Glee! Elections!

For basically the past year I've been feeling very left-out, because the Americans have been having their whole electoral process going on for about half of their current President's latest term in office. And since I'm exposed to a whole lot of American culture, I can't help but absorb the issues and opinions of all those people working passionately south of the border to get their candidates elected. As a result, ever since the American campaign started, I've been feeling bummed that I won't be able to vote in the American election. I've often found myself saying "if I was an American, I'd vote for [Obama, McCain, H. Clinton, etc.]" depending on the issue of the day.

A couple of the shows I watch include: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart/The Colbert Report, Real Time with Bill Maher, Penn and Teller's Bullshit, The MSNBC Nightly News, The Tonight Show/The Late Show/Late Nite/The Late Late Show.

Anyways, as my own way of participating, I did manage to make a small financial contribution to the campaign of Senator Barack Obama. So at least I felt like I was sort of a part of the electoral process. US$15 is probably worth more than 1 vote to him anyways, at least right now. [Is it technically illegal for a Canadian to contribute to an American political candidate? It's probably not illegal on my end, just illegal for Barack Obama to accept my donation. Well, he did, and he keeps sending me email asking for more, which I might yet do as November draws near.]

But despite feeling like I at least have a small measure of influence (about as much as voting, to be honest) in the US election, I still feel disappointed because I know that Obama and McCain aren't going to act for me overtly. In other words, they're not going to give me the same platitudes that they give to the citizens of the USA. And I want those platitudes. Oh, they'll act in my interest. Obama can't not know that some of his campaign funding is coming from Canada, and McCain is perfectly aware of the Canada-USA close relationship in matters of trade, defence, etc, etc. So it's not like they're working against my interests as a Canadian. But the fact is that their policy decisions have no way to affect me directly.

Which is why I'm so excited about the upcoming Canadian election. We're going to beat the Americans to the punch! We're going to have an election in a matter of 40 days, while theirs takes 2 years. We're going to finally have a chance to vent all that pent-up Canadian civic tension. And it'll be quick and painless.

Of course, we're not going to make any history. We've already had our first female Prime Minister. In fact, I see this election largely as just a jump-start to a broken parliament. It just needs to be put back on the rails. I don't think anything is going to change. The Conservatives will simply win another minority.

Anways though, what is great about this Canadian election is that it is kind of like piggy-backing on the US election. In the US, they're making all these arguments, putting political ideas out there, discussing them in the news, and analyzing various trends. And all of this stuff is leaking over the border into Canada: essentially for free. On American networks that are broadcast into Canada (along with American newspapers and other media), the candidates are paying advertising dollars to allow Canadians to see the pros and cons of themselves and their opponents. True, not all of it applies directly to Canada, but many of the principles and issues are shared between our countries, and we are essentially getting free analysis. Our own networks will have to do some work converting some of it into Canadianese, but the ideological heavy lifting is done.

All that remains is to get to know the candidates personally. But unlike the US, we know our candidates pretty well already. We don't need multi-million dollar campaigns to introduce them to us. At most, Harper and Dion will swap jobs. That'll be fun; kind of like Christmas in the UK.