Election Update - One week!

You may not know, but the election is only a week away up North.  We can't vote, but it has been so much fun to watch!

Our current representative is Borys W.  I would spell his last name, but it has 12 letters and a lot of consonants.

Borys and Gore

He is the liberal candidate. Here, there are 5 parties: liberal, NDP (New Democrats), Bloc (a Quebec-only party), Green and Conservative.  Confusingly for Americans, liberal signs are red and conservative/Tories are blue, flipping Obama's whole "purple" country around, and adding orange (NDP), green and light blue for the Bloc.  I don't know who the other candidates are, because the day after the election started, a large red yard sign with BORYS went up next door and so I haven't paid much attention.  (And I do mean LARGE. Canadians are serious about their yard signs. These things are a meter long, and put up with wood stakes.  On some streets, there is serious color as neighbors are fighting to show who they support.)

Michael Ignatieff, the liberal leader and candidate for Prime Minister, is from the riding, or district, just to the south of us, and so there are also a lot of signs for him as well nearby, and we regularly drive by his campaign headquarters.  We've also driven through the NDP's leader's riding, which is also in Toronto.  (Harper is from Alberta, which is out west, and the Bloc guy is obviously from Quebec, and the Green leader is not really considered a serious candidate since the Green party does not hold any seats in Parliament.)  I just heard that there was vandalism in Toronto last night to yard signs and tire slashing, so things are getting nasty.

There is a lot of campaign coverage on traditional Canadian media outlets. To find out who you would vote for, you can visit CBC's Vote Compass*.  Of course, if you haven't checked out shitharperdid.ca, it is worth a visit.  The videos are especially fun (Ryan Gosling. Watch the Ryan Gosling one).  

There are also some interesting grassroots websites designed to avoid a Harper majority. Stephen Harper is the current, conservative Prime Minister.  So some have created http://www.projectdemocracy.ca/ to help people vote to avoid a conservative majority, whatever that looks like in their riding.  There are other websites as well, to collect donations in a similar fashion.  It will be interesting to see their effects.

Finally, today there was this article about a person who passed away last week, and who put in their obituary, "In lieu of flowers, vote LIBERAL."  

*Prediction: MD will be NDP.