We had the Conservative party in power. Basically a nicer version of the Republicans.
Life was good. The government kept us in the black during the recession (one of only 3-4 countries in the world to do that). They had a budget surplus of 4 Billion in the last quarter (for those people that don't talk finance stuff, that means the government still had $4B in the bank after paying all the countries expenses). Unemployment is down to 7% (not awesome but still pretty good). And we stopped giving away a lot of our time and money to every world hand out that can't/won't take care of itself. They promised to hold the course and keep the good times going.
For some reason, many people thought that was all a very bad thing. So they voted in a new government. The Liberal party. Almost a carbon copy of the Democrats, including the color of kool-aid they probably drink.
The new government has promised to go into deficit big time "for a while" (again for those people that don't speak finance talk, that means to go into debt). They have promised to give out 100's of billions to....well everyone. They promised to give just one province over $100B for infrastructure so that the province doesn't have to use any of its own money (that province is in control by the Provincial Liberal party BTW). He promised to "take care of and nurture" the huge, bloated, very greedy public union sector. He also promised to give money away to countries "in need". As well as take in hundreds of thousands of refugees on the governments tab (free air fare to here, free housing, free food, free clothing, free heathcare, free spending money, free job training). Oh and he is going to tax the rich a lot more and give it to the middle class (even though he comes from a rich family and has likely never made less than 100k in his entire life). And he wants to bring in a carbon-sharing tax system because he says it will help the environment.
He promised a whole lot of other socialist bull-shit. All this from a guy that never even ran a lemonade stand in his life.
Basically our economy will be fucked very soon and the only people who are going to benefit will be the politicians, the unions, shit hole countries, and the bums on welfare.
The area I live in (and most of the surrounding ones) stayed Conservative (as they have been since pretty much forever) since this is a rural area where people work hard. Same goes for most of Alberta (where all the oil comes from). The big cities in a lot of the country went Liberal (not surprised), which accounted for the vast majority of their seats.
I never thought they would get a majority government (a majority government means that they have enough seats in Parliament to do whatever they want, where a minority government is one that has the most seats but not enough to do whatever they want). I thought at most they would get a minority government. But fuck.
Fuck.
Now I know how you really felt when Obama got voted in.
Harper (the now ex-PM) did end the long gun registry. He also enacted new laws that severely limit bureaucrats and the RCMP (who are our version of the ATF) from changing rules on which guns are legal and how we can use them without making them prove why they are doing it. Before they could just change the classification of a rifle to a prohibited weapon without giving a single reason for it. They had also been changing rules around shooting ranges by trying to make it so expensive to run one that places were shutting down. Not any more. Also he also removed the extra red tape needed around transporting things like handguns and AR rifles. Once you have a background check, go through required training, and get a firearms license, why would you then need to go through paperwork to say you can bring it to the range? That is gone now too.