Life has been a little crazy lately and I haven't had time to follow the news or blog much. But I did find time to do one thing last week: I voted in the advance poll, and I voted Liberal.
The bottom line is that no political party in Quebec accurately reflects my views, so I had to chose the best of what I considered a pretty bad bunch. It was either that or not voting. At the end of the day, my heart was with Mario Dumont, but my head was with Jean Charest, and he got my support.
This has been one of the worst election campaigns I've ever seen, if not the worst. (This is ironic given that all indications are that Monday's results will be some of the most exciting in recent memory.) No debate on ideas; no talk of what's wrong with Quebec and its relatively sluggish economy. Just a lot of bad candidates having bimbo eruptions and the leaders trying to make excuses for their behaviour.
Mario Dumont has a lot of good qualities, and I'm glad he's going to make a breakthrough Monday. I want the ADQ to do well because they will change the debate in Quebec. There is no doubt in my mind the ADQ will be an official party after Monday, and if we're lucky, the official opposition. If Charest were to pull off a minority win with the ADQ in second place -- a remote but not impossible outcome -- Quebec would have a left vs right instead of federalist vs sovereignist debate for the first time in 40 years.
In the end, I did not vote ADQ for several reasons. One, the Liberal candidate in my riding is Philippe Cannon, son of Lawrence. So there was at least a federal Conservative connection. Second, I am not comfortable with some of the over-the-top demagoguery Mario Dumont has employed during the campaign on the issue of "reasonable accomodations" of minorities. I felt he went too far on this, bordering on xenophobia at certain points. Third, Dumont has not exemplified any commitment to Canada whatsoever. Not even the slightest amount. He bashes Charest for being more popular in Winnipeg than in Quebec and has said other stupid things along those lines that just tick me off.
Should be a fun but long night Monday.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 3:49 PM
