Posted on 04/30/2011 10:36:18 AM PDT by Clive
My 17-year-old son came up to me the other day and asked if he could vote. I was surprised in that soccer, girls and fun with his buddies seem to have been his politics for some time now. I told him he had to wait a year.
“Can I vote for whoever I like,” he asked. I told him this was what democracy was all about, but added that, as far as I knew, no Manchester United players were running for office.
Thing is, it’s pretty obvious who we should vote for next week. Not a man who has spent most of his adult life in Britain and the U.S., sometimes mocking and condemning Canada, seldom voting here, and seeming to have little if any interest in the future of his home country.
Not for a socialist ideologue who, while being a good and proud Canadian, has no experience in government beyond municipal committees, and has explained to French-speaking audiences in Quebec that he supports Draconian language legislation that would make the province one of the most linguistically oppressive places in the civilized world.
Not for some environmentally obsessed extremist, whose followers often care more for plants than people, and whose intolerance of contrary opinions, even when based on strong and reliable science, is positively breathtaking.
Which leaves a less than inspiring, but still reliable and proven politician in the form of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
I’m a social conservative and I know that Harper will not promote my views on life and sexuality issues. I also have strong religious beliefs and I know that contrary to some of the spin out there, Harper is not a man who is much influenced by faith. He’s a pragmatic, clever, moderate, politically smooth, sometimes annoyingly manipulative, informed, non-charismatic, capable, quintessentially Canadian, hockey-obsessed man who has run this country well in awful circumstances and deserves to be given more time in charge.
All of the mud that has been thrown at him about contempt of Parliament and secret documents has left barely a stain on his reputation. Which is as it should be, because in an era of economic crisis and foreign political turmoil, this government and this leader have locked Canada into a model of stability and financial toughness.
The critics are simply lying when they speak of mass unemployment, increased despair and widespread fears. Take a trip through booming Saskatchewan, spend some time in buoyant Alberta, look at the expanding markets and jobs in B.C., ask immigrant communities in Ontario what they think of Canada and the Conservatives.
At its most fundamental, this just isn’t the time for change. Give the man a dozen or more seats and let him do the job properly and without the childish moans of the time-servers and the professional politicians on the Hill. He annoys the publicly funded poets, the labour leaders, the special interest group radicals and a host of the other usual suspects, but we can probably cope with their chagrin.
It’s one hell of a country and too good to be left to an ambitious tourist or a radical novice. Let’s get the election over with and get the guy back to work again.
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The last line ....says it all.
“It’s one hell of a country and too good to be left to an ambitious tourist or a radical novice. Let’s get the election over with and get the guy back to work again.”
Harper will be getting my vote. And my husbands. I only hope he can pull off a majority this time.
My riding is safe Conservative . I’ve never missed a vote in 40 years, not going to now.
I like the “ambitious tourist” comment for Count Iggy and the radical novice Layton is today getting rubbed the wrong way over his bawdy house visit in 1996 . Caught naked on his back he claims nothing happened . OK Jack..wink.wink..
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