VISITORS

How very lovely that I had a visitor today from P. J. Hammer.
This came as a complete surprise. A nice one. The kind of
surprises I like. Makes this old soul feel good.

Hammer is a Photographer par excellence. He is also a generous
and kindly soul with his time. Thank you P.J.

For the moment, I digress.

So, what is up today? Keeping in mind that this is not Twitter,
and that I am not a Diarist, it is still worth noting that Canada
voted on May 2nd and changed the Federal landscape rather considerably.
The Conservatives swept into a majority Parliament which will at least
for the next four years we should have some stability and continuity
which was badly needed.

Even more extraordinary is that the New Democratic Party, the dark
horse in the race, came up the back of the track and did something no
one could have predicted a year ago, never mind six weeks ago, and
swept into power as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition in what has been
dubbed the "Orange Crush" - a reference to the NDP's colour being
orange - mostly on the force of one man, namely Jack Layton, who was
probably more shocked than anybody.

What this election managed to was to obliterate completely what had
always been since Confederation the Liberal Party of Canada the "natural"
party of the peoples. That is amazing! The writing was on the wall for
the Party but the swiftness of its demise is breathtaking.

They came undone.

Even more astounding is the demolition in totality of what had
always been a quirky aberration of the Bloc Quebecois in Ottawa
whose sole raison d'etre was the dissolution of Canada into two
separate Countries: Canada and Quebec. Quebec blinked. It turned its
back on the Bloc en masse and sent them packing back to "Occupied
France" - Quebec.

Thus ends twenty years of non-sense on the Federal scene. It never
made sense to begin with, despite the Separatists false belief that
"Only the Bloc Quebecois could represent Quebeckers interest in the
Canadian Federation." If that wasn't hubris, I don't what the meaning
of the word is. Quebeckers voted for the Orange Crush en masse.

So now what we are left with are two Parties: Conservatives (to the
right) and a clear left, social democrat party, the New Democratic
Party. They couldn't be further apart. But at least it is clear.

Personally, I am quite satisfied with the results. It will be most
interesting to see how things play out in the coming years.
Polarized? Yes. I can live with it. We are, at present, stable and
the envy of many democratic Countries in the world and in pretty good
shape on most levels.

The people have spoken and expressed their democratic wishes.

So be it.