What the Parties Want - Introduction

Gentle reader,

I have been following the election closely, obsessively, like a stalker whose restraining order has just expired. I've watched the debates, I've read speeches, examined countless minutes of youtube video and innumerable column inches of journalistic commentary. In order to justify to myself that I haven't just thrown away two weeks of my life, I've set up these posts to try to share some of my hard-won insights into this collective mess that we call an election. The leaders have talked about issues ad nauseum, and we've heard more about the Green Shift and Stephen Harper's sweater than any of us ever wanted to. I'll try to do something different in the following posts - go party by party and describe their agenda for Canada, the ways in which they want to transform this country and its people. This is something that political leaders tend to keep hidden from the public, and may be a way in which I can introduce something new to the discussion. I have tried to be fair and found that impossible, so I've settled for being even-handed. I have likewise tried to be careful with my prose and my spelling, but it may not be perfect - my proofreader took the weekend off and also doesn't exist.