and come away with a totally different opinion of Canadians.
    I have not been able to check out your links as yet. We have been in the midst of an appliance purchase and it has thrown a major wrench into life as I know it for the past three days.

    Take care,
    AnneMarie

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  12. I find Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives to not be genuinely conservative but rather a money-first party with little or no stances on the major social issues for which they once stood. Thus, to me, they seem to stand for not much other than big business, finance and maybe a balanced budget.

    Not surprising, whenever I look at the vote-tally numbers after election day, the Conservatives seem to win by the center-left electorate dividing their votes amongst two or three mainstream center-left parties that are allowed in the televised debates. For this we can credit our First Past The Post electoral system, which barely qualifies as democratic rule within the democracy spectrum (though it seems to serve big corporate and money interests well).

    Nor do I find the Liberals to be truly liberal. They also pander to corporate objectives and the rich, albeit while maintaining their traditional liberal social policies, notably those involving race, gender and sexuality. … Apparently, big business gets catered-to regardless of which of these two parties rules. It never ceases to amaze me how politically potent and focused huge $$$ interests typically get!

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