Indecision

I clearly cannot vote for the right-wing conservatives or the loopy Liberals today. It seems my riding has a good candidate in our current NDP MP, but I find it very difficult to separate the candidate from the party, and the NDP just isn't a party that I believe in. My friend Vince reminded me that while voting Green is essentially throwing your vote away, every vote they get will help that party with their funding. Is that enough reason to vote Green, though? They have some very lofty goals of reforming the WTO, IMF and the World Bank. But wouldn't it be better to start instigating change within our own boarders, and work with industries and manufacturers to create sustainable markets? OK, part of that likely invovles taxing the heck out of organizations that don't adhere to environmentally and socially resposible regulations.

Actually, upon closer inspection, the Green party has quite a few items on their platform that I can support, mostly on the community level. On the international level, they are in favour of fair trade (like the coffee), not free trade. (They'd have to be careful not to use the term "regulated".) They would turn Canada into a military free zone, and a nation of peacekeeping. They would "reform taxation so that our spending better reflects the goals of a healthy and safe Canada."

This last is all fine and dandy, but shouldn't taxation be reformed so that the process itself better reflect said goals? For example, give a tax break to car manufacturer A who produces a certain amount of hybrid vehicles, thus presenting consumers with a more environmentally-friendly option. Give a bigger tax break to car manufacturer B who only produces hybrid vehicles, thus only presenting consumers with environmentally-friendly options. And tax the heck out of car manufacturer C, who doesn't bother to offer consumers any options that are even remotely environmentally friendly.

Anyway, after all that, I'm going to have to think long and hard about what I'm going to do when I get to the polls this evening.