As I write this, there are 77 hours until the polls close in Quebec.
If the polls are anything to go by, it's going to be a wild ride. It's a tight three-way race, and in many ridings, it could go any way.
People much smarter than I are expecting a Liberal minority propped up the Action Democratique du Quebec. That's a good thing for Canada, provided you think Quebec being part of Canada is a good thing. The Liberals will keep Quebec part of Canada. The ADQ kind of straddles the fence and leader Mario Dumont said he's not particularly interested in a referendum.
John Ibbitson in The Globe and Mail expertly laid out what will happen if Liberal leader Jean Charest gets a minority. Even if Charest comes in second place behind the Parti Quebecois, he could stay Premier, as long as he can secure a deal with the ADQ. If that happens, it'll be fun to watch. And perhaps a bit scary.
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Went to a budget breakfast this morning at the Mississauga Board of Trade. It was unbelievable, in the sense that one would have a hard time believing everyone could stay awake during a budget briefing at 8 a.m.
(I enjoy budget day, and I would've nodded off had I stayed seated.)
With the Mississauga business elite, and several MPPs, in attendance, the main highlight of the morning was when I ate a particularly sumptuous muffin.
The penultimate highlight was when Mississauga South MPP Tim Peterson, after declaring he didn't have much to say about the budget (he did follow three other MPPs who went through the budget in gruesome detail), went on at length about teenage depression.
I'm not saying teenage depression isn't an important issue, but what it had to do with the budget, this humble reporter couldn't fathom.