I Swear This Past Year Has Just Seemed Unreal

It might be melodramatic and unfounded hysteria inside me that I didn’t sleep last night. Just tossed and turned with an unsettled stomach that was perhaps laden with fanciful fear. I so hope to be proven wrong and find that four years from now the Conservative government has had to govern more from the centre than from the right even with the coveted majority. Perhaps having now to ensure that Ontario needs success as much as Alberta will sober any rash decision that affects 11 million people and a large electorate. Yet when I think of the new I have read of Prime Minister Harper since early 2000’s, I am not buoyed or steadied. I am fearful. Not just suspicious but fearful. This is not the kind of Rex Murphy conservatism. By the words and writings of himself and his party members this is a social conservatism as well as it is a fiscal conservatism. The social part is what tenses me. I grew up in a world and in a Canada that had overall progressed towards a socially liberal country. From time to time it would be necessary to becoming fiscally conservative but values such as sharing, peace, community and responsibility to our surroundings were guiding principles for all of us. The Harper Tory’s are admitted supporters of increased policing at a time when crime is down. They have supported the idea the a woman’s body is not hers to decide what to do with and that and that two adults are not able to decide the terms of their intimacy. Last night though what made this the hardest was learning that Canada found a party that was ethically contemptuous, that has muzzled the media and actively pursued keeping information from the public was rewarded with the privilege to govern this beautiful country and the beautiful spirit that has guided her until now. That we have done so at a time when our public and government has condemned is shameful. And that is why I did not sleep easy tonight. Yet that is why, from today forward, the 60% of people who did not give this government it’s mandate ensure that it does not rest either until it works for us as well.