On not being unconditional political party supporter

I' m generally both fiscally and socially conservative in my political views. Nevertheless at times I have not voted for a conservative party, federally (or provincially), sometimes voting for a fringe party I much prefer instead (one philosophy I have is, if at all possible, to vote, and to vote for the least evil of choices available).

As an example of my not unconditionally liking a conservative party option, the federal conservative party under Stephen Harper did at least 4 things that touched parts of my life in an adverse way. The first was minor, yet annoying - I was compelled to go to a post office to pick up my income tax forms + envelope, instead of having it mailed by the feds to my home, as had always been the case. The next (liberal) government reversed this irritant, I should note.

The second thing of note was that the conservatives under Harper originally talked a good game about social conservative issues, but then once in government did nothing to please the rather large silent minority that had not been brainwashed by P.E.T., Hollywood, Humanism etc. - of course, there was no hope that things would get better under J. Trudeau in this regard, but rather they got much worse (e.g. euthanasia, abortion being the forced liberal party position, legalized weed...).

The third and fourth things the Harper gov't did that particularly bugged me were to do with chess; first, a bureaucrat with a particularly bad/ignorant attitude about chess led the charge to remove the CFC's charitable status - the Libs have not since reversed this dirty work, I'd note. Secondly, the Cons brought in cash-grabbing changes to the NFP act that made the CFC's life less flexible and forced it to jump through hoops at a cost of time and effort - the Libs have since only tightened the screws of the NFP act I'd note, no doubt at least partly to do with J. Trudeau's obsessive and phony symbolism about having women in equal numbers as men in any number of walks of life, regardless of qualifications (good or weak). So, once again the Libs are glad that the Cons did most of the dirty work, before they stepped in.

P.S.: The Duffy affair, and the Harper gov'ts PMO involvement (casting an ethics shadow on Harper himself by implication) was the last (and big) straw - I next voted for a fringe party (easy since Baird wasn't running in my riding anymore, and the heavy favourite to take the riding, during Trudeau's rise to power, was an ethically-challenged {as one news report put it} liberal, as it turned out later, anyway). Fwiw, later someone at Ottawa's RA Centre bar & grill told me Harper was no friend of the working man ($ I guess), although neither is Trudeau, it turns out (in a big way).

I was glad that Doug Ford won in his two election victories. The provincial liberals were crooked, and had become radical as a party (more radically left than the NDP, even, as is the case under Trudeau at the federal level these days). In the first days of Ford's first term there was some stumbling, and much later there was big spending, like liberals had been doing provincially, when some restraint was naturally called for in the face of liberal-driven provincial debt (both federal and especially provincial level). I knew the PCs were not going to do much for the poor and disabled, but neither had the liberals.

My biggest reasons for still liking Ford PC gov't are firstly that they are only hope of trying to keep electricity bills from soaring quickly (the liberals/NDP would gleefully drive it up). Secondly, the liberals and NDP (both federally and provincially) have wild, incompetent ideas for 'plans'. Another reason to not mind Ford is that he's not had really serious scandals (compare McGuinty, Wynne and Trudeau, and even Harper). Criticized for not doing much about health care (like the rest of politicians in this county, for quite far back), Ford is now at least meeting with some other Premiers to address the issue, assuming Ford is serious about taking transformational action (wasn't in Throne Speech, nor PCs last election platform).

So, I'll still be watching how the PCs treat the poor, the debt, hydro bills and health care, and if they stay more sober and ethical than libs and/or NDP. Unlikely I'll have better to vote for than PCs anytime soon though, unless a fringe party appeals to my voting instincts if PCs managed to revolt me later on. The only other choice is to vote strategically, if I wish to try to keep an NDP/liberal [personality] from sitting in my riding.