Tyee: “How Strangely You Canadians Elect Your Leader” by Aleeza Khan

Tyee: “How Strangely You Canadians Elect Your Leader”

A global perspective is always interesting…. How are Canadians viewed by the world and how do Canadians view the world.

Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff has viewed the world as a media correspondent for BBC and CBC, and also as a professor at Harvard University.

Conservative leader Stephen Harper rarely visited another country, until he had to as Prime Minister.

I have met Jack Layton and his wife Olivia Chow and found them both very personable and friendly.  Both have a good understanding of multiculturalism, inclusion, and immigrant issues.  They are such a “Gung Haggis couple” because of their intercultural marriage.


Jack Layton posed with me and my bagpiper friends Allan and Trish McMordie, following the 2009 St. Patrick's Day parade. photo T. Wong

Check out this article in The Tyee, by visiting Brit Aleeza Khan.

Tyee: “How Strangely You Canadians Elect Your Leader”

A visitor from the UK contrasts Conservative PM David
Cameron with Conservative PM Stephen Harper, and what it takes to win
there and here.

By Aleeza Khan
TheTyee.ca http://thetyee.ca/Life/2011/04/08/CanadianCustoms/


Visiting U.K. writer Aleeza Khan — here
sampling the other Canadian bloodsport — wishes to be clear that she
likes Canadians and our cultural customs, a lot.

I'm not totally new to your
land. While I'm from London, I have many connections to Canada and have
visited numbers of times. What has made me feel a stranger during my
current visit, though, is this exercise underway called the Federal
Election of 2011.

From my vantage in Vancouver, I've been
taking notes and forming comparisons with the election we in Great
Britain went through less than a year ago. You may have noticed that
the person who became prime minister, David Cameron, calls himself a
Conservative, as does your Stephen Harper. There, most similarities seem
to end in the way the two men present themselves, in the way they've
run for office, and in the effect they have on the voting public,
particularly younger ones like me.

Can I share some observations?

1. In England, we feel the need to like our prime minister. You apparently don't.

2. In Canada, the prime minister says coalitions are evil. In the UK, the prime minister owes his job to one.

3. In Great Britain, candidates want as many people as possible to vote. Not in Canada.

4. Back in England, younger people are a lot more politically engaged than here in Canada.

Read full article here: http://thetyee.ca/Life/2011/04/08/CanadianCustoms/

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