Hop Along Harper

Stephen Harper sniffing out the campaign trail
Originally uploaded by 416style

As with every election I hear the woes of friends who seem afraid to let the conservatives continue to run this country. The thought makes them want to crawl into a hole and hide for the next 4 years. As usual these friends seem astounded when the conservatives are actually voted in again, as it happened this week. Is Toronto out of touch with the rest of Canada? Or, is it that our Canadian cousins are simply sick of listening to our whiny self-centred opinions?

According to CBC only 26% of Torontonians voted for Harper, a former resident of our city, while his party picked up 38% of the vote across the board. That's a big stretch, and a strange one when one considers that Toronto is very much the economic engine of Canada. It's hard to argue that voting conservatives into power translate into tax cuts, balanced budgets and decreased deficits. Toronto, under Miller, our formerly NDP mayor, is verging on bankruptcy. Wouldn't it help to have some friends in Ottawa? I mean, I hear the whining from all sides - Toronto deserves more of its cut, but if we keep spending (as the NDP is prone to do) can we really keep expecting handouts?

Since we don't seem to care so much about financial stability there must be another story here - and there is. Our cosmopolitan grounding means we see the world through different eyes and because we've seen it all and live with such diversity we place high value on individual freedoms, freedoms that would be lost if the Conservative had won a majority of seats. So, if it's gonna take this city-slicker to keep that from happening maybe Toronto's got the right idea after all and we should happily tell Mr. Harper to hop along.