Election Hangover

Oye, yoi, yoi, today I've got election hangover. Our "safe" Liberal seat was lost by 72 votes, and the "safe" Kitchener Centre Liberal seat also went down in flames, both to Conservatives; though in the country overall it's hard to pick any real winners. Conservatives are back with yet another minority (apparently we don't like them quite enough). Liberal support tanked, but is obviously still out there--they finished second overall in seat-strength. The Bloc was strong again in Quebec, proving that the Conservative ploy to buy Quebec votes failed sorely. Dippers made some gains, including taking a seat from a prominent Conservative in Alberta. Greens won nothing. Gloomiest of all, voter turn-out was at an all-time low. Conclusion: Real change ain't a comin' to Canada any time soon.

I think it's time for our government to move to proportional representation, or at the bare minimum to some model of governing that favours real cooperation between parties. The minority parliamentary model we're working with now, with its confidence votes and playing chicken, is really just a big pissing contest. It seems invented to create failure, not success; in other words, we the people are supposed to recognize this "natural" dysfunction and, shaking our collective heads in disgust, vote in a majority next time. Except that's virtually impossible with five legitimate parties scrabbling for our votes. Majority parliaments work because they're based on a two-party system. Canada no longer has a two-party system. I'm tired of people having to worry about splitting the vote if they vote with their hearts.

Can someone give me some good reasons for not going to proportional representation as a governing model? It can't just be because the big parties have too much to lose. I wonder whether there are some ideological uncertainties about it too: does it make the country more fractured, does it entrench regionalism?

I'm writing this in a rare moment of quiet this morning. Woke with supper dishes still unwashed and cluttering the countertop, with supper needing to be made in advance due to Beckett lesson this eve, with diapers in the washer, a pile of dirty clothes on the basement floor, two laundry baskets overflowing with clean, unfolded clothes in the living-room, F with a playdate here this morning to supervise, and baby CJ with a hankering to crawl everywhere, eat everything, then get frustrated and demand to be carried about in a sling. Plus we walked out the door thinking we were late for school (we weren't). I've only conquered a few of these problems so far, but things are temporarily looking up. Laundry's hanging on the line. The girls have played beautifully together all morning. Baby CJ went down for a nap. Dishes got washed. I'm cooking up a black bean and grain stew. Is there any way to fry quesadillas in advance? The 6pm music class is proving hairy to get to, and we're dashing out the door still chewing our food, despite what seems like pretty good advance organizing.

Oh, my squash refused to soften last night. I roasted it for ages, but in the end gave up and discarded it. I've never had this happen before. And our CSA sent us gobs of chard and kale yesterday, and yet more beets, so I need to get organized and cook something out of this stuff before our fridge turns from jungle to swamp.

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