My vote

Riding: Edmonton - Leduc

I'd like to thank the Globe for asking me to participate in the Citizens' Dialogue. (Not because my writing will reach a wide readership; if you're reading this, you're probably one of five across Canada.) In order to write my columns I have had to study the parties and issues more than I ever did in the past. I've always been reasonably well informed but this time I feel I have really drilled down, leading to an informed vote, as I'll reveal below.

Let me start with a quote from Caesar. Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt or, "Men gladly believe that what they wish for". Some 2,000 years later Simon and Garfunkel said essentially the same thing in their song The Boxer: "A man hears what he wants to hear, And disregards the rest." So on this matter it appears that humanity isn't really evolving very rapidly.

I have a theory about this. If you looked at peoples' understanding of the issues you could possibly plot a bell curve, since the bell curve pops up so often in our lives. So at the left side you'd plot people that only know about one or two issues (relatively few), then the bulk of the population knowing and caring about 3, 4, or 5 issues, and then the curve petering out with the relatively few people that are really well informed and know the arguments about 6 or 7 issues. Horribly, there's probably people that know about none of the issues and vote for a party because they're emotionally attached to them - "I vote Conservative (or Liberal). Always have, always will."

Overall, people probably just look at a few issues that matter to them -- taxes, health care, and reducing the size of the federal government for example. They "hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest". Only if you are a political columnist (even briefly) do you make the effort to understand a lot about the parties, their platforms, and the issues. That's understandable. And it's been a great experience for me.

So, considering all the issues, or quite a few anyway, here's my thinking on who I should vote for this time. It comes down to a process of elimination, unfortunately.

First of all, although I am probably naturally a Liberal, I just can't vote for them this time. The Adscam scandal was just too great a breach of trust. Even worse perhaps was the gun registry fiasco. Here you've got a program that should cost maybe a few hundred thousand dollars, or perhaps a few million, and somehow they turned it into a billion-dollar boondoggle. Amazing. Truly a giant breach of the trust of Canadians, and for this the Liberals deserve to be punished. Although Mr. Martin has made an attempt to dissociate himself from the Adscam scandal, he hasn't said he'd kill the gun registry, or even fix it. Bottom line: they've grown fat, lazy, and corrupt with too many years in office. With apologies to the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld: "No vote for you!"

The Conservatives. Ultimately I just disagree with them on too many issues. If it were only a few maybe I'd like to give them a chance, like most Albertans. But as my column after the debates pointed out, I disagree with them on church/state separation, reducing taxes and increasing spending (Where have I heard that one before? It's an old one but it still makes me laugh), closer ties to the United States and its out-of-control military, Mr. Harper's accusation of Paul Martin and Jack Layton that they actually like child porn, and on and on. "If only we could reduce taxes, devolve power to the provinces, and have closer ties to the US, why then things would be double jim-dandy!" I strenuously disagree. No vote for you!

The NDP. Let me be clear -- I like Jack Layton. I like his personality and commitment. I like his and the NDP's concern for social issues, like poverty, and their total support for Tommy Douglas's medicare system. I expect they'd probably increase taxes but I can live with that. Maybe, just maybe, there'd be a bit more integrity in the government. But I have at least a couple problems with the NDP:

• They are likely to increase the size of government and I don't want a Nanny State taking care of me. The last thing we need is more bureaucrats who can't be fired generating "studies".
• Where the NDP and I really part company is, surprisingly, on the environment. I am strongly in favour of doing more to clean up our environment and to be proper stewards of this great country. But I cannot abide Kyoto and the possibility that we might have to actually pay the Russians billions because, due to their total mismanagement of their economy (government by gangster), they are using less of their carbon dioxide quota than they've been allocated. The Russians will have to pry the money out of my cold, dead fingers, sorry.

There's more, much more, I could say about the NDP, but that's enough. No vote for you!

Surveying the scorched landscape after this bombing run, I see only one small edifice still standing: the Greens. Actually, although their name is pretty "user friendly", it's been pointed out that they're pretty right-wing in numerous respects (except for their avowed pacifism). They want to reduce taxes and the size of government, just like the Conservatives. And their plan for the environment is not to improve federal government oversight, but rather to work "with local councils" and all that foofaraw. But there are three points in their favor:

• First, they allow you to contribute ideas to their platform on their website, making them somewhat different from the rest. Maybe their platform will evolve.
• Second, they're another competitor. I like competition. It's done wonders for the economy and why should it be any different for politics? Another party in the mix may cause all the parties to hone their platforms a bit more to get more in touch with Canadians, and that can only be a good thing.
• Finally, I like their idea of a "green-collar worker". They make a good point about only Japanese companies making really fuel-efficient cars. Why shouldn't Canada get a piece of the "green pie" in the future? Perhaps we can become really good at building solar cells. Or maybe we can find a way to profit from cleaning the plastic out of oceans. (There's a lot of plastic out there.) Whether "green tech" development would best be done by grants to companies or encouragement of research by universities is an open question.

The green-collar idea is such a good one that I expect the other parties will eventually incorporate it into their platforms. Which is great, that's what competition is all about. So the Green Party gets my vote - this time.

Now you can attack me for "hearing what I want to hear, and disregarding the rest." Fair ball.