Phendrana Drifts

After reading and listening and analyzing, I have compiled a list of 25 election issues that have been raised in a serious fashion this election, or immediately preceding it. There was no scientific or even methodical approach to getting these, so I am 100% certain I missed one or two important ones. Of course, there are those topics that encompass, well, everything - so I suspect my butt is covered should someone say "Hey you forgot insert issue here."

Abortion
Accountability
Afghanistan
Arctic Sovereignty
Canada - US relations
Child care
Climate change
Consumer rights
Crime
Culture
Defence
Democratic reform
Digital copyright issues
Economy
Education
Energy
Environment
First Nations, Métis and Inuit issues
Gay marriage
Health care
Immigration
Inflation
Leadership
Marijuana
National unity
Taxes

Alright - what issues can I simply remove because they are unlikely to affect my vote? Abortion and gay marriage are easy ones as no major party or leader is advocating change, however if any party advocates a change from the status quo I guarantee the issue not only goes back on the list, it may become a top five issue. 23 is still an unwieldy number. What can I combine into broad categories? Afghanistan, Arctic sovereignty, Canada-US relations and defence can all be lumped into one right-wing bread and butter category - let's call it national defence and foreign affairs. We can also lump consumer rights, economy, inflation and taxes into a single economy category (although that is a lot of important stuff). Climate change and the environment is a pretty safe bet to combine too - we'll toss energy there too in an environment and energy issues category. So is crime and marijuana. At risk of all sorts of ire, I'll combine First Nations and national unity into a single category. So what does that leave us with?

Accountability
Child care
Crime
Culture
Democratic reform
Digital copyright issues
Economy
Education
Environment and energy issues
Health care
Immigration
Leadership
National defence and foreign affairs
National unity and First Nations issues

Well that's more manageable. And while I do have an opinion on all of these let's remove the ones that likely won't influence my vote. For example, accountability - unless a candidate or party leader says something to the exact opposite of what I believe, I likely will not let "accountability" factor into my vote. So with that, I'll remove accountability, child care (I know, but my kids are older, and while I have opinions, it isn't likely going to shift my vote), national unity and leadership (of course my opinion of the leaders factors into stuff, but not as much as most people).

So my final list of ten issues are:

Crime
Culture
Democratic reform
Digital copyright issues
Economy
Education
Environment and energy issues
Health care
Immigration
National defence and foreign affairs

Labels: federal election, federal politics

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