Dear Editor,
Media reports have been filled with plans, proposals and ideas that parties in the election campaign are offering the electorate. It is difficult to assess the impact of these promises in any organized or balanced way without adequate detailed research. At the same time one wonders how many of these proposals are strategically aired as inducements to voter support.
How many of these plans by the party who wins outright power or is in a coalition will ever be implemented, watered down or transformed?
We know generally what the parties view as their role in governing: minimally interventionist on the Conservative side and, depending on the issue, more or less involved in greater government on the Liberal and NDP side. And then there are the personalities of the leaders, a combination of age, experience, political savvy, personal histories, temperaments and motivations.
Ultimately though it comes down to, I believe, a vision the individual elector has for the country, either open or protective and with a touch of pragmatism: who will serve my interests best and who do I want to block from obtaining power?
The polls, like a thermometer in a really warm summer have been hovering around the 30 degree mark, sometimes higher, sometimes lower.
Generally, we have no idea how our neighbours will vote. There likely has been the odd conversation without much depth over coffee or just in passing; nothing transformative and certainly no big insight of any kind.
Our interest and energy might have lagged at times as the sound of political thrust and parry has become loud, even distracting, and we decided to rack leaves instead on a warm fall evening.
Sometimes it seemed like the Boston marathon where only those dedicated, focused and supremely ambitious would win.
Yet we are close to the end and at the crowded finish line will we cheer…. or will we have to wait ..since in some races, who will actually govern, is too close to call even on election night.
George Jason
Ponoka