Here In Canada

I woke up this morning to a change in government here in Canada. The sun was shining. People were at the mall across the street, parking, shopping, walking about. There was no sound of gunfire in the streets. There was no smoke on the horizon, no burned out businesses, no death toll. There was only a simple change in the people who run this country, hopefully for our benefit, but not always. It was, as has always been and I hope ever will be, another peaceful transition in a history of a nation dedicated to the idea that change can be peaceful.

It has been an interesting election campaign, one in which the sense of the need of Canadians to change their government became increasingly evident as the days wore on. This was a long campaign, one of the longest in Canadian history. We, as a nation, are not much for this politicking. We prefer our elections short, your politicians respectful, and our business not bothered by it all. The harshest things we see in Canadian campaigns are a few damaged signs and the odd shouting match. We like it that way; that's one thing we didn't want to change with this election.

There are very few ways in which a federal election touches me personally. The greatest impacts on me, on all of us, start at the municipal level. We want our roads paved. We want our garbage taken out. We want our police honest and diligent. We want firefighters to save us. These matter in our daily lives. For me, however, the provincial government also has a great impact with its approach to health care. Alberta has long had one of the best health care systems in the country. I hope it stays that way.

At a federal level, the issues are much more esoteric. I ask myself, "What kind of a country to I want to live in? How do I want my nation perceived abroad? How do I want it to respond to the least able of its citizens; the poor, the sick, the uneducated, the unemployed?" These are not rhetorical questions. These questions matter, to me and to all Canadians. And for starters, I want to live in the kind of country where politics is reasonably respectful and honest, where governments change without violence, and where the people of the nation come before the needs of those in power.

That's where I live, here in Canada.