OTR has a soft spot for Canada. His great aunt--she had connections-- always kept the family well-supplied with Canadian maple syrup and maple sugar candies when he was a boy. Fifty years ago, a ten day visit to Canada was his first to a "foreign" country though there wasn't much foreign about it then or now. And toward the end of his career he spent almost two weeks each year working with a tireless, enthusiastic, and hospitable crew of Canadians from federal tourism, land management, and protection agencies. They were a great group who "smuggled" OTR and his colleagues some superb Canada-only "beverages" and introduced them to several dishes including poutine, a tasty artery clogging combination of french fries, cheese curds and gravy.OTR misses those annual opportunities to renew friendships and see what those Canucks planned to do both for and to us Yanks. The news coming out of Canada today may not be as personal as what he remembers, but it still feels positive if not downright friendly. That news? A mandate given to Conservative--and pro-American-- Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his party to govern Canada for four years. The leftist Liberal Party, always a power broker at the national level, took a breathtaking hammering and was displaced by the New Democrat Party as the main opposition. Could European-style socialism be wearing thin among Canadian voters? We who live in the new Age of Reason can only hope.
The Ottawa Citizen has the news here and here. And here is Mark Steyn's take--readers will enjoy the comments-- at National Review Online.
We should listen carefully to our friends across the border. Why dance closer to the socialist abyss than necessary? Socialism is the road to serfdom and the sooner U.S. voters understand it the better.
