[MarchHare]

Kent Hehr posted this letter on his Facebook page earlier today:

Hi there,
I just posted this personal story on my Facebook page and wanted to share with you to spread as you see fit.
Regards,
Patti Wardlaw
_______
Its time for me to stick my neck out of the turtle shell I've been hiding in during this federal election. I know that most of my family and many of my friends will have a hard time with this post, so this is very difficult for me.

I find it easy to talk about politics and economics, but human values? Well, that opens up a different kind of vulnerability...so I have stayed quiet.

I have been deeply conflicted. I have watched many of my friends and family choose their side of the battle field, and I have listened to divisive and judgemental arguments.

Afraid of being accused of destroying our economy by not supporting the conservative party, I have stayed quiet. Afraid of creating conflict and tension I have even led my family and some of my friends to believe that I share their viewpoints.

This is not what I want to model to my children, so I am speaking up now.

I was raised with conservative, right wing values. I have benefitted from our strong resource economy, my family will lose money under a non-conservative government. I am worried about the stock markets crashing, about accumulating national debt, about not getting our resources to market. And yet, I am more worried about the erosion of human rights, of our rights to intellectual property, our rights to fill out a full census form...the list goes on and on.

For the first time in our lives, my husband and I are voting for a Liberal government in this federal election. The conservative candidate in our riding is even a personal friend of mine who I respect, so this makes it all the more difficult to go public.

We are not fully confident in Trudeau as a leader, we do not support every aspect of the Liberal platform, but we are willing to give him a chance.

The erosion of human values, honesty and transparency under the Harper government needs to stop.

And we are willing to pay $ for this to happen. We are willing to give our $120 a month of child support to a family who needs it more than we do, we are willing to pay more in taxes.

Does this make us bleeding heart socialists? Maybe. But I don't even know what that term means anymore. All I know is that I want to live in a world that is not driven by competition, greed and the never-ending quest to grow our GDP. Does the idea of losing my wonderful lifestyle scare me? Absolutely. Is it a risk I'm willing to take for the future of our country? Absolutely.

There. Neck fully exposed and heart vulnerable.

https://www.facebook.com/kenthehrj