Rubbish In Winnipeg

Tom Brodbeck of the Winnipeg Sun has this article on Canoe today:

Sleaze irrelevant to hot-for-Grits Ontario

Listening to some Ontario voters whine, you'd think they live in a two-party state where only Liberals and Conservatives run for office.

My e-mail, predictably, was flooded with angry Ontarians yesterday after I wrote yesterday how Ontario voters must like scandal because they keep re-electing Liberals. I got an earful.

And Ontario readers gave me every reason in the book why they still vote Liberal -- a once proud party that has taken on mafia-like qualities in recent years.

The most common reason they claim to vote for the party linked to the sponsorship scandal is that they don't want to vote Conservative.

They say there's no one else to vote for.

Ok, enlighten us then.

There are plenty of other candidates from which to choose.

I tallied them up. In 2004, there were at least 10 registered political parties, covering a wide range of political philosophies and world views, to choose from in Ontario.

You had the NDP, the Green Party, the Christian Heritage Party, the Canadian Action Party and the Progressive Canadian Party. There was the Marijuana Party for the pot smokers. And for the Commies, there was the Communist Party and the Marxist-Lenninist Party.

Well, voting for single issue parties seems foolish. And there are some argument that voting for a party that will not get elected in your riding (or any riding most likely) is like saying I don't really want a voice in government. Making a rational choice between two front-runners seems like a logical thing to do.

No, the real reason Ontarians vote Liberal is because they really like Liberals and don't mind this kind of scandal. It's not a big deal to them that tens of millions of tax dollars were funneled into Liberal party coffers.

"Not voting for the Conservatives has nothing to do with the voters in Ontario loving scandal," writes Philip from Brunner, Ont. "However, it has everything to do with the voters in Ontario being more partial to Liberal political philosophy/values."

What value is that, Phil? Is it the one where you hand over envelopes of tax dollars to shady Liberal hacks in dark restaurants? Or is it the one where you give millions of tax dollars to Liberal-friendly ad firms who donate to the party and do no work whatsoever for their "commissions?"

Whoa. That's too far. First off, when the last election was held we did not know the extent of the corruption completely and all we had were allegations of wrong-doings or unethical deals. At that time it did not have the obvious feel of illegal activity that pervades the inquiry now. To say that we support this level of corruption then is insane.

I will agree that what we knew at the time was compelling and should have moved more voters to not vote Liberal, but it was not the overwhelming stench of corruption that the current allegations present now.

Help me out, Phil. I'm trying to figure out the Ontario psyche.

No you're not. You're doing what many westerners do. The party you support goes after issues and takes stands that conflicts with what people here want and you blame us for it. So quite frankly, f*ck you. You want to honestly discuss why people voted for the Liberals in the last election, drop me a line and we'll discuss it. If we can agree that most voters are pretty ignorant of facts and are one issue voters (whether in Ontario or Manitoba), we'll be just fine.

But to rant like you did in your last article doesn't help. its not trying to understand, its trying to demonize. We need far less of that, not more.