The answer not final yet but the Liberal Party has been returned to power for an unheard of fourth term with an excellent leader who has incredible experience. They will grow our economy in the direction it was headed back in the 1950s. We will regrow our domestic industries lost during free trade and I like that. Our inventive young men and women will fill our stores with all the things we need. Interesting, like all Canadians, I was happy with the status quo although looking around I felt we were missing something because it was harder and harder to find items made in Canada. This regrowth of Canadian industry will be a marvelous happening as we are now over twice the size we were in the 1950s. I would have liked to have seen a majority government whether Liberal or Conservative and there may yet be a Majority Liberal government but you can feel the energy and I know these parties will all work together to do what is best for Canada home of the First Peoples and those who arrived from the late 1500s on to these shores be it Baffin Island or St Croix NB or Quebec. We were welcomed by the First Peoples and it was so very kind of them.
Canada is a living breathing country - young, full of natural resources and eager to continue in its path as a G7 country. Both of the main party leaders (Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre) have congratulated each other and wished each other well. I do not think Pierre should step down and disappear; he grew so tremendously during this election into the sort of Conservative leader I have wanted to see (being a fiscal Conservative at heart). It really showed at the polls - I was hoping for a high 120s but he delivered in the 140s. Just have to figure that out for sure. But Mark Carney came to the rescue of the Liberal Party and he drove them to victory (168 seats at my last looking). Well done. As a Canadian I can honestly say anyone trying to force a new election for quite a while is going to pay the usual price here and that is a majority for the Liberals if they do not already have one. Counting continues at 9:30 a.m. today having been halted to give a rest to the counters and the system that is needed around that mechanism. I am not sorry to see the NDP reduced to non party status in the House. It is fine to always support those most in need but I did not like the way they went about it. Supporting a growth in federal government bureaucracy is unappealing to me - Health Care is the domain of the provinces and should not be trampled on by the Federal Government. I agree with the Bloc on that. Setting up a school lunch program is part of Education and belongs to the provinces - for the most part this is perhaps done by the provinces and we wait to see the reckoning on that. But anything done federally is always going to cost more money and need more people at a distance which is ineffective. But again we eventually will see the costing.
Cleaning the basement and main floor accomplished yesterday and today it is the top floor. Fortunately my house is small since I am nearly 80 and it is a lot of work but downsizing from this point means eliminating items that I am not yet fully prepared to do. I need, now that my mind is clearer, to work on Edward's research that I still have and make decisions. What is the best idea really? I am not sure. When the results of his research are original and not just the copies of other people's books I hesitate at what to do with it. I kept his email so that anyone writing to his account interested in his research would be received by me so that decisions could be made. It is not something that interests our daughters at this moment in time nor may it ever. I can see the drawbacks to taking children to graveyards on a vacation although they always ended up at Canada's Wonderland (I didn't always go as I was proofreading/copyediting at home and later working full time outside the home with a lot less vacation than Edward had). So time will tell whether they become interested but in the meantime his work occupies a space that wouldn't be there in a smaller place. Amazingly the orchids that he had acquired towards the end of the 2010s still bloom every year but it isn't really my green thumb that keeps them growing - I just water them as told. My oldest daughter is very fond of those plants and the huge Christmas Cactus plants that were also his favourite. Putting in the fences last year pretty much destroyed that set of flowers that were along the fence line although some managed to make it through. As she does her research this year she will work away at that. Both of my daughters loved to garden with their Dad. Fortunately they do have memories of working with me as well - I taught them to sew and knit but their lives are too busy for that sort of thing these days.
I did my usual going to bed time of 9:00 p.m. last night so did see the Maritime results come in (and they did give one the thought that this could be a minority government but there were still a lot of votes to count and a lot of people still voting in the west) and when I woke up around midnight I checked to see that and it was likely going to be either a minority or majority Liberal government according to the thinking at that time. This morning we wait the counting to begin once again to solve the last couple of dozen or less ridings that were not yet declared last night. Sometimes it takes a while if it is very close as each ballot needs to be counted. A judicial recount occurs automatically when the difference between two leading candidate is less than one-thousandth of the total votes cast (a riding of 40,000 with a difference less than 40 is immediately recounted).
The people have spoken and made their views heard so now we are ready to follow the advice of those we elected as we proceed to change our direction somewhat with a very large increase in military spending, bringing home our refinement of our own oil and shipping it from coast to coast across Canada and a more complete energy grid from coast to coast to coast. This is a huge country for us to protect and we have always tried to be efficient doing that but I did find that the Liberal government tended away from militarizing Canada for the last twenty five years and they have been in power for much of that time. Our commitment to NATO has always been foremost in our minds and our soldiers have served in many places because of our presence in NATO. But now the world situation has changed somewhat and our need to protect the Arctic is very strong with the permanent ice now melting in the summers and the possibility of more international use of the Arctic for commerce. We need to ensure that the natural resources of Canada, protected by the First Nations all of these centuries, is uppermost in our minds. We will unleash the economic ability of Canada in a way that insures the protection of all of us living here - the First Peoples and the colonials for want of a better word as we are indeed descendants of colonials (and many are now descendants of both - the gene pool only benefits from mixing). Mark Carney will lead the way. Experience won over youth in this vote but it will be the youth that do the hard slogging that enables Canada to be the powerhouse it is and can be into the future.
Teatime completed and the solitaire games in process. Thank you God for another beautiful day; the sun is shinning brightly and it is already 17 degrees celsius but cold weather can still come and is predicted. It is Canada after all.