I sure as hell don't trust 'em

Right, so this is a couple of days overdue, and I’m sorry for that. My head was in a little place I like to call the Labour Day clouds over the weekend. So let’s get down to business.

Raise your hand if you can honestly say you’ve changed your hair style three times in the last four years.

Alcoholic beverage of choice? Shampoo? Bought three cds or books? Rode the bus? Moved? Seen a genuinely good movie?

Called a federal election?

That’s right folks, we’re headed there again. October 14 looks to be the day. And frankly, the timing couldn’t be better. We’re doing everything we can in this country to limit inflation and avoid a recession, so naturally, the best next step to take is to call an election and potentially change governments again (as an overly-dramatic example, let’s see how well Zimbabwe’s economy is faring with political unrest). Lovely. And in all likelihood, we’ll wrangle ourselves another minority government that can’t actually do any real governing.

And the cost to the taxpayer? Election rules state the parties can spend a maximum of $18 million and change on their campaigns. So let’s say the Conservatives and Liberals each spend to the max, while the NDP, Green Party, and the independents combine to spend to the max. How many doctors and nurses could we hire with $54 million? Police officers? Teachers? How many MRI machines? How many schools could keep their art or music programs with $54 million?

Shoot, $54 million probably even goes a long way in buying bullshit Kyoto Accord environmental credits.

The point, as it was in 2006, is that as great as this country is, and as well-off as most Canadians really are, we have a long way to go before every person in this country has a proper education and enough food in the belly. And until we get there, we should stop throwing $50 million away every other year in federal elections.

Image stolen from www.istockphoto.com