The Best One Can Hope For

With the Canadian federal election campaign under way, it seems like a good time to have a look at the best possible outcome for the nation and for you, reader,  and what better place to bring some clarity to the topic than here at Random Access.  It serves no real purpose to look at the platforms, when rarely presented, by any of the main political parties or even the wannabe parties (yes, that mean you Green Party) because the platforms really aren't relevant to the best possible outcome.  Neither are the leaders or the candidates relevant.  So, you say, what is relevant to a best possible outcome?
First, let's take a quick etymological look at "politics" and see what we can learn.  From Greek, "of, for and relating to citizens".  Seems that there is a tenuous connection between the definition and the actions of most Canadian political parties.  As with much of the English language, the definition seems to have evolved over time to "of, for and relating to politicians".  When was the last time that a constituency elected a person who represented them rather than one who has successfully convinced them that the political party's ideas were also the ideas of the citizens?  So with the new definition in mind, let's jump back to the best possible outcome of the next election and, most likely, any future election in this country.
In Canada we will end up with a political party in power, elected on the basis of whoever portrays the other party's leader as most incompetent, evil, corrupt or (insert any negative adjective here).  There will be no debate on the issues or the proposed solutions to the issues.  When the party is in power, they will be able to implement very little since the parliamentary system prevents any dramatic systemic change whatsoever.  For a clear example,  look at the efforts to implement a national childcare program in Canada.  A good idea becomes a reason to ridicule the other political party because they proposed the idea before you could.  It evolves into a political (see new definition above) "debate" and nothing gets implemented.
This will be the same in Canada after the election.  There will be no radical or dramatic change in policy or programs and sometimes this is a good thing.  Dramatic change often leads to dramatic pain and unexpected ripple effects.  People don't like this and respond poorly and sometimes violently (North Africa).  This topic is another blog post, though, so we won't explore it now.  Suffice to say that when the election is over there will be a hamstrung party in place with a leader who will not be able to do too much damage or good for the course of their time at the wheel.  And that is the best that one can hope for in Canadian politics.  There will be corruption and scandal and incompetence.  However, the best YOU can hope for is that it will not be so bad as to impact you.  Sad, but true.
That being said, get out and vote.  Don't be cynical and believe that your contribution means nothing.  If you don't participate, it becomes a slippery slope and we could end up with a political nightmare like we see in so many countries around us today where truly evil, corrupt and incompetent people end up at the wheel and really are able to impact your daily life, and never in a good way.  It may be messy and frustrating, but it's ours and we should look after it.  Vote.