Well, the 2025 Federal Election is underway.
I live in Vancouver Centre.
I’m stuck between voting for the lame duck NDP or the useless federal Liberals.
The Liberal party has been kinda my default party, although I would dearly love to see Dr. Hedy Fry tossed to the curb.
I’ve lived in the West End of Vancouver since 1993.
Dr. Hedy Fry has been my federal MP since the ’90s
I needed her help back in 2012 dealing with the whole mess from Canadian Forces Base Namao. No help at all. Seriously. Her assistant was about as useless as a concrete parachute.
Then in 2020, when the Canadian Forces finally released to me the transcripts from the 1980 CFSIU investigation and the July 1980 Courts Martial which showed that the military police in 1980 and 2011 knew the full extent of the babysitter’s action, she refused to assist with my matter citing the fact that there are no military bases in Vancouver Centre.
I’ve asked to talk to her various time since the federal Liberals first flubbed on their promise to implement Medical Assistance in Dying for Mental Illness in 2023.
Yet, I have no choice but to vote for her.
In all honesty, I’d be voting for the NDP as my politics are pro-union and pro-social issue and the federal Liberals are a corporate type party. But the federal NDP has tried to drift to the right-of-centre to capture Liberal voters.
The current candidate for the NDP in Vancouver Centre, Avi Lewis, ignored the questions that I posed to him. I asked “what are your opinions on Medical Assistance in Dying for reasons of Mental Health”, and “what do you intend to do about the flaw in the pre-1998 National Defence Act that deny justice to anyone who was ever sexually abused on a military base by a person subjected to the code of service discipline prior to 1998”.
Avi Lewis never responded.
Two canvassers that were in my apartment building glad-handing for Avi refused to respond to either question and instead segued into affordable housing and other fluff of no use to me.
I’m not planning on living long enough to worry about “affording a house”.
In Vancouver Centre we’ve always had to watch out for the Conservative Party of America. Ever since the Conservatives merged with the Reform Party and the Alliance Party, marching in lockstep with American policy has always been their desire.
I used to live in Alberta, and I have relatives in Alberta, so I’m very familiar with the very weird politics in that province.
The C.R.A.Party has always posed a threat to Canada, and it will continue to do so so long as Canada refuses to crack down on American dark money in any meaningful manner.
Over the last 20 years there’s been an explosion of new condos popping up like rancid mushrooms in Vancouver Centre. A lot of these condos are investments either rented out as apartments or AirBNBs and as such the owners tend to want to vote for those who will cut taxes to the absolute minimum while allowing for the removal of zoning regulations and “red tape”. The owners of the condos tend to always vote for the CONs because they really don’t care about social issues, they just care about buying up more condos and raking in more money through rentals or through AirBNBs.
So, yet again I trundle off to the voting booth to plug my nose and fill in the circle beside Fry’s name.
Hopefully this is the last time I ever have to vote in a federal election as the next one is due in 2029 and hopefully I’m gone by 2027.
Beeshive 