Hello my fellow Canadians! As I contemplate my absentee ballot, I’d like to share my experience as a current expat and provide some perspective about our choice. Living in the USA for numerous years, I have seen firsthand the results of conservative/republican governments and the policies they champion. They have not, and do not, create good and desirable outcomes. They do not create equity, harmony, or prosperity for the country or the majority of its citizens, and are instead heavily titled towards the select few at the expense of the many. And when it comes to solving the real issues of our time, they’d rather pretend they didn’t exist, blame others, or drum up irrelevant false outrage instead of being courageous and doing the hard work. There is no leadership.
Therefore, I strongly recommend you not to vote for the Conservative Party of Canada in this upcoming election. (And please do vote!)
Now, the CPC and its leader especially are trying to paint themselves as a “kindler, more gentle” conservative party. Except that their policies still crib heavily from the Republican playbook. One only has to look at how Doug Ford has run things in Ontario to know what’s at the heart of the modern Canadian conservative mindset. (Even the promise of one dollar beer for everyone was a bogus boondoggle.) Or how Conservative senator Don Plett stated, out loud, “We can all hope that the right side will win [the US election], and we will all send President Trump our congratulations when they do.” Or how their environmental plan is to roll back targets, set pricing that will be ineffective, and then to enact a reimbursement scheme that manages to be both a pain to set up, crazily restrictive, and will benefit the wealthiest the most. Or how its shadow cabinet members voted against banning the practicing of the harmful application of conversion (and I hate using the following word, for it is anything but a therapy) therapy.
And the like. They try to dress themselves up and couch themselves in accommodating terms, but they are anything but. They do not have the vision, nor the policies, to grow Canada to what it could be for itself, its people, and the world at large. I have seen what this mindset and the Republican policies create, and it is not what they claim. The results are deleterious, compounding even more more so for the future. (And if you fondly remember the Progressive Conservatives… these are not them. They have long been pushed out of the party by the Reform/Republican mindset.)
Therefore, again, I strongly recommend that you do indeed vote (voting is important!) and that you do not cast that vote for the Conservative Party of Canada.
Lynx Thoughts 