This is a very timely and appropriate article. However, after reading it, I’m not sure what you’re asking me to do. I started reading this under the pretense that I was going to get a manifesto of sorts related to how the left could find a way to unite, but you get a little distracted with consumerism.

That said, your article has its strength in that you force me to consider the bigger picture related to Canadian politics.

I’m at a loss when it comes to voting in Canada because I’ve tried to hear out the opinions of all of the ‘progressive’ voices in this country and they all wind up sounding like noise.

There is no coherence.

The NDP supports unions. I get it. But I don’t get unions supporting failing industries like car manufacturing. We need to take the $20 billion out of GM and put it into something productive like renewable energy or debt reduction. This should not be an emotional issue, but for some reason it is. Why? Because there are tens of thousands of people that have built ‘careers’ on doing the easy thing and getting a job on the line. I suppose I respect what they’re trying to do, but I don’t respect anyone that manufactures a Camaro or Cadillac Escalade using my money when I don’t want them to.

The NDP also talks about Proportional Representation (PR), but every time someone wins on the provincial level, we get nothing.

The Greens want market solutions to everything and have shunned their left-leaning European roots.

And the Liberals? Well, Iggy and the gang are looking too much like Harper to be able to convince me that they’re worth my vote.
And that’s just on the Federal stage.

There’s also municipal and provincial politics that get excessively muddy and vicious when it comes to power plays and posturing.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to choose.

I refuse to vote ‘strategically’. This is a gimmick used by dominant parties to pull people away from what’s really important to them.
I used to say that I’d support anyone who had an opinion, but those opinions are guaranteeing that people like Harper stay in control while we bitch and moan about not moving forward.

This support of opinion across the board not just endorses dilution of voting across the left, but also fractures our ability to coalesce under a single mission that will eventually lead to a lot of smaller values being implemented by a left that is in charge.

Getting back to the article, I still don’t know what you’re asking me to do, but you’ve made my day by making me ponder about the future of politics in Canada. That said, as long as the left is complete disarray, all of what you say means nothing.