Tuesday December 2nd, 2008

The exercise:

Today's starter is: overthrowing the government. I know, how current am I?

Mine:

I’m not really sure how I feel about what’s going on over in Ottawa these days.

On the one hand, my disdain for Stephen Harper is not something I’ve tried to hide so of course I’m thrilled at the prospect of not having him as my Prime Minister any more. I was deeply disappointed when he was not only re-elected, but with more seats. Not enough for a majority though; that was a relief at the time.

Now? It’s hard to say. It’s difficult for me to support the idea of the leader of this country, a democratic one through and through, not being elected. Not only that, Stephane Dion has made it clear that he still intends to step down as the leader of the Liberal Party early next year. So then the Liberals will have a leadership convention to replace an un-elected Prime Minister with… a Prime Minister of their choosing?

I guess it boils down to one big question: how badly do I want Harper ousted? Realistically, from where I’m sitting, it would be very, very difficult for the Liberals to choose a new leader that I would dislike even more than Harper. So at the end of the day, it will be a step in the right direction.

But at what cost?

If I, a proud Harper hater, am uncomfortable with this course of action, how much damage will this do to the Liberals and NDP in the eyes of the rest of the country? Random aside - I bet Bloc supporters are friggin' thrilled.

But the facts are the facts - Canada elected more non-Conservative officials to Parliament than they did Conservatives. I don’t think this is what we were expecting when we did that… but it’s most likely still better than being stuck with Harper for one, two, three or four more years.