Walt explains Canadian politics: 50 shades of red

One thing Americans can be thankful for today is the two-party system which has been the norm in US politics for most of the country's 240 (give or take) years. With only two parties to choose from, you have a clear choice. You know where they stand. You know where you stand. Do what you think is right.

The downside of having just two parties -- right (ish) and left (ish) -- is that those two parties have to accommodate a wide range of right(ish) and left(ish) opinions and policies with their "big tents". The Republicans have to deal with the raving right, including (some say), the alt-right. The Democrats have to pander to the growing numbers of looney lefties, including the likes of the Squad.

The result is a lot of division, or divisiveness, or, dare we say it, polarization. There's a lot of rancor in the air these days. You can even see it. The way things are now, even the colour of your hat makes a political statement. It's no longer white hats vs black hats, like in the old westerns, but Red Hats vs Blue Hats. 

How the Republicans wound up being officially Red, and the Democrats Blue, is a mystery. In the rest of the world, blue is the colour of the right -- Britain's Conservatives, for example -- and red is the colour of the left, from Britain's Labour Party to (of course) the Communists, everywhere. 

It's the same in Canada. Blue is the official colour of the so-called Conservative Party of Canada, and red is that of the Natural Governing Party, which is what Canada's Liberals call themselves. But there are other parties -- four others, unless you work for the CBC (Canadian Propaganda Corporation), in which case you recognize only three.

The only truly conservative party in Canada is Maxime Bernier's People's Party of Canada. That's the one the CBC wouldn't recognize until they started to poll  higher than the Greens. Their official colour is purple, which is the colour of PPC members' faces whenever Liberal Prime Minister Just In Trudeau is mentioned.

The other five parties -- counting only those with over 2% of the popular vote in Canada's last federal election -- are all liberal. Their official colous don't disguise the fact that their policies range in hue from pale red to deep red.

Just slightly in the red (policy-wise) are the aforementioned Conservatives, who, under leader Erin O'Tool, moved well to the left of centre to attract "progressive" voters who don't care for Mr Socks. All they managed to do was alienate their conservative base, which is why they lost the election. 

All Blackie McBlackface had to do to win was to remind people he that he's the liberal Liberal. Colour him Red.

Farther to the left are Canada's "New" Democrats, founded 60 years ago, hence the quote marks around "New". Their colour is orange, to match one of their leader's turbans. Their whole campaign pitch was that their social democratic (or democratic socialist) policies would ruin the country even faster than the Trudeau Liberals. Didn't work, and having a Sikh at the helm didn't help them much outside of the "little Khalistans" of Toronto and Vancouver.

The official colour of the Bloc Québécois is powder blue. The colour of their policies is pink, but not quite as pink as those of the NDP. Most Canadians don't know what the BQ stands for, since they only field candidates in Québec, and explain themselves only in French. 

That brings us the sixth and last party, the darling of the controlled media but dead last in the hearts and minds of Canadians -- the Green Party. Their official colour is... well, you already figured that out. But their policies are the reddest of red, so much so that their last leader upset the party members who chose her by not being sufficiently anti-Israel.

The last Green leader was Enemy [Annamie, shurely! Ed.] Paul, a black Jewish woman -- ticking three boxes right there -- who finished a distant fourth in her own riding. The party managed to elect just two Members of Parliament, the same as in the last House. One of those won by default after the Liberal candidate in his riding got MeTooed.

Ms Paul resigned before she could be fired, but not without trying for a green parachute and blaming her troubles on racism and sexism... and maybe anti-Semitism too. No surprises there. Anyway, she's gone, and the Greens have now chosen an interim leader, in the person of  Amita Kuttner -- pictured at left. [Geddit? Ed.] Kuttner describes herself as a "nonbinary astrophysicist" and "an expert in black holes". Seriously. You can look it up on the CBC website.

At the tender age of 30, Kuttner will be the youngest person as well as the first trans person to lead a federal political party. In a statement, Kuttner said they were "honoured to have been selected ... during this time of transition and renewal."

What? "Kuttner said they were honoured..."? Referring to whom? Ah... pronoun problems. Since Kuttner is "trans", no-one, including the CBC knows whether to say "xim", "xe", "xer","xis" or... whatever. 

Similarly, we don't know which honorific to use. [Maybe "Mr/s" or "Ms/r"? Ed.] All the same, Kuttner, like her predecessor-but-one, the tired and over-refreshed Elizabeth May, will be the darling of the lamestream media, as if "they" were head of a real party. And "they" will be the butt of the same old joke, "Kuttner? Party of one?"