To date I have not seen ONE Liberal party election commercial. Not a single one. While the Conservatives have been raking the Liberals and Trudeau over the coals on TV for months.
How exactly do the Liberals think they are going to win an election if they don't advertise their platform/message? There is enough drama this time that we may very well wind up with a Conservative majority, and God help us if we do. Kiss your rights and freedoms goodbye, everyone. And count on the next election being rigged. I'm sure they have at least learned that from Harper.
It might depend on which channels you watch, and which region of the country you're in. Most of my TV viewing is on whatever channels simulcast the CBS reality shows and my afternoon soap, plus the renamed Space Channel. It's not surprising that in Alberta, we're absolutely bombarded with anti-Trudeau TV ads. I've seen a couple of Liberal ads, but they're very low-key. The Liberals aren't spending money in a region they don't expect they'll win anyway.
I hate politics. There is nothing worse than being an LGBT woman under the Conservatives. I'm a second or third class citizen at best. Moving home to Ireland is starting to look very attractive right about now...
Y'know, I do have a lot of sympathy for that position, but... please. Try being physically disabled or dealing with some forms of mental illness under the Conservatives. If we can't work an 8-hour day consistently, we're considered unproductive leeches who don't deserve a life beyond the minimum. People like me aren't supposed to want to actually go anywhere, for instance. Other than my surgeries earlier this year (in Innisfail, because there's no room for eye surgeries at the Red Deer hospital), I haven't been out of this city in 15 YEARS. My doctor said she'd been doing some advocating for a bus service for people like me so we could actually travel between cities without having to spend a fortune on charters and for reasons other than medical, but it's obviously not on any politician's radar. Greyhound is gone, Red Arrow doesn't even have a depot, and apparently I'm just supposed to have family or friends to take me everywhere (pardon me for them dying, how rude of them). I keep reading about the fantastic bus service between Calgary and Banff/Canmore and surrounding tourist areas, and it's something I could actually afford to do, to spend a day in the mountains once or twice a summer. It would do wonders for my mental health to have something like that. But the trick is to get to Calgary - affordably - and that's not possible.
Elections Alberta cut funding for helping disabled voters. During the last provincial election, I had to go to the Returning Office on one of my "good days" - which happened to be outside the advance polling days - and refuse to leave until they let me vote (they weren't going to at first, but I pointed to the voting station in the corner and asked them why it was there, if they weren't letting anyone vote yet). It was a contentious time, they asked impertinent questions, talked about me like I wasn't even there, and made me feel like they didn't think people like me should be allowed to vote. I'm not anticipating any improvement with my coming interactions with the federal returning officers.
And now Jason Kenney is saying the coming budget "won't be as bad as the Ralph Klein budgets"... people like me are honestly afraid that even the modest AISH increase we had earlier this year will be revoked. Some are saying that of course it won't be as bad - it'll be worse.
So yeah, Alberta under Harper's lapdog might not be a comfortable place for LGBT people, since we all know where Kenney stands on that, and life is going to be varying kinds of miserable for the LGBT kids in schools because the UCP canceled the NDP's requirement that all schools receiving public funding allow GSAs. But at least there are some who actually can vote with their feet and leave, if they want to.
So while I don't face discrimination over my sexual orientation, I'll bet you don't face discrimination over whether your body functions correctly - because there are an awful lot of government paper-pushers, businesses, and some of their employees who think it's just too much bother to find a way to work around the problem so the disabled person can access the services to which they're entitled.
Given the state of affairs, I don't see a Conservative majority. Or any majority. I predict a minority government. The political climate seems to be blowing in that direction strongly. I just don't know who will have such a minority. Keep in mind that, even though they're not likely to steal seat (or more than a few) from the Conservatives, the People's Party still seems to be stealing votes. Not a meteoric amount, but in FPTP, quite possibly enough to matter.
Opinion seems to be divided in my building (I spoke to three tenants and the Canada Post guy) over which party to vote for, but not one person even mentioned the blackface issue.
My VIC didn't come yesterday (the mailman had a stack of them to deliver, and said some of them wouldn't be out until tomorrow, which by now is today). If I don't see mine today, I plan to get on the phone and straighten stuff out. If I'm in a very bad mood after that, it'll be due to being on hold for an insane amount of time and/or getting static over special ballots.