i just want to say something about the bc election, though.

it's easy to have a culture shock when you look at the results:

liberals - 41%
socialists - 40%
greens - 17%

there is a conservative party in bc, and it got around 2%.

oh - canada! ...?

well, not really, actually.

the story actually lies in watching the bc conservatives go up and down in pre-election cycles, and they might be a part of the reason that bc is so hard to predict (although i'll state it flat out - i think the liberals routinely carry out massive voter fraud, too). the same thing happens every cycle. the conservatives peak around 10% a few weeks before the election, which moves the socialists ahead in the polls - and then the conservatives all come running back to the liberals.

in fact, the conservatives and liberals once formed a coalition to keep the socialists out of power, although that was a long time ago, when the socialists were actually socialists. the liberal party in the province has since absorbed everything to the right of center, which is partly why the greens are doing so well in the first place.

so, the party labels make the province seem dreamy - sure. but, if you were to convert the party policies into more realistic labels, it would look more like this:

progressive conservatives - 41%   [they're conservatives. but, they're moderates, too.]
liberals - 40%
socialists - 17%

it's still a nice place to live. but, it's more like washington than it is like sweden.