Poll: NDP Gains Ground

Shudder.  Now there's a scare in the 'please say it ain't so' realm of incredulity.  Canadians have a stable government in a stable social and economic environment.  While all around us there are symptoms and quite discernible symbols of how we are affected by events transpiring all over the world, with some regimes in far-off countries presenting the world with the crisis of potential disaster, others closer to home are experiencing a crumbling financial situation threatening to embroil the much larger world community.

From Iran and North Korea to Greece and Italy, and with Russia and Venezuela in between there is more than enough unrest in the world, with countries in the Middle East and Africa putting the icing on the cake with their incessant regional brutalities, tribal and religious atrocities committed against one another, impacting the world and its stability in ways not yet quite known.  And here we are, in Canada, an island of calm and security.

Or so it would seem.  Certainly there are difficulties here, but they are present on a scale not to be compared with the dread events playing out in Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Sudan, and the threats maliciously posed on the world community by Iran and North Korea.  Russia and China, with their concerns about their growing power status and strengthening economies feel a 'no-interference' policy suits them best (even while Russia arms the Syrian regime).

Canada's current Conservative-led government has been doing all the right things in its approach to international situations that impact, in one way or another, on this country.  We become involved when it behooves us to as a matter of national responsibility, and stand back when it seems wiser to do so.  On the home front there are troubling decisions made such as the push for austerity to ensure the national deficit and debt don't become more of a problem than they already are.

Our unemployment figures, while high, don't represent an emergency yet.  And we can hope that as our trading partners become eventually more fiscally stable, our own situation will improve even more.  The issue of providing assured energy sources to China and permitting that octopus-like stretch to acquire holdings in Canadian resources to take place is an issue of concern.  Similarly the government's move to 'save' in its expenditures by cutting back on scientific research represents another area of grave concern.

But the wacky, intemperate and often juvenile antics of the New Democratic Party, now by a truly bizarre quirk of circumstances that brought the party, thanks to a temporary blip in Quebec politics, to become the Official Opposition, are just too absurd to take seriously.  Those who seem to gravitate to the NDP seem to lack full awareness of what they demand, they fail to observe situations from a full and responsible perspective.

They opt for quick and easy and feel-good fixes.  The electorate was always wary and soon weary of their constant accusations against the more responsible parties which have always had the opportunity to govern, turn-about, until each was eventually tossed out.  Cheap shots became their forte, never having had to actually be in a position to put their brilliant ideas of wealth distribution into actions that would diminish the capability of the country to produce jobs and access to employment.

Now, a  'wide-ranging' Forum Poll for the National Post has resulted in polling figures that some may think are amazing.   An election call of the moment would see a minority NDP party replace the current majority Conservative-led government.  Over one-third of respondents to the poll preferred the NDP while fewer than one-third favoured the Conservative Party (one-fifth for the Liberals).

Under this scenario, the NDP would occupy 138 seats in the 308-seat Parliament of Canada, increased from the 103 they currently hold, while the Conservatives whose 166 seats won in the last election, would see their holdings reduced to 123 seats.  "A lot of what we see and hear about these days is the '1% versus the 99%'", was the opinion of Forum Research Inc.'s president Lorne Bozinoff.

Resentment of those who 'get by', the majority of any population - against those who get by in a princely, most handsome fashion, becoming richer by the moment.  Perfectly normal, as a prevailing attitude.  And should the majority of Canadians think that the NDP, installed as the governing party, would have the effect of over-turning that situation, to even out the incomes across the board for all Canadians, they're dreaming of an Emerald City in the Sky.