Colby basically called me out todayyesterday, so coupled with the gentle nagging from friends, both on-line and off-, I guess that means I'm compelled to post. What's next? Dead Reckoning updates on a regular basis? Unfortunately, the Mariners still suck, so mustering up the energy to write about them is hard.

I could make a host of excuses for my absence these past few months, but the truth is that I've been kinda burned out on punditry, and even my interest in the Web itself has been flagging. I've been writing more fiction lately, working on a number of shorts (including one I've been nursing for the better part of three years now) and it's been sapping my creative energy. Also, I've been busy having a life outside of work, which is kind of nice. But when the mad blogger prophet from Edmonton nags, you don't have a lot of choice. Hence, the writing.

So let's talk about the only story really worth talking about in Canada these days. First off, I'm disappointed with all three major parties. Despite calls to the local campaign offices and pleas to have my e-mail answered and/or returned, I've received only a pair of replies to my inquiries about fringe issues that I had hoped would help me make up my mind. The Greens and the Canadian Action Party felt that it was important to reply to my questions, and I'll summarize those later today. In spite of the fact that it's 2004 and this world-wide cybernet thingy has been around in the collective consciousness of North American society for the better part of 11 or 12 years (oh, dear god, has it really been that long?!), it's very clear that many politicians simply Do Not Get It.

Back in my young and stupid days, when I worked political campaigns, we would have killed for a medium where we could engage voters in a meaningful, in-depth, nuanced discussion about policy and ideas. It's hard to explain your position on, say, Archibald v. Canada on the doorstep because you've got at best a five minute window of opportunity to make the case why the person whose dinner you interrupted should vote for you, and that's assuming the individual in question actually cares. Even when voters phoned the office looking for information, it was hard to craft a careful position over the telephone; some issues were so weighty, so complex, that it was only through the benefit of sober contemplation that an appropriate response could be formulated. Enter e-mail, a delayed-response medium ideally suited for this kind of thing, where you can take the time to think through your answers before hitting the send button, where you can examine and consider how you want to reply to the issues. We would have sacrificed a lot to get something like this. Apparently, though, these benefits have been lost on the three major parties in Victoria. I'm told Ed Broadbent's Web site is pretty cool, with some hip-hop Flash animations and stuff to appeal to younger voters (hmm, old guy rapping -- yep, I can definitely see the logic there), but my somewhat informal survey of people who've sent e-mail to their candidates has revealed they pay disgustingly little attention to what comes into their boxes. Probably most discouraging of all was David Anderson, my MP of record and the guy who should be answering my e-mail promptly (he has a staff and everything -- hell, I pay for it). Nada.

Howard Dean's campaign was about a lot of things, and like any pseudo-moral crusade there was much to dislike, but it got one thing right, if nothing else: The Internet is the most powerful tool invented to date for connecting people for an in-depth exchange of ideas. It doesn't always seem like this, though bloggers have an irritating habit of continually repeating this point, but at its core, that's what the Internet does best. It's almost infuriating to see that in 2004 there are people who are supposed to be good communicators who don't acknowledge this.

We should get this out of the way now: I'm very likely going to end up voting Tory. But I'm not going to be happy about it; Logan Wenham is going to end up getting my vote even though he's systematically ignored my requests for information for two weeks now, and I'm not thrilled with some of the stuff Harper's done in the campaign. But I've really had it with Anderson -- he showed up at work during the last federal election for a photo-op without asking anyone first, and made life miserable for us for an hour or so as he intruded in our lives -- and his total refusal to even consider the science on oil and gas exploration is probably going to cripple this province economically for years to come. And it's going to be a dark day before I vote NDP on general principle, so this is really a "lesser evil" choice.

Even if I could get past the fiscal irresponsibilities of the Liberals -- I'm not one of those people who turns purple at the mention of Pierre Trudeau's legacy -- there's always something else:

The war of words over health care escalated Friday, with Paul Martin continuing to warn about a secret Stephen Harper -Ralph Klein deal that would ruin health care and the Conservatives insisting Mr. Martin is bending the truth to win back voters.

Mr. Martin began the day by stepping up his medicare attacks on his Conservative foes Friday, challenging Mr. Klein, Alberta Premier to publicly state the details of his provincial health-care changes before voters head to the polls June 28.

Speaking in St. Catharines, Ont., Mr. Martin said that when the details are made public Mr. Harper should weigh in with his opinion.

"I would ask Stephen Harper to stand up and offer his views as I have already said that I will do," Mr. Martin said. "After all, the future of health care is the No. 1 priority of Canadians.

"Albertans have a right to see what lies in store; Canadians have a right to judge for themselves the resolve of national leaders to stand up for the principles of the Canada Health Act."

Damn that dastardly Ralph Klein! If he's elected Prime Minister, he's going to ruin everything we've worked for! Vote for me, Paul Martin, so that Prime Minister Ralph won't turn Canada into something we won't recog--what? Ralph Klein isn't the leader of the opposition and the man most likely to take Paul Martin's job away from him? Really. That's a surprise. I must be the only person in the country who doesn't understand why Martin is attacking a provincial premier who poses no threat to him a week from Monday instead of the guy who has a pretty good chance of knocking on his door and asking him to air out the place before the new occupants move in.

