New column day

Here, on why Canadians should vote out of self-interest if nothing else - and why we can't count on political parties to make it happen.

And for reference on the motivations of political parties, I'll point to Warren Kinsella's advice to war room staffers (caps and italics included):

What does a war room do? As I have told every youngster who falls into my clutches at the start of every campaign, OUR JOB IS NOT TO WIN THE WHOLE CAMPAIGN BY OURSELVES. Instead, I tell them, yelling entirely in caps, our job IS TO WRECK THE OTHER SIDE’S CAMPAIGN DAY, ONE DAY AT A TIME. And, if you do that for nine days out of a 36-day writ, you have eliminated the other side’s ability to tell their story for a quarter of the campaign. And that’s a campaign that cannot win. Thus, poor Sebastien Togneri. The hapless Tory aide, being probed by the RCMP, helped the Liberal war room to stomp all over Harper’s message of the day on Tuesday. That’s a win, in my books.