The next federal election is still more than a year away but the battle lines have been drawn and the first skirmishes are underway. A Conservative has left to form his own party. A Liberal has crossed the floor to join the Conservatives. As Sherlock Holmes would say, the game is afoot. Unfortunately, we are going to hear more and more about federal politics until Election Day and we wake up the morning after and think boy, are we glad THAT’s over. We are being encouraged to pay attention and get involved so that we can vote intelligently and that’s OK to an extent. But we have lives to lead and paying constant attention to a barrage of promises, most of which would never be kept, and hearing all parties constantly telling us how bad the other guys are, oh yes, and phoning us week after week asking for money, makes us sick and tired of the whole thing. So much time, effort and money is spent trying to get elected instead of paying attention to properly governing the country. Winston Churchill is quoted as saying the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. The most famous quote attributed to him is one he used in the British House of Commons in 1947 but he was actually quoting an unknown author. “Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.

That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.