We had a super wild card election in 2011: the NDP, our Left and usually well-in-third-place party, surged radically in the polls swallowing up so much Liberal support that the Liberals were down to 36 seats and the Bloc lost official party status.
While I have my criticisms of Jack, we could all do a lot worse than to remember that letter right now. Living under Stephen Harper was a terror I don't want to relive, and, fuck, Jack's goodbye letter did a lot of heavy lifting.
"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world."
—Jack Layton
As a French Quebecois, it felt like we were finally putting the past to rest and accepting our place in a diverse society.
Diversity is strength. It's resilience. It's life in all colours and music and stories.
I'm still so mad at the campaign Mulcair ran in 2015. That mood of wanting to live in a new, better world was still very much present in 2015, I think. But Mulcair ran on balanced budgets, of all things, and Trudeau swooped in with "sunny days" rhetoric and promises we all knew would be broken.
I did like Mulcair, but he tried to play it 'safe', where Trudeau was energetic and showing he had 'gotten the message'.
Trudeau has taken us through some stormy waters where a Con would have foundered us.
I liked Mulcair in opposition. He was probably one of the best opposition leaders in Canadian history, and he absolutely held Harper to account. But he had no vision to lead. He's also revealed himself to be kind of a bigot in recent years.
