They're ignoring the homeless
By John Mohan

Like millions of others, I'm a Facebook subscriber and continuously update my status with mood, opinion and event changes. So, after a two-week vacation in Florida (I have friends who give us use of their vacation home) you'd think that I'd say something about the fantastic time my wife Brenda and I had, or about the hurricanes, or about how great it was to be home in Winnipeg, or how I can't wait to get back to work.

But Sunday morning, the day after returning home, I updated my status to say, "John is confessing that I'm an election junkie and PM Harper has just called one. Let the good times begin." A friend commented, "I find out that we are having an election by reading your Facebook status. That is a first."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited the Governor General to resign his two-year and 217-day minority conservative government, casting Canadians into what all party leaders claim is an unwanted election (wink, wink). On Oct. 14, it will be our third Canadian federal election in the last four years.

The next 34 days will be rife with convincing speeches, door knocking and hand-shaking, town hall meetings, all-candidate debates, landscape-enhancing glossy signs and posters.
And professional looking commercials. Lots of commercials. Muchos comerciales. Grandes publicites. Winnipeggers will see them with red backgrounds, blue backgrounds, orange backgrounds and perhaps green backgrounds. (Do not adjust your TV sets.)

One questions the sanity of a politician. Gruelling campaigns. Careers and livelihoods dependent on the votes of the public. Hoping to be elected to make decisions guaranteed to be ruthlessly criticized no matter what they say, with opponents sounding like scripted professional wrestlers. Having to guard every word and deed done publicly and in private. Acting like you agree with every statement and policy of your party.

All candidates, parties, and leaders are promoting themselves as the obvious saviours of Canada who deserve our votes while their opponents are nothing more or less than incompetent evildoers. However, when we cut through all the rhetoric, what exactly are Canadian voters being asked to decide? A cleaner environment or a stronger economy? Or both? A longer military stay in Afghanistan? Stricter gun laws and harsher prison sentences? More government programs or lower taxes? Banishing the penny?

Nobody is talking about an affordable housing strategy for low-income Canadians.

Nobody is addressing chronic homelessness in one of the richest countries in the world. Nobody is promising to improve Canada's porous social safety net for the mentally ill living on our streets.

Maybe there are more serious matters for Canadians to focus on: Has Harper lost weight? Doesn't Dion sort of look like that "Where's Waldo" guy? Does Jack Layton wear lifts to look taller? Is Elizabeth May a covert Liberal? How does Duceppe talk without moving his lips?

Everybody paints themselves as the underdog and no one thinks we'll have a majority government when we're done. Some leaders' jobs are on the line if their party doesn't win or at least win more seats.