New Year, New Travels, New Perspectives
Hello from the road everyone. Saludos de San Juan, Nuevo Brunswick, Canadia. Es mucho frio aqui...eh?
Maybe it would be more appropriate to use French, being as I am in Canada.
With this trip, I have realized that I have a special power: I can bring down governments. Where ever I go lately, there seems to be an election going on. I just missed the New Zealand elections when I was there in November. In Chile, I recovered from jet lag by watching the returns on TV. Nothing can make you fall asleep faster than watching the play-by-play of who the new president of a foriegn counrty will be. Now I'm in Canada, and Paul Martin looks as if he's moving out of the Prime Minister's residence.
Note to all Americans: Paul Martin is the leader of the country immediately to your North. Canada doesn't have a president, as Queen Elizabeth of the UK is the head of state. They get a prime minister to throw rocks at (he's the head of government).
Now here is where things get interesting. Canada doesn't have two overly dominant political parties like The States and the UK do (yes, I know that there is more to British politics than Labour and The Tories). In addition, Canada has a province that keeps grumbling about secession. Therefore, you see some interesting political alliances when you have an election.
In Canada, you have the usual larger parties that profess to represent the right and left of centre. Here they just call them the Conservatives and the Liberals. Paul Martin is a Liberal. Then you have the really left of centre party, the NDP or New Democratic Party. The Greens get in there somewhere left of center, and you have the usual right wingers as well. Finally, there is the Bloc Quebecois. They want Quebec to be a separate pseudo country, meaning they don't want to pay taxes to Ottawa anymore, but are perfectly happy letting Ottawa take their share of the national debt.
These are the people who were most surprised when the US had its election in 2004. It went something like this: "what zu mean? Stu-peed Amer-ee-cahns want zu join Can-ah-da? Zeh moost have maird for ze brains!"
There have been two referendums on the Quebec issue, and both have failed. However, it wasn't exactly a landslide for Canadian unity either time, and there are a growing number of people who are thinking that Montreal can just go fuck itself.
Paul Martin appears to be in for it come 23 January, and much of the reason has to do with these Quebec referendums. The Liberals under Jean Critien (forgive the spelling - and he was the Prime Minister before Paul Martin) really weren't keen on Quebec becoming a new country. So, they spent a fat chunk of taxpayers funds on sponsoring the "NO" campaign, which ended up in reality being a bunch of bribes and kickbacks to people in their own party. Paul Martin was up to his eyeballs in it as well.
It was best put by a TV show called Royal Canadian Air Farce (think SNL or SCTV). They were making fun of Paul Martin in effigy in regards to the money that Canada sent to the Asian tsunami relief. The skit was a news anchor reporting from Thailand. He interviewed Paul Martin and asked him why Canada seemed so cheap when compared to the rest of the world. The effigy of Paul Martin replied that, "..we sent ten billion dollars. Do you know how much that is?!?" The reporter quipped, "Yes. About half of what you spent in the sponsorship scandal."
The primary person who is expected to replace Paul Martin is the Conservative, Steven Harper. The national newspaper, The Globe and Mail ran a front page story about him the other day: apparently he is a distant cousin of the star of the popular TV show, The Trailer Park Boys.
The Trailer Park Boys is a show that would make people in Arkansas say, "Damn!" Telferner, Texas, you aint got shit on these guys. Jed Clampet, eat your heart out. The scary thing is, its reality TV.
Steven Harper's campaigning on a platform of the usual bullshit: lower taxes, deregulation, bring God back into schools, and overturning gay marriage - even if he has to write it into the Canadian equivalent of a national constitution. He's also partnered with Bloc Quebecois - you know, the Free Quebec! people. If politics makes strange bedfellows, this is a Mongolian Cluster Fuck.
So in all honesty, I really don't care who wins. Hell, most Americans don't even know who the Prime Minister of Canada is. But it does make me feel better to see other countries mired up in this stuff. Misery loves company...
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Best Regards,
Rich Williams, ¡en transito!
