May Day Election

Tonight is election night here in Canada. The Conservative Party has just won its first majority in over twenty years. The New Democratic Party (NDP) has made huge gains in Quebec at the expense of Bloc Quebecois and everywhere else at the expense of the Liberal Party. In British Columbia, the Green Party has finally won a seat so they can't be excluded from debates. It was a pretty historic night.

And I feel sad.

Canada has changed. Its population has changed and we're slowly becoming a distance copy of our previous national identities. We're no longer the polite, centrists who prize a common sense approach to our collective good. Regionalism, French / English relations, or wilderness pioneer spirit don't define us anymore either. We're now caught between "extremes" without a direction for the people in the middle. Yes, nothing is ever perfect. Yes, current political systems exclude large portions of the people its meant to serve, but I don't think it'll get better.

Maybe this is just a sleepless rant that I'll regret in the morning. Maybe I'm just upset at the Conservative majority. Maybe I'm just dreading going to work tomorrow with people who may just be happy with the election results. Yeah, maybe it's all personal and not about the direction the country's heading it. I'm hoping that's the case because otherwise it's going to be a long five years.