So the people have spoken, or at least 60% have. And what have they said? By stumbling into a Conservative majority in our fair land, they have chosen a sad course for the next four or five years. We can expect a new growth industry in Canada - the building of jails. Vic Toews is off the leash and he's going to 'clean the place up', lock all the bad guys away, and throw away the keys. Getting tough on crime didn't work in Texas and it won't make us any safer here either. It will, however, slake the bloodlust of an idiot segment of the middle class and allow them to wallow in their suburban ennui, safe in the their belief that the best way to make angry people less angry is to hurt them, or at least hide them away some where.
And, with Harper, we can expect more privatization of all things, including the running of jails and the provision of health care. The conservative way is great if you have money and connections; not so great if you don't. We'll see greater disparity between those who have and those who don't, with the concomitant increase in societal unrest. (That's where the new jails come in handy.) And we'll see a slashing of funding to anything that isn't geared directly towards economic growth. Do we really need artists? Do we really need the CBC?
Our foreign policy will become a spawn of the American foreign policy as we rush to become their dependable and obedient northern pet. Middle East issues? Let big brother set the agenda. The UN? Who needs a seat on the Security Council? How valuable is it to protect our traditional image of 'the middling power' and 'the honest mediator'? Who needs sovereignty anyway, when you have free trade?
C'america, here we come.
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