[JohnnyB]

As a Canadian citizen living abroad, I feel like Canada has become a much less appealing part of the world to move to over the last ten years. I don't see Canadians as doing particularly well economically and the social and democratic changes to the country's governance have been shameful. While I'm certainly a citizen with an interest in the well-being of the country, I expect my perspective is very different from most. Although I'm planning to move back to do another degree, I see Canada as just one option out of a very open range of countries I could easily move to and live in. From that perspective, even while so much of the world has been having economic troubles, Canada has definitely been dropping in the list of places I would go to.

Economy: Not so good and probably heading for more trouble.
Politics: Definitely heading in a bad direction. The Harper government is a big part of that, but it's also the electorate's fault.
Society: Still very good. Not very exciting or interesting, but pretty free and easy to enjoy the simple things in life.

If the Conservatives hadn't taken away my right to vote with C-24 I think I'd be voting strategically between the Liberals and NDP. I prefer the Liberals, and the Greens, but I would vote for whichever party would most likely take a seat away from the Harper government.