Well I Didn't Vote For You!

Last night my son threw up in a sudden explosive burst.

This was at about the same time the news media was announcing the certainty that Stephen Harper was going to be Canada’s next Prime Minister.

And people say that babies don’t understand what’s going on in the world around them.

But in all seriousness, Alexander starting running a fever Sunday night. It lessened slightly during the day yesterday, but Francine still took him to the doctor’s office where it was confirmed that he had a virus. His mood and temperature were on and off during the day, but he was mostly listless. Anyone who knows my son knows that something must be wrong if he’s not tearing ass all over the house, letting out a repeated stream of battle cries as he finds new things to get into and new “scientific experiments” to conduct (usually involving gravity and a combination of liquid and solid materials)

Last night, his fever continued to rise, and it was at about 10:30 that he woke up crying, Francine picked him up and he proceeded to throw up all over the both of them. After a change and a quick bath, Alexander and I cuddled together while Francine called Telehealth Ontario for quick and efficient professional medical advice.

All around me I’m reminded of the excellent health care system and services we have in our country and in our province. And I’m leery that the new conservative government is going to threaten those things, along with threatening the rights and liberties of our people. The only good policy that I saw on the conservative platform was the intention to make commuting fees tax deductible. That, I like. It lends itself to environmental issues, encouraging people to use more public transit, which reduces traffic congestion on roads and highways, feeds more money into public transit and ends up providing better services for those who need it the most. Most everything else the Tories stand for are not so much my cup of Red Rose.

I haven’t spent much time worrying, though, about the state of our nation and its new leadership. I’ve been a bit more consumed with worrying about my little guy. Last night was another long night with frequent waking and crying in his sleep. As I laid there awake, trying not to worry about my son, I kept flashing back to a scene from Monty Python & The Holy Grail. Only instead of King Arthur conversing with the peasants, it was PM Harper.

PM Harper: I order you to be quiet!

Peasant Lady: Order, eh? Who does he think he is?

PM Harper: I am your PM.

Peasant Lady: Well, I didn’t vote for you.

PM Harper: You don’t vote for PM.

Peasant Lady: Well, how’d you become PM, then?

PM Harper: Across the land there are candidates in 308 ridings that the people vote for. Whatever political party wins the most ridings and thus has the larger number of seats within the house of Parliament is the ruling party and its leader gain the role of Prime Minister.

Peasant Lady: So you can become PM even if people didn’t vote for you in your own riding?

PM Harper: Yes.

Peasant Lady: No, seriously. How did you become PM?

PM Harper: Sponsorship scandal, people fed up with the lies of the existing government. And besides, our "attack" ads were better than the other guys "attack" ads. When the Liberals went too far in their own fear mongering attacks, stating I was going to surround Canadians with soldiers, creating police states, that also won us points. I guess at the end of the day we were seen as the least of all known evils.

Peasant Man: This makes me long for some farcical aquatic ceremony where some watery tart lobbing a scimitar at someone makes them King. That whole scenario makes a heck of a lot more sense to me in forming the basis for a government. But what do I know, I’m a figment of Mark’s imagination derived from watching too much Monty Python.

Hmm, come to think of it, I think I was a little feverish last night, too.