IMO, this election has revealed a major issue with Canadian society. If I had to summarize it in a word, it would be "perspective".
If there is really only one thing that is certain, what we expect the world to be in 10 years, will almost certainly be incorrect. Canadians don't seem to realize this.
Roach you made reference to Harpers poor economic track record, well unless there is a parallel universe that was ruled by Jack Layton or some other leader we really have no reasonable way to judge Mr. Harpers performance. No other leader will ever experience an identical, or potentially even comparable set of circumstances to another leader, the world changes far to fast. Gov spending will always be going up simply with respect to the steadily increasing population, the hope is that tax revenues will be greater than the draw.
The world is changing, our economic and social policies need to change as well. People criticize certain aspects of government spending, one obvious example would be hospital ER wait times. Perhaps we have already hit the high water mark, perhaps the additional spending promised by certain parties will not be sufficient to even maintain the status quo as our population demographics change and ER wait times will become days instead of hours etc.
Canada is not going to change for the better over the next 20-40 years IMO, the quality of life we have become accustomed too is very expensive, and this is the quality of life we are expected to provide for 1/3 of the Canadian population that will be sucking social services dry into their twilight years. There will soon be 2.5 tax payers for ever retiree, there used 10 tax payers per retiree in the 50's.
North Americans had their chance, we pissed it away on UAW workers making 80/HR to place an ashtray in a cup holder. The rest of the world caught up, I suspect there will come a time in the not too distant future where we are the ones playing catch up... the only reason we aren't there now is because we have a lot of resources to exploit, though people seem less and less interested in those resources lately.
Mehh it's all a matter of opinion, but I believe that our issues as a country extend well beyond anything the Gov. can fix, it's an issue with entitlement, attitude, work ethic, and complacency. Those looking to the gov. to solve their personal problems will one day find themselves out in the cold when the long term economic reality hits the wall.
Canada is economic pimple on earths face. The external forces acting inward are far greater than he internal forces acting outward.
I realize this is a disheveled rant, maybe if I had 6 months to spare I would intelligently prepare the words and write a book.. right now I'm too busy playing GTA5 online.
Don't forget to vote...