What a crazy night. People seem to be glad that we will not have another election for four years, but I can't help thinking that Harper has four years to really screw Canada over. Can you tell I'm less than thrilled at a Conservative majority. I actually worked the election as a Deputy Returning Officer (the only other person than you who can touch your ballot) for Elections Canada, so I was busy counting votes and closing down my ballot when the results were coming in (so I did not hear anything). By the time I got to my car to scoot the counted ballots back to Elections Canada they were already announcing a Conservative majority on the radio. But there were clues this would be a dramatic election. We had a lot of folks come in to register at the poll to vote, in fact the poll I ran had over 75% voter participation (even apart from the new registrants). The other indication was that the majority of the voters were older (lots of senior citizens) and the next largest group was young voters, many of whom were voting for the very first time. The poll I was at is in a fairly stable part of the riding (not a lot of transient voters) so I was hoping this youth vote was indicative of the rest of our polls.
Running the poll was exhausting, but a lot of fun. They gave us bottles of this awesome hand sanitizer (I usually hate this stuff) that smelled like Beecham's Black Cough Drops (I used to eat these like candy as a kid, sooooo yummy. Am I the only one who remembers these?) Well the bottles became the subject of endless jokes between our poll and the one across from us. Great group of people to work with. But a lot of work (especially as the DRO).
The one bright spot was the election of Elizabeth May, the first elected Green Party member of parliament. Give em hell May! Not only do I think May will do an excellent job in parliament, this is a new day for my party. I can't help feeling a tremendous amount of optimism for Greens in the future - when our children are old enough to vote things will change dramatically. And I think Greens will be poised to bring about a lot of those changes.
OK, so now it is back to the grind. I'll try my best to live peacefully with the dark blue shadow that has overtaken our land - at least long enough to do my work and hopefully sow the seeds of a brighter tomorrow.
2 comments:
Are you sure you're not thinking of Beechnut cough drops? I loved them as a kid. Especially the licorice ones, although the honey lemon and the cherry ones weren't bad either.
Beechnut, yeah that's the ones. So good.
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