Election Woes

I talk to myself. Not as in, “Hello Ellie, how are you today?” “Why, I’m great Leslie, thanks for asking.” But more as though I’m providing commentary on my actions, and it’s usually negative comments like, “Well, that was brilliant,” and “Oh, crap. You idiot.” Things like that.

I also talk to inanimate objects. Especially my computer. My computer (which, just so you know, is named Mr. Computer because I name everything) usually gets pleading comments like, “Please, please work” and “What the hell! That p-value makes no sense! Stupid SPSS!”

I also talk to characters and people on TV. Or, rather, I talk at them. You know, like when you’re watching a horror movie or something and you criticize the characters for being stupid or whatever.

I mention all this so that when I tell you I spent the better part of my evening last night yelling at the TV, you’ll realize it’s really not out of character for me. Last night was the televised so-called Leaders Debate for the Alberta provincial election. The Green Party was conspicuously absent (maybe Oz knows why) and instead there was this crackpot from the “Alberta Wildrose Alliance” who, through what I can only imagine is powerful black magic, managed to come off as even more conservative than the absurdly conservative Stelmach. (Aside: I remember when Stelmach took office, I heard someone say that he’s even more conservative than his affront to humanity of a predecessor. At the time I thought that such a person couldn’t exist in nature. Damn, was I wrong).

Stelmach and the Wildrose Guy were the targets of my vitriol. I disagree with Stelmach on principle. His answer to everything was to talk about how he’s bringing in more people to Alberta from all over the world. He’s making the population grow. He seems to ignore that fact that most of Alberta’s problems stem from not being able to handle the population as it is, let alone being able to support the influx of people. And the one thing he said that really sticks in my head, and I wrote it down so I wouldn’t misquote him, he said:

“We’ve dealt with the environment.”

What the hell does that mean? Because the first image that popped into my head was of some 7-foot tall henchman ambling into Stelmach’s office, and telling him that “We’ve dealt with The Environment, Sir. It won’t be causing you any more problems,” and meanwhile, The Environment’s been weighted with rocks and tossed in the Bow River. Really, Stelmach, you act as if the environment is some unseemly issue you’d much rather not discuss in mixed company. He’d probably rather talk about gay marriage than the environment.

Oh! One more thing about Stelmach before I start bitching about the Wildrose Guy. Apparently, when Chretien was here recently, he commented that Alberta’s natural resources belong to Canada and not Alberta alone. Stelmach didn’t like this. I think if the conservatives have a collective fear, it’s that the Liberals are going to take away their Oil Money. Klein would have fought to the death to prevent this, and I have no doubt that Stelmach wakes up in a cold sweat screaming, “My money! My Oil Money!” My sole conservative friend also seems to live in fear of the day that the Liberals take Alberta’s Oil Money. It’s all so absurd. Someone sometime drew an arbitrary line on a map and Alberta gets oil. It’s not as if it’s some God-granted divine right to money.

Okay, now onto the Wildrose Guy. He has a name, but I’m not voting for him so I don’t need to know it. He was all about privatizing healthcare and making it a competitive business. I hate when people threaten my healthcare. Actually, when you threaten to take away my healthcare I probably feel a lot like a conservative under the threat of losing their Oil Money. I don’t understand the desire to privatize healthcare. Do we want to end up like the States? Healthcare isn’t a business you idiots! It’s an essential service. I know it’s not a perfect system, but that’s no reason to scrap the idea entirely! Other countries make it work, why the hell can’t we?

And the last thing the Wildrose Guy said that pissed me off was that people need to stay home to raise their kids – that’s okay, it’s a valid idea – but he heavily implied that it was a woman’s job. Of course. I don’t know why I’m surprised, but are the Wildrose conservatives so backwards that they still believe the woman’s place is in the home? I believe it’s a woman’s choice if she wants to stay at home or go back to work, but that choice shouldn’t be influenced by a government biased against working mothers.

So, I think I’m a little calmer now. It’s good to get all that off my chest. Everyone in Alberta: Don’t forget to vote!