Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Things I Don't Understand about the election results

1. It seems that some 36% of Canadians don't feel it necessary to improve the social safety net. This absolutely boggles my mind. Even if we completely discount any possible feelings of altruism, this means that more than one third of all Canadians do not think it possible that they or their loved ones will ever lose their jobs or not be able to find new jobs before the money runs out. And these are all people who lived through the early 90s recession and the dot-com bust, and yet they feel completely financially secure, no matter what happens. More than one third! This is simply unfathomable to me.

2. I don't get Stephen Harper's whole "The West got in!" thing. Yes, I am aware of the history of "The West wants in," but I just dno't get equating right-wingedness with "the West". (Aside for non-Canadians: in the context of Canada as a whole, "the West" means the western provinces, not the western hemisphere). Perhaps people ar emore conservative out west, I wouldn' tknow, I've never discussed politics in Alberta, but why would you equate your national party with only part of the country? Isn't that just going to alienate the voters in the rest of Canada who voted Conservative instead of Liberal this time around? Isn't that terribly insulting to socialists in the western provinces? If their intention is to represent "the West," they should do so explicitly. Set it out in their platform, call themselves the Western Bloc. But if their intention is to be a right-wing national party, they should be national.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

1. Perhaps these Canadians feel:

a) The social safety net is adequate to support them should they fall into hard times.

b) They are competent and have modest savings to tide them over until they attain new employment. With a Canadian unemployment rate in the 6% range, perhaps these Canadians feel that it will not be difficult to find new employment. (Really it is not difficult if you have some idea how to market yourself and you have some type of reasonable skill set.)

c) Perhaps these Canadians do not understand the question or have not properly pondered it.

Anonymous said...

I think the general feeling is that the social safety net is already adequate and does not need further enhancement. That is to say, we have reached an acceptable balance between what is affordable to the nation and what services it is practical to provide.

With regards to the "West wants in" issue, I don't feel that as a whole "westerers" are more conservative than eastern or central Canadians, but it does seem that urban voters, particularly in Toronto, are somewhat out of touch with sentiments in other parts of Ontario and the rest of the nation. It's not necessarily the other way around as much of the mainstream media would have you believe.

And remember that with the exception of about 15 months (1979-80, 1984 and 1993), the Prime Minister has been from Quebec since 1968.

Anonymous said...

1. I think there's just a tendency that when you have a job, you don't think much about the social safety net. Unless and until you or a loved one need it, it's not really much of a priority.

2. As anon points, out there hasn't been a "Westerner" as prime minister in quite awhile. So I suspect Harper was just pandering a bit to the voters in his home region. Politicians pander all the time, it's what they do.

impudent strumpet said...

In my experience, the only people I've talked to who feel the social safety net is adequate a) are independently wealthy, or b) have an overly-optimistic idea of what the social safety net actually provides, and feel it is inadequate when presented with actual quantitative figures.

Anonymous said...

Dear Anonymous,

"(Really it is not difficult if you have some idea how to market yourself and you have some type of reasonable skill set.)"

I'm not sure what your education background is, or what you do. In some fields it is fairly easy to get employment. Currently, I know highly educated - (Ph.Ds, Masters, MDs ->specialized) people who are unable to just market themselves just like that and get a job! I guess I would call having PhD, a Masters, and a specialized surgeon, people who have, "some type of reasonable skill set."

My comment has little or nothing to do with voting, but on your off-hand assumption/personal bias.