Well it’s election night here in Canada.
Chris and I are watching some of the early returns to see which party is in the lead. It was a tight race between the Liberals and Conservatives at first, but as the count moves west it seems the Conservatives are taking the lead.
I found that deciding who to vote for was very hard this time round. I’m sure many Canadians feel the same way. I believe the last three governments have been formed with a minority, which of course means, to me at least, that the majority of the voting population isn’t happy with the choices we have for leaders and political parties (and their agendas).
I’m pretty sure that this election will turn out yet another minority government.
The leader of the NDP party, Jack Layton, is the MP for my area. In the last returns that I saw for my voting region it looked like the Liberal leader was in the lead, but leaders of Federal political parties rarely lose their seats so Layton will probably win for this area, but judging from results coming in nationwide, the NDP will be in third or fourth place overall.
Note that in the rare instances that I discuss politics on this blog I never mention which party I’ve voted for. I keep my feelings about my political affiliation private in part because I come from a very political family and as a result I know how volatile politics can be. I don’t want that for my blog.
I will say that I want a leader that stands by the political agenda that he (she) set in their political campaign. Not one who says one thing and then changes their mind a week after they’ve been elected. That’s happened far too often in the last decade or so!
Anyway … this isn’t a political blog. I just wanted my readers in other countries to know what’s going on here in Canada this evening.
I still find it funny that we Canadians can hold a whole election – campaign and all in just 37 days, while it takes our US counterparts close to two years to reach election day. I don’t know how you guys do it. A month of political advertisements on TV, flyers on my porch and campaigners calling and knocking on the door day after day is enough!
That’s neat that you all up there can get through the process so quickly.. we could take notes! I didn’t know there was an election tonite, so thanks for sharing!
I think there is a lot of sense in the proposal of several of the writers, in that Elections Canada should simply not allow any results to be released until ALL the polls across Canada have closed. Changing voting hours might help a bit but NOT releasing any results would seem the best solution.
37 days is a good time to do an election. We in Britain have a short time as well.
ATV our election results are not released until all polls close across the country. Results didn’t start being released until 9:30 pm EST when all polls were closed.
Jean-Luc, well our election system and government is based on the British system so that’s why our election process is as short as yours.
When I found out that your campaigns and elections only take thirty seven days, I wished I was Canadian. This presidential election in the US has seemed particularly nasty and I am tired of it.
so true. you really do a lot of things differently from your southern neighbor.