Yesterday, a Twitter squabble-not-squabble between an NDP supporter and a web marketing expert spilled into my feed. What started as a complaint about the amateurish design of campaign materials for this month's elections in New Brunswick turned into a debate on the actual topology of the political left.
After living for four decades and change under the Coke-vs.-Pepsi choice that is U.S. politics, I didn't have an equivalent simile for the menu that New Brunswickers face this year on the provincial level and next year on the federal.
Until now. Thanks for being my muse, @cbmackay!
Canadian Political Parties as Operating Systems
Windows 8 = The Conservative Party of Canada (a.k.a. the "Tories")
- Is extremely business-oriented
- Relies on advertising blitzes to create reality distortion field
- Leaders particularly enjoy hob-nobbing with the Queen
- No one ever seems happy with the current version...yet there they are in the lead
- Slick image (Seriously, Justin Trudeau is a cutie-pie.)
- Relies on charismatic leaders to create reality distortion field
- Is becoming more business-oriented (again)
- Has a history of pandering to the hip kids...and the trying-to-be-hip kids
- Is a relative newcomer
- Is more ubiquitous than anyone ever appreciates (currently the Official Opposition, but you'd never know it from the press)
- Has distinctly populist leanings
- The job at hand determines whether or not it plays well with others
- Originally created with legacy in mind
- Uses a different language than other systems
- Anyone who doesn't have to understand it generally doesn't try
- Established in 1983
- Okay, that's reaching. Fact is, I got nothin' other than the Greens are basically the hippies of Canadian politics. If you're left-leaning, you're rooting for them, but you know they'll never take over the world.
