>>I fear the Conservatives. I'm not kidding.
>
>I don't get it... especially in a minority government. What is it that you fear so much?

I agree with that - there's 183 seats on the other side to ixnay any backward-looking social re-engineering the Conservatives might set their minds to. If there weren't, I'd be real scared of them too.

Seriously, they have 1 item in their platform that I agree with and would like to see happen: They say they intend to beef up the Auditor General's job with money, resources, and a mandate to review Granting Agencies every 5 years - some real policing from the outside. I think one of biggest reasons that successive PC and Liberal governments continue to get caught up in crooked schemes over the years is that the remedies that they come up with always involve them policing themselves - that will never work. They have to be policed from the outside - continuously, and with spot checks like they do for the anti-doping tests. It's a sad state of affairs when government has to be continually audited to enforce honesty, but I think we've all had enough of seeing them trying to police themselves - it doesn't work.

Other than that - are we going to see an endless succession of free votes in the house (Harper's pat answer to a host of issues) so that the Conservatives can issue or deny their Good and Wholesome Stamp of Approval on matters that most people would prefer not see the Conservatives mess with in the first place? That's going to get real tired, real fast. I find it real odd that a political party has such a high view of itself that it can take matters than have been dealt with by the courts, public opinion, and successive previous governments and say that the status of these matters have no value until they're officially Sanitized and Approved by a free vote of the Good, Noble, and Informed Conservative party of Canada. Good luck - I think any party that thinks that way deserves many more years in the wilderness! (meaning, out of government, not actually in the wilderness).