Process of Humiliation

That is what keeps decent people from running for politics -- that groping, pandering process of humiliation before voters go to the polls.

My opinons of the politicos running:

Paul Martin forever has the look on his face of a child being berated by a teacher. Who'd ever guess the man is filthy rich? But he does truly embody the unsmiling satire that is Canadian politics -- a former interest-conflicted finance minister who reflags the ships of his shipping company in order to avoid paying Canadian taxes. And who is there to call him on it? The Opposition? They have all the credibility of defense attorneys -- they'll cry "Nay" no matter what the person in power does.

Seeing those Liberal Party lawn signs with their tagline: "Paul Martin's Liberal Party" may as well read "E. coli's Hamburgers."

My problem with Stephen Harper? Purely physiological. The look of his pale face and bleached blue eyes has me convinced no blood circulates to his head. Blood is filled with ideas, and if the marriage of blood and brain is not consummated, you don't end up with a stupid individual, but a scary one. Conservatives are the ones who gave Canada the GST. We tend to forget that.

Jack Layton, purveyor of "positive discrimination," indiscriminant spender of those so-far-out-of-reach tax dollars, I applaud your applause for the Canadian health care system. Clayton reminds me of well-meaning clergymen who have never lived in the world, have all sorts of ideas about living in the world, who sit and rock themselves into oblivion in the shadows of their cat-pissing-smelling parlors.

Gilles Duceppes is like the little brother running after the pack of older kids, shouting, "Wait up, you's!"

Every Canadian election is an exercise in short-sightedness. The electorate is only concerned with "sticking it" to the ruling party, never giving a thought to the culture of corruption that exists in Ottawa. Remember during the 2000 American election and how George W. Bush promised to return integrity to the White House. Well, if you weigh W.'s sins against Bill Clinton's and still believe that dignity can be achieved with "daisy cutters", then you have the same spiritual compass as Savonarola and Pat Robertson.

Satire and vitriol aside, Canada doesn't need privatized health care or the privatization of its Crown corporations, but it certainly needs something from the private sector -- some expertise. The next Prime Minister of Canada should call appeal to the patriotism of the CEO of Tim Horton's, for instance, and other such successful, thriving Canadian corporations, and ask their input on how to liposuction the rotting bloat from the such institutions as our health care system, et al.

The question of this election in my mind is: How serious are Canadians about having their country run with a modicum of honesty, a tad of competence, and a smidge of vision?