January 23, 2006

Watching an election from far away

I voted for the first time in a federal election on dec 17th. It feels like ages ago. It's a bit weird to have voted more than a month before the actual election date.

My thoughts are well known by most who know me, and i've already posted on them. I just want to say one last time 'good riddance'. Also 'what a terrible campaign by the liberals'

I got into Dunedin today and it's pretty hilly. Man is it ever! It's a nice town and I went and checked out the oldest university in New Zealand. I kind of want to go have a look and maybe try and do a bit of research.

My interest is in two separate but related areas. First is economics and the purely ideological revolution that was forced upon New Zealand in the 1980s and early 1990s. The second area is the shift from a FPP (FIrst Past the Post) electoral system like we currently have in Canada to a MMP (Mixed Member Parliament).

Both are possible candidates for eventual Master's theses if I can find a program that will support the research. I would love to do the economic one, but i'd look at it more from a political perspective. I think a lot of insight could be gained from looking at it, and maybe comparing it to Canada, or the UK or US or even Australia.

More and more I feel like I'll stay in Canada, hopefully travel as well, but I think that's likely where I'll end up. I met this nice British girl who also wanted to do her Phd and become a professor. She started studying American history. It was interesting to see another person's thoughts about the whole process and being in the middle of making those difficult decisions.

It's the 23rd here, why can't i know the election results?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

you got your wish Justin.....

Anonymous said...

Yeah, we all got our wish. I never would have predicted such a poor campaign from "the world's most successful party" - and that combined with a great one from the Conservatives gave us what we got last night.

But I hate to say it, Justin - I think the NDP campaign sucked. Layton came off as a loser, and if it weren't for the fact that the Liberals were awful, the NDP wouldn't have gained anything.

Did you watch everything on cpac.ca?

-Gary

Anonymous said...

"I always thought the conservatives had a chance at the minority. Gary you didn't beleive me and neither did Derek and Dan."

Please. No one could have predicted the Liberals would drop the ball so much.

But what remains to be seen is how long this government will last. You said we'd be back at the polls in another year, I think, as it stands this is what the government will look like for a while - unless the Liberals get some great new charismatic leader or the Conservatives completely screw up.

-Gary

Justin said...

I was surprised too by the liberal campaign. I still did predict that the conservatives would get a minority, shitty liberal campaign notwithstanding.

I think it proves my point at how bad a liberal leader martin was, and how much he divided his party. Im just gald tony valeri the "Copps" killer got booted out.

You're right about the NDP campaign, though I think it wasn't quite as bad as you said. It's difficult for them to get much media coverage so their campaign doesn't matter as much anyways.

The other person i wanted to see defeated just because he's an ass was Minister of Transpot, Jean Lapierre.

Oh well a lot of liberal ministers lost, a few good ones too, like reg alcock, and Anne Mclellan (though i expected that one)

Oh well should be interesting, I'm really hoping Stockwell Day won't be foreign affairs minister but i betcha he will be if he has his way