Tax cuts? Stiffer penalties for criminals? A return to governmental accountability? And all propped up on the myth of the ever-expanding economy. For an American who left California on the heels of George W. Bush’s bloodless coup, on the cusp of his illegal war, it all sounds very familiar. My Canadian wife and daughter and I came to Canada in 2002, expecting to find the Canada my wife left 20 years ago: Trudeau’s Canada, a place where no one’s too poor to be sick or sheltered, where no one’s too rich to be above the law. As the election looms, we can only shake our heads.

On one hand, the corrupt Liberal government and its zillionaire leader talking in whichever direction the wind blows and on the other, the Conservative leadership, finger-pointing, privatizing and apparently gaining ground by promising tax cuts to an Ontario that only months ago voted in a new Premier on the grounds that we needed to restore our public services to pre-Tory levels.

Round and round they go with the sound bytes and the tax cuts and the ducking and dodging of their own words as they go in and out of vogue, all the while vilifying and ostracizing Jack Layton, the only one of the bunch who, to me, actually sounds like a Canadian � the only one whose plans for the future of Canada actually include all Canadians.

I guess with all this going on, I felt obliged as an American to reach out to my Canadian neighbours and say, “Welcome to America.”

– David Kemker