Or, possibly, “The Least Apathetic Amongst Us Vote.”

I am hoping against hope that we are able to shove that creepy Stepford Husband (oh, look, even the initials match) out of 24 Sussex Drive.

I can’t quite picture a PM Layton, but on the other hand, PM Ignatieff looks about as likely as PM Dion. I’m not sure why exactly people seem to be falling for the ridiculous, American-style Conservative attack ads on Ignatieff, but he isn’t a very compelling character, somehow. So maybe that’s all the Liberals need, someone with more TVQ or whatever. Which saddens me, because a party IS about more than simply the one guy, and the Liberals have a great history behind them, while the Conservatives…well, don’t get me started. The Canada I chose to return to isn’t Mulroney’s or Harper’s Canada, it’s Trudeau and Chrétien’s Canada, you know? I have a bottomless bucket of scorn for the Conservative Party.

Anyway. I have a couple of links, that I’ve also tweeted. There’s a guy called Eric Grenier who does a Nate Silver-type blog called threehundredeight.com where  you can check out all the latest polls, and maybe motivate yourself to vote, if you’re a bit complacent. The excellent Dave Weigel, currently at Slate, linked to that earlier today.

From there I clicked on an ad to an interesting site called Catch22Campaign.ca, which identifies some at-risk ridings for the Conservatives, and suggests who is most able to unseat them (and thus, who you might want to vote for, if your preferred candidate isn’t likely to pull it out).

Our system here is so extremely frustrating to me.  In 2008, the Bloc Quebecois had around 1.3 million votes, and achieved 51? 52 seats in Parliament. The Green Party, led by an extremely able and eloquent woman, attained about 60% of the votes that the Bloc did, more than 900,000, and yet has not a single seat. So there are 900,000-odd Canadians whose voices were ignored because they don’t all happen to live in one province, basically. Does that make sense to you? it doesn’t make sense to me at all. I really hope some riding somewhere is able to get a Green into Parliament, I think it’s a voice that needs to be heard, especially after all this Conservative Kyoto-shunning tar sands propagating bullshit we’ve had to suffer for the last while.

Anyway. On Monday, get your ass down to your voting place and be heard, whoever you choose to vote for. And if you’re not sure who you really want? the CBC has a pretty good directory of the people and platforms, and you really owe it to yourself (and the rest of us, frankly), to figure it out. Your tax dollars are funding it, so go crazy!

Also, I mean I’m a massive cynic about a lot of things, but I take the right to vote pretty seriously. I love voting. I can’t even convey exactly how chuffed I was the first time I did, back in the Plateau in Montréal. It’s the punk-rockest thing you can possibly do, voting.

o/