Please, please vote today if you're Canadian!!

QCF returns from an extended hiatus on a very important day, election day for Canada's federal parliament. And notwithstanding Allie's post about the illegality of spoiling your ballot, it's very important for Canadians to participate in this most important and fundamental part of the life of our country - to choose the elected representatives who will govern this great country on our behalf.

Today, I will be voting for Laurie Hawn, the Conservative candidate in Edmonton-Centre. I'm doing this because:

After 12.5 years in office, the Liberals have grown arrogant and out-of-touch. It's not just the sponsorship affair, though that is a massive symptom of a larger disease. For two years, Paul Martin has governed Canada, but it's only in the last month that we've found that he favours an elected senate, a complete ban on handguns and wishes to remove the federal government's power to invoke the notwithstanding clause. But despite these attempts to grab the headlines, the reality is that I look at a Liberal party that offers no compelling reason for Canadians to give them another term in office except by demonizing the opposition. They've spent so much time portraying Stephen Harper as the George W. Bush of Canadian politics, that they've failed to offer me a positive vision of Canada's future except a nationalized child-care program and a leader for whom everything is a 'priority' so therefore nothing is.

On the other hand, while not above in throwing some mud himself, the reality is that Harper has, by and large, offered a large array of policies that reflect a party of ideas. Now I don't agree with all of those ideas. Some reek of expediency, others have not been fully worked out to be practical, and a few (in my opinion) are just dumb. But put together, they offer Canadians a mainstream, moderate alternative to the Liberals that Canadians have really lacked in more than a decade.

But more than that, I am trusting Stephen Harper for a quality that I've often disliked in him, his ambition. Harper wants very much to be Prime Minister, but not in the Joe Clark-John Turner-Kim Campbell (and dare I say it?)-Paul Martin mode. Harper wants to govern Canada for years and win re-election(s). This means not doing what mainstream Canadians don't want. It means no radical push to the right and doing nothing to dispel the very carefully crafted 'mainstream, moderate alternative to the Liberals' that has been so prudently created in the last year or two. Because Harper knows that if the Conservatives try to push to fast or hard on a variety of 'hot-button' issues with Canadians, the Conservative party will be pushed very rapidly from the pinnacle of power and will likely become a right-wing version of the NDP, never to be entrusted with power again.

I think Harper knows this. The real question is will his caucus know this too? And will Harper be able to manage the tribes of divergent viewpoints that make up any governing power. And there, I can only hope the answer is yes. It would be easier if Harper had a (thin) majority, but as much as I think he deserves it, I (unfortunately) think he's going to fall just short.

So here's my election morning seat prediction:
Conservatives: 149
Liberals: 71
Bloc: 61
NDP: 27

I will not be posting anything more today but will offer my post-election thoughts and predictions tomorrow. And again, don't forget to vote, no matter what party/candidate you're supporting!