Provincial Election Forecast: Cloudy With a High Probability of Drizzle
Hmmm, what do stratus clouds and the provincial election have in common?
Hang on to your hats. We’re heading into a provincial election in June thanks to provincial NDP leader Andrea Horvath who decided she cannot (or will not) support the Liberal government’s new budget. The sceptic in me can’t help but wonder if she made her decision before even cracking the cover on the budget document.
No doubt PC leader Tim Hudak is ecstatic. Horvath has done the dirty work for him. Now he can hit the campaign trail without the baggage of having caused the election.
There is a silver lining or two in this political cloud:
The federal Conservatives may take a break from their Justin Trudeau “in over his head” ads while the provincial leaders duke it out. The polls show their strategy is backfiring in any event. Half of the people who have seen the ads say they are more likely to vote Liberal because of them.
The press may turn their scandal-thirsty attention away from Mayor Rob Ford for a while – particularly since he is retreating from public life temporarily to seek help for his problems.
On the flip side, there are black clouds forming that we will have to endure:
Both the NDP and the Liberals will be banging the drum about the scandals of the McGuinty Liberal government – the cancelled power plants that could cost over a billion dollars and the ORNGE air ambulance fiasco. I can’t wait for the leader’s TV debate to see Horvath and Hudak compete to see who can exploit them the most shamelessly.
The radio and television airwaves will be cluttered with a spate of political ads as all three parties ramp up for this sprint election campaign. The mute button on my TV remote will get a work out as I’ll quickly tire of the barrage.
I find it difficult to stomach politics the way it is practised in this day and age. I always exercise my civic duty to vote and will continue to do so. I wish that politicians would exercise their civic duty to represent the interests of the people who elect them instead of playing the politics game.
Back to my original question. I found this definition of stratus clouds on a “Weather for Kids” website. Stratus clouds are uniform grayish clouds that often cover the entire sky. They resemble fog that does not reach the ground. Usually no precipitation falls from stratus clouds, but sometimes they may drizzle.
Stratus clouds seem like an apt weather metaphor for this provincial election – six weeks of uniformly gray conditions that put us in a fog as politicians drizzle rhetoric from on high. The silver lining is that it is only six weeks this time around. Thank God for small mercies.
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .
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