Laurence Miall

Today is the day of the Canadian election. I voted earlier today, hoping that my support for the Liberals will cost the Bloc Quebecois their seat, which they’ve held since 2006. Overall, though, it looks as though the Conservatives will win again, albeit with a minority. I find Canadians’ choice bizarre, since Stephen Harper’s Bush-lite administration has turned its back on many things that I thought were widely supported. For example, affordable daycare. When they were in government, the Liberals got almost universal support from the provinces for their national daycare program; the Conservatives scrapped it and replaced it with a measly $100 monthly credit that is a drop in the bucket compared to what it actually costs to send a kid to daycare.

And Stephen Harper’s conservatives do next to nothing on one of Canadians’ top priority: the environment. If re-elected, they will preside over yet more Big Oil tax holidays and further increases in carbon emissions. Plus, without rhyme or reason, they cut arts funding, and favour direct ministerial interference in determining which arts projects get supported. Since when did Conservatives became the community standards police?

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Closer to home, I have a new bicyle. I purchased it from a rough-looking dude on St. Laurent yesterday. It’s a great bike. Only $25 — probably stolen — but it goes like a racehorse. Yesterday, I took it all the way from Villeray to NDG and back.  Beautiful ride.

And today, I continued my trend of buying from dodgy people, and purchased a black kitten from some apparent drug fiends in a basement apartment — again on St. Laurent. The woman answered the door in a skirt-thing that stopped well short of her knobbly knees. Her shoulder was plastered with band aids. A remedy for needle-induced track marks, I wonder? The squalid pit, which was a third of the size of my own apartment, was nevertheless currently serving as digs to the aforementioned woman as well as two men who were content to laze around in their undies. The healthiest critters in there were the kitties. My kittie was reportedly born August 30. She’s tiny. She is now settling into her new abode nicely, and is currently enjoying a well-deserved sleep on my bed.

Meanwhile, work continues apace on scheming of how to make money. I already make a bit of money, but I need to make a lot more in order to be solvent on a month-to-month basis. There could be good news on the horizon, or there could be yet more depressing news. Luck has not been plentiful, lately. I guess I have to go make my own damn luck.