local MP Mike Bossio victim of his own party leader

I voted Green Party in the federal election this week. I felt I had to, and I'll explain in a minute. Historically I've usually voted NDP for the four plus decades I've voted in Canada. That is, I've tried to vote for the party I believed was the most progressive - which had the best interests for the most of our citizens. One time I did vote Conservative - for Joe Clarke. It was amusing when all of my lefty friends actually thought I was joking. To this day some of them still don't believe I once voted Conservative.

I voted Liberal in the previous Fed election, and I'm glad I did. In my heart I wanted to vote NDP or Green, but The Stephen Harper led Conservatives were a scary bunch, and I only realized Harper didn't have his eyes on establishing a dictatorship when he was so financially horrible to our veterans. No politician will intentionally alienate a country's military if they have designs on establishing a dictatorship - you need those boys (and girls?) in blue or brown on your side to succeed with a military takeover. We had to turf out Harper and his neo-Cons when we had the chance, and Canadians rewarded Justin Trudeau's Liberals with a majority. I was part of the electorate desperate to rid Canada of Harper and his science muzzling, fact-hating, people hating gang.

But . . .  Trudeau himself was responsible for reneging on one of the Liberals' most important campaign promises, establishing electoral reform with a ranked ballot system. Once he  held the reins of power Trudeau Junior quickly realized  that a two party system was to his benefit for retaining control. He could continue to castigate the ghost of the Conservative Harper era when campaigning, while denying any chance of electoral success to other progressive parties like the NDP or the Greens. 

Trudeau Junior tried the same election tactic again this election. Vote for his "progressive" Liberals or face the zombie resurrection of the bad old Harper Conservatives, led by a dimpled acolyte of Stephen Harper himself. This tactic sort of worked, and Trudeau's Liberals were re-elected, but much diminished and with a minority.

In 2015 we so desperately wanted to rid the nation of Harperism that many of us held our noses and voted Liberal. This time around I refused to fall for the set-up, and I didn't hold my nose but voted Green. 

An unfortunate victim of Trudeau's intransigence in establishing electoral reform was our excellent local Liberal MP, Mike Bossio. As an insightful friend observed yesterday, it's too bad we can't vote for good local candidates and also for a national leader. When good politicians are members of a bad or indifferent national political party sometimes it becomes impossible to vote for them (hence my Green vote).

The progressive vote in my riding was split all to hell. Liberal Mike Bossio received around 19K votes to the Conservatives 22K. BUT, my fellow/sister progressive Greens had 3K votes, and the NDP had 7K votes.  So although the Conservative candidate "won" by 3K votes, the total progressive vote was 29K to the Conservative vote of 22K. The vote splitting caused by Trudeau's failure to implement a ranked voting system very likely caused our star Liberal candidate to lose!

Mike, you were a great area politician, and I hope you read this. The people of Hastings County riding will miss your excellent representation both locally and in Ottawa. You were always there for us, and you and your office always replied to the many progressive petitions I sent your way.

I also hope Trudeau Junior reads this and rethinks his discrimination against electoral reform. He cost us an excellent area MP, and himself a dedicated and honest star caucus member.      


                                                    
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On 2019-10-25, at 3:18 PM, JB wrote:

Good one: sorry to see Mike go. Having met Sloan at the front door I don’t like him. Too pushy and hungry for the big score. Like a JW for heaven’s sake. We need electoral reform and Trudeau II knows it.

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Thanks for reading my piece. Sloan sounds pretty scary - arrgggh.  Wish we still had Bossio, or that Bossio would see the light and join the Greens and run for them next time!