Not again.

Canadians will be heading to the polls on October 14th to elect a new government. Of course, it's only been two years since they last went to the polls to elect a new government, and what a joy that turned out to be. The Tories have been in power since 2006, in a minority administration, and surprise surprise, Stephen Harper hasn't been able to pass any laws because parliament is so split between the main parties that the three others (centre-left to varying degrees) keep uniting against him to block new legislation.

From what's been written, it doesn't look like the political fault lines are set to change to any great extent in October. Even Harper has resigned himself to expecting another minority government. Which begs the question, why the hell hold an election to change things when change is exactly what isn't going to happen?

Following the story on the CBC website, you can read comments that people have left. Most are nonsense. But one of them pretty much sums up the lunacy of the situation for me.

I am an Immigrant to Canada and currently I cannot vote until I got my canadian Citizenship. I live in the country since 1994 and I realy wonder if canadian parties have nothing better to do that call for elections.

Since I am in Canada there were elections in 6/97, 11/00, 6/04, and 1/06

Now if I look at the time wasted between desolving the goverment, having an election, forming a new government and have this government actually start working it is probbably 4 month or so. Multiply this by well now 5 elections, that mean that this country had no working government for almost 2 years since I live in Canada. I am also wondering at the cost of those elections. I believe I read somewhere that an election cost around $200 million that times 5 equals $1 billion just for elections. Do these governments not have
anything better to spend that money on?

-71gonzo71