Canada, and its lesser of two fascisms election.

Elections in Western nations, especially ones conducted under first past the post, don’t produce change for the better, but instead maintain a status quo for the worst.

Even Trump’s second-term electoral victory was the logical conclusion for a political system that for over four decades allowed itself to be corrupted by extreme wealth. It wasn’t a revolution that made fascism America’s number one ideology of choice. It was capitalism’s political evolution to corporatist neoliberalism that did it.

In 2019, I still believed elections could change society for the better. The destruction of Jeremy Corbyn's social democratic Labour Party by Britain’s political and news media class sobered my innocence.

Now, I vote in general elections the way I celebrate Christmas- with no faith. Participating in them is about commemorating the tradition of voting rather than believing you can effect profound social change at the ballot box.

That is how I approached yesterday’s Canadian Federal Election. I voted knowing the walk to the polling station was probably the only element of my efforts that was worthwhile. Yesterday’s election had only two possible outcomes because first-past-the-post locks out any marginal political parties from ever attaining power.

Yesterday's election was more of a referendum on how Canadians wanted their neoliberalism delivered to prevent Donald Trump from annexing the nation. It was either Pierre Poilievre if you were comfortable with malignant fascist overtones or Mark Carney for beige patrician technocracy that hides a nation's malfeasances in Human Resource Speak.

The Liberal's campaign slogan should have been "Vote for the lesser of two fascisms." The economic policies of conservatives and liberals were virtually the same: tax cuts, corporate welfare. a strong military, less immigration to the country and maintaining the housing bubble to profit, the assets of the top 10% of income earners. The liberals and conservatives only differ on whether it is polite to be overtly racist and transphobic or let the provinces do all the heavy lifting on those matters.

Pierre Poilievre is such a massive asshole that I was pleased Mark Carney won even though I voted NDP because at least they spoke out against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.

Wanting to see Poilievre humiliated in defeat is not the same as approving what awaits Canadians under Carney's leadership. He was Bank Governor to both Canada and Britain when austerity was official policy of their respective governments. He is a former assets manager and knows a thing or two about the ins and outs of legal tax avoidance for the 1%. He is Canada's Keir Starmer but with a better tailor which means they should prepare for the mother of all austerities.

Since 2008, Canadians have lived under a perpetual cost of living crisis. Every year the crisis worsens because the social safety net becomes more frayed by government cuts. Compassion is rationed, but intolerance against the marginalised is free for the taking.

Carney’s government is a few parliamentary seats short of a majority. It will survive at least a year. Carney prides himself on being pragmatic which is short form for throwing the most vulnerable under the bus to maintain the wealth of the few. He will govern as a war hawk, putting billions into military spending not to defend Canada from America but to bribe their defence contractors. He will be more overtly xenophobic than Trudeau when it comes to migrants entering Canada to placate Quebec, a province never shy to voice its racism. He owes Quebec much because his tenuous victory was because Quebecers lent their vote to him and it comes with strings attached. .

Public Healthcare will be less secure under this minority parliament as provinces, despite receiving handsome transfer payments from the federal government, have been selling off their healthcare infrastructure to the American healthcare corps.

The popular vote, in last night's Canadian election, was nearly evenly split between the Liberals at 43% and the Conservatives at 41%. The polarisation of Canada's electorate between the extreme right and the less extreme right will embolden Donald Trump to push ahead with his plans to Annex Canada. Governments without clear electoral mandates when their nation's sovereignty is threatened are ripe for outside interference and regime change. Five years from now, if the world hasn’t destroyed itself in war, Canada won’t exist as it does today which isn't saying much because it is a dismal place for the poor and marginal in 2025. It will simply be a worse for them regardless of what flag is flying in the future. What I fear most is this election is setting up Canada to become even more Islamophic than it is now through the mainstreaming of toxic zionism.

When I stood and cast my ballot yesterday, I was pissed off. As I marked my X, I knew from the choice presented to me WW2’s working-class generation had been betrayed by neoliberal baby boomers, who decommissioned the Welfare State and replaced it with one that served the interests of corporations, the 1% and top-income earners. Boomers helped build a gilded age for the 21st century. The Aesop Fable ending to it is the majority of them aren't even invited to enjoy the spoils taken from plundering the social safety nets of Western Democracies. The hell we live in was made by all those who makes more money than you but are so narcissistic they obliterated humanity for a bit more wealth and the conspicuous consumption it buys.

You can’t reverse a fascistic metastasis over the body politic through the electoral system no more than you can stop lung cancer by switching to a low-tar cigarette. The battles to come will be on the streets of every Western nation and there will be blood.

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