We should be clear about this, at least: Martin's comments have nothing whatsoever to do with health care policy. The base platforms of both the Liberals and the Conservatives offer very little by way of structural change to health care in Canada, and personally, I consider this a moot issue in the election. Anyone who thinks either party is going to do something dramatic involving health care should seek the services of a licensed health care professional, 'cause it ain't gonna happen. The NDP is the only party with a "radical" idea about health care, and even their solution isn't very interesting since it essentially amounts to throwing money at the problem. Everyone has a lot of platitudes, but not a lot of idea; they are, to borrow from former Libertarian Massachusetts gubneratorial candidate Carla Howell, the equivalent of breaking your legs, handing you a pair of crutches, and saying, "See? We fixed you." Thanks, guys.

Nor does this have anything to do with defending Medicare. The Liberals and -- pains me though it does to say this, but -- their flacks in the media (ugh, I feel dirty now) have done a lot of work to raise the spectre of the Conservative's "hidden agenda"... though in all fairness the Tories haven't been helping matters much themselves. There's a kernel of truth in that, mind you; I still haven't really forgiven Harper for refusing to show much passion in the past two years for anything other than committing Canadian forces to Iraq and sucking up to Bush (but that's really more Kevin Michael Grace's gig than mine), and their lack of a coherent focus is a little worrying.

You can get elected on a platform of "we're not the other guys" -- Gordon Campbell rode it to a landslide in British Columbia -- but the electorate can expect a few surprises when the new government takes office. Will they be worse than the surprises that come from the Liberals on a regular basis? Beats me.

Nope, Martin's attacks on Klein, and the suggestion that Klein is hoping he'll have a complaced Prime Minister in Ottawa on the 30th, when he unveils his plan, have absolutely nothing to do with policy or health care or even what's in the best interests of the country. They are the Canadian equivalent of race-baiting -- Alberta-bashing being the last acceptable political prejudice in this country. Harper was taken out behind the woodshed and soundly whipped in 2002 because of comments he made about Atlantic Canada, comments that I suspect probably struck most Canadians as being more or less on-target. But you wouldn't know it from the hue and cry; now, Martin is doing much the same thing, though for much more craven reasons, and outside of the thermonuclear explosion amongs Alberta editorialists, no one much seems to care.

I'll put this in even blunter terms than "race-baiting," because I think the following analogy is more apt. Remember George W. Bush coming out against gay marriage? Someone -- I want to say it was The Poor Man -- made the comment that Bush's message could be translated thusly: "Hey, unemployed NASCAR fans facing duty in Iraq, look! Homos!" Or, in less funny terms, "Pay no attention to my track record of failed policies that may bother you and/or get you killed, and be afraid of something abstract that might happen if you vote for the other guy!"

It is exactly the same thing. Martin has essentially condemned every Alberta Liberal candidate to a resounding defeat at the polls, and why not? You haven't been able to elect a Liberal in Alberta since NEP, statistical anomalies like Anne McClellan notwithstanding. He knows he's not going to win any friends in the province with his comments, but so what? He didn't have friends there to begin with (and, with this latest outrage, won't have friends there for a while -- prompting him to complain about Albertans again). His attack on Ralph Klein was aimed squarely at the hearts and minds of Ontario voters who, disgusted by the HRDC boondoggle and AdScam, were thinking about voting Tory. But Martin, raising the horrifying spectre of Canadian policy not created within the Ottawa-Toronto-Montreal triangle, is trying to make people vote out of a combination of fear and ignorance.

The hell of it is, the trick might actually work. The eastern, Toronto-based aristocracy that runs most of Canada (yes, I do realize how paranoid I sound when I say this) enjoys sniffing contemptuously at western Canada, and at Alberta in particular. They cannot understand the motivation behind trying to change this country's political system because they are the ones who benefit from the existing system. "You might think our fuckups were bad," seems to be the message, "and you probably don't care about guns, but I bet you care about health care, and just you wait to see what those crazy westerners are going to do! I could go on, but I want you to sleep well at night. I'm Paul Martin, and I approved this message." (Whoops, I've been watching too much American TV.)

This is probably at the top of my list of the things I find most irritating about Canada. I think this is a swell place to live, and the idea of living elsewhere is deeply unappealing. But there are niggling little things I really can't stand, and this automatic dismissal of all things western, coupled with the contemptuous sniffing in our general direction, is one of the most aggravating. I wonder periodically if I'm not just nursing a grudge that formed in the minds of every Albertan who either lived through or came of age in the aftermath of NEP, but then almost like clockwork something happens to make me realize I'm not actually imagining this attitude -- things like William Thorsell's column from December, or Martin's thinly-veiled threats about the dangers of Alberta-style idealism this week. And then I wonder if maybe my problem is that I'm not angry enough.

This news is over 24 hours old as I type this, and I'm still really pissed off. For those readers in eastern Canada who think I'm overreacting, I would ask you only to imagine this: If it were Gilles Duceppe and Jean Charest, could you see Martin making these comments? Heck, if it were Mike Harris and Steve Harper, could you see Martin saying this sort of thing? Why, then, is it OK to do it to Steve Harper and Ralph Klein? I daresay that it probably wouldn't be as big an issue if it were Harper and Gordo, for that matter, though I'm not willing to bet my own money on that.

Oh, for whatever it might be worth, as far as actual substance in the threats goes: Harper managed to get the question of federal policy in health care management exactly right. "Why do I care and why do we care as a federal government how they're managed?" he asked somewhat rhetorically. "What we care about is whether people can access them. This is just an ideological agenda." Bingo.

Epilogue: Uh, yeah. Woo minority government! Way to fall 18 months later! Um. Yeah. Wooo!