Canada is in the middle of a federal election, and our photogenic, charismatic prime minister Justin Trudeau is hoping that his fading popularity hasn't faded so much that he loses power.
Right now it seems he is on the cusp, with the polls showing that the Liberals could quite easily hold onto their majority, but the Conservatives are not far behind and winning is plausible for them too. The NDP is in a dire state and can only hope that the winning party has a minority government so they can form some sort of coalition. This won't dissuade me from voting NDP - their policies are the ones I want, and I am comfortable with a Liberal / NDP governing bloc. As usual, the only thing that I do not want at all is a Conservative victory. I am angry at the Liberals for reneging on their promise to implement voting reform, but I sure don't want the Conservatives to take over; that would be even worse.
The Conservatives have been focusing on attack ads trying to make Trudeau look bad. I keep hearing them on the radio and on the internet yelling about what a terrible person Trudeau is. I agree with many of their criticisms, but we differ greatly on the conclusion. The Conservatives want me to think that since Trudeau is a problem we should vote them in by default, but this position has some problems.
Their biggest issue is that the Conservative leader has all the charisma and presence of a box of bolts. Their ads have sold me on Trudeau's flaws, but they haven't given me the slightest reason to vote Conservative at all, and I suspect their strategists know this. The Conservative platform is just wishful thinking with regards to environmentalism as they run their usual platform of 'Well, if we direct enough money to big companies surely that will save the environment.' It amazes me that we still have a system that requires companies to try to maximize their earnings and does not force them to consider environmental consequences, and yet leaders get away with policies that effectively amount to hoping that companies will simply do it out of the goodness of their hearts.
Companies don't have hearts, or goodness. It is the government's responsibility to design rules to force them to do good things. Abdicating that responsibility creates disaster.
When your policies are ill defined or disastrous and your leader makes a decent rack to get an expensive suit around, you probably have to resort to attack ads to get anywhere and this is where the Conservatives have landed. It isn't good for them, but they are making the best of a terrible situation.
I really wish they would discuss their policies in detail because 'we will fix things with the power of positive thinking' and 'more money for the rich' won't play well. However, they have learned from the Ontario Conservatives that you can have an idiotic half complete plan and win anyway if your leader is beliggerent and angry enough.
The Conservatives actually made one absolutely terrible decision in their attack ads; they tried to bring the Ontario provincial governments up as a reason to vote for them federally. The ad tried to make it out like Ontario is in a dire state because of the evil Liberals, but right now the Ontario Conservative leader is extremely unpopular and their massive cuts to schools have created enormous problems. The Conservatives should be doing anything *but* asking people to look at Ontario before voting, particularly just after school started and things are going all awry there.
So yes, Conservative ad team, the Liberals are a problem and Trudeau is a mess. I agree with you on those counts. But the conclusions isn't to vote for the Conservatives which are similar but worse - Ontario tried that and it was a disaster. We actually need to vote for something better, and in Canada right now the NDP is it.
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