Real choices

There were many reasons why I wanted to leave the United States. The one that really stood out for me, though--the one that finally made me get off my duff and take the plunge--was the fact that there's simply no political home in my country of birth for a lefty idealistic pragmatist. Those Americans like me who don't leave have three options: they can decide to hold their noses and vote Democrat year after year, they can join the leftist fringe and keep company with modern-day Abbie Hoffmans, or they can become apolitical cynics who cry in their beer over how bad things are, but never do anything about it. I tried all three, and none of them suited me even remotely.

This, above all other reasons, is why I get so very angry when the Liberals try to whittle the colourful spectrum of Canadian choices down to two. Paul Martin keeps claiming that Stephen Harper wants to turn Canada into a clone of the United States, but from where I sit, he's been trying to do that himself for this entire election. Just imagine what Canada would look like if Martin's vision of a binary choice reflected actual reality: if there'd never been an NDP, never been a Bloc Québécois, never been a Green Party. It would not only be far more boring, it would also be far more American. And I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been there and done that, and I really, really don't want to go back.

On Monday, in my very first election as a Canadian, I will be voting NDP--and despite all my talk about the unfortunate understandability of strategic voting, that decision was an easy one. It certainly doesn't hurt that the Edmonton-Strathcona candidate, Linda Duncan, is the only bright spot in a sea of mediocrity, nor does it hurt that with the collapse of the Liberal vote in the riding, she actually has an outside shot at winning. But my main reason for voting NDP is still the same as the reason I wanted to come to Canada in the first place. See, for the first time in my nearly two decades as a voter, I will have the option of voting not for the lesser of two evils, not for a candidate and a party who are still lightyears away from me on the political spectrum, but for someone who actually comes very close to standing for what I believe in. That's what becoming a Canadian meant to me: the extraordinary political freedom to make a real choice instead of a forced choice.

After waiting this long for it, there's no way in hell I'm going to let Paul Martin--or anyone else--take it away from me.