Dear Editor
October 20, 2015 … and a great sigh of relief was heard across the land. The tyrant has fallen!
Every person who worked to defeat Stephen Harper, no matter what your party, won this election. The wisdom of the citizens gives hope for a future. We avoided splitting the vote. We played it safe by voting for the historically established governing party. The leaders couldn’t cooperate, but the people did. This has been a brilliant accomplishment of our collective mind and spirit. Our unprecedented response was commensurate with the outrages Harper committed against our democracy. This was not just a vote “for change,” it was a vote to remove the Harper government, to take back our country. But the Liberals are taking the credit. Mainstream media focus on party policies, campaign strategies, personalities. Happy under this capitalist alternative too, they’re quick to turn it into a Liberal triumph; Canada’s first “family dynasty.”
One leader takes the credit, the rest take the blame; but it was the voters’ wise decision. Many a stalwart NDP or Green must have voted for the candidate most likely to defeat the Conservative. But our win-lose culture revises the people’s collective victory. The cult of the individual, the all-powerful male leader, established interests: some of us are making the same mistake again. The people, though, will remember.
Hilda Bechler, New Westminster
