By Glen Turner – Special to the Sydenham Current
Boy, oh boy. Was I ever wrong.
Ever since the writ came down, all those many many weeks ago, putting us through the longest Federal election since 1872, AND the most expensive one ever (thank you, Stephen Harper), I was still convinced that the Conservatives were going to get re-elected, this time with a minority government.
I thought that, after 10 years of Conservative attack ads, wedge politics, divisive policies, slashing Veterans Affairs budgets, cuts to the CBC, cuts to arts funding, huge amounts spent on advertising themselves, incredible control of the civil service, muzzling scientists and researchers, the Senate scandals, the F-35 fiasco, diminishing our international standing, costing us 400,000 plus manufacturing jobs, and so on… that people might not wake up in time.
I was so wrong.
The extended campaign, in my opinion, gave voters more time to look at what had actually happened in this country since 2006.
I was disturbed in those days when I heard that the Conservatives had imported right-wing Republican ‘advisers’ to aid in that campaign. Rumour had it that Bev Shipley had done the same, but I was never able to verify it.
And, of course, we all saw the results… see above.
Despite the best efforts of attack ads, wedge politics and divisive policies, they were defeated.
Maybe we are going to have a new era that WON’T reflect the Conservative reliance on neo-con strategies. One can only hope.
One last comment about the election.
It appears that, with a Conservative win in this riding, it’ll be years before we ever see if we can actually elect someone who might actually be considered as Cabinet material.
We continuously elect perennial backbenchers, with no potential to ever become a Cabinet member. Their usual hope is to become a Parliamentary Secretary to a Cabinet member. Hooray! (Sarcasm button off.)
I’ve probably addressed this question to 40 or more people in the last month.
Please… tell me the last person elected Federally or Provincially from Chatham-Kent or Lambton-Kent-Middlesex who actually became a Cabinet Minister.
Only one person got it right, out of all those people I asked.
Care to guess?
Or, do you know, without looking it up? 🙂
