By Siva Sivapragasam
The fall season in Canada is normally a riot of colors on trees. The season this year has additional colors on ground too.Lawn signs of candidates in different colors ???Blue, Red, Orange & Green, are spread from coast to coast across the country.
Mr. Citizen Canada becomes a VIP once in five years when he is the decision maker as to who rules Canada for the next five years.
The campaign period for the 2015 election has been one of the longest in Canadian election history. As the election campaign entered it???s final lap, polls surveys suggest that probably Canadians will elect a minority government. That will require one party to seek the co-operation of at least one other to obtain a mandate if it wants to form a majority Government. The Liberals and the NDP said clearly during the campaign that they would not in any circumstances support a Conservative government. This means a Harper minority government could be defeated on its first confidence vote. Mr. Harper has said during the campaign that the party with the most seats should govern. Public opinion polls are showing the strong likelihood that no party will win the 170 seats required to form a majority government in the House of Commons, which has been increased to 338 seats.
The major issues in this year???s election campaign were as follows:
-The Economy
-Tax cuts
-Employment
-Allegations of scandals (e.g. The Senate scandal)
-The Syrian refugee crisis ??? Foreign Policy
The Conservatives are promising the voters a safer and secure Canada through balanced budgets, providing fairness to families through income splitting leading to savings, Increasing the Universal Child Tax benefits, bolstering the economy to create more jobs and create more home owners.
The Liberals have promised to effect a Real Change for a better Canada by putting more money in the pockets of the middle class with tax cuts, creating a more honest and open Government, senate reform, a youth employment strategy, investing $100 million for refugee re-settlement & processing, bringing 25,000 Syrian refugees and improving health care services.
The NDP promises to pump billions of dollars on Government expenditure to create more jobs and expand economic activity, partnership with the private sector to create more jobs, encourage the construction of more affordable rental units through tax breaks,to end the bombing campaign in Syria and Iraq, to bring in 10,000 Syrian refugees before the end of the year.
Should the Liberals win most number of seats but fall short of a majority, there is the possibility of the party entering into a working relationship with the NDP to keep the Conservatives out of continuing in power.
Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau & Thomas Mulcair will have a date with destiny on Monday. It will be like a game of musical chairs for the leaders of the main parties not knowing who will sit in the chair when the music stops.
