Let me tell you what inspired me. I am pretty upset with the manner by which Stephen Harper swept the federal election under the rug of the US presidential campaign. The juxtaposition between the two political processes has never been so glaring — with both major US parties stepping outside of their status quo while we here in Canada continue to elect uninspiring politicians whose failure to capture the imagination of their constituencies may be directly attributed to their failure to make actual decisions.

However, the refusal to allow the Green Party’s Elizabeth May to participate in the national leaders debates was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Her exclusion demonstrates that the big three Canadian parties have begun to fear the outsider—the party establishment. They have become the leaders that the Canadian public have grown cynical about.

We, as citizens, are being excluded from our own political system. And I, for one, will not abide by that.