Oh, the fear

Today is federal election day in Canada. I've always been pretty interested in politics, and the Boy is a historian, so he's passionate about politics. We've watched the election with interest, and a fair bit of disgust. The attack ads made me sick, and the debates were basically live versions of the same stuff. In fact, my pick for the winner last English-language debate was Gilles Duceppe. If he had jumped into the insults, he would have been slaughtered (there's not much you can say to, "Yeah, but you're trying to break up Canada"), so instead he took the approach of asking very good, pointed questions of the other candidates. Anything constructive that came out of the debate was a result of one of his questions. And when I'm picking a separatist as my favourite for ANYTHING, you know the situation sucks.

I've felt pretty pessimistic about this whole election -- the Conservatives are, pretty much evil; the Liberals are fat cats who seem to have done all that they can; the NDP are led by a bit of a nutcase and although I like their politics, they can't do math. And the Bloc Quebecois, well....no. *sigh* I just don't know what the "best case scenario" is. All I know is that it doesn't involve Stephen Harper as prime minister.

Nonetheless, the Boy and I walked to the polls this afternoon and cast our ballots. Rick Mercer pointed out tonight that by the time this day ends, millions of Canadians will have cast their ballots without a shot being fired. As he said, "that's worth voting for." We're pretty lucky to live in a country where we can vote.

And so, since I have to be at the hospital very early tomorrow morning, I'm off to bed, feeling pretty nervous about the future of this country. I'm predicting a Conservative minority. Here's hoping I'm wrong